Page 60 of The Dragon's Mate Proposal

My eyes darted to him. Had?

“This is me and my parents and brother,” he said tightly enough I could all but see his throat constrict around the words. “I would’ve been seven, maybe eight. Jirko would’ve been four or five.”

I took the picture and looked it over. “You were a cutie,” I said, noting the shaggy hair just starting to tickle at his ears, nothing like the long mane he kept now. “What happened?”

Cade snorted indignantly.

He showed me other pictures of his cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents, the matriarch and patriarch of the little clan that had lived at the estate. I took several albums of my own and flipped through them, watching the kids grow older. Cade was the third oldest, he said, after a male and female cousin, both of whom disappeared from the pictures.

“They got mated and moved off on their own,” he explained. “They were five and seven years older than the rest of us, so a bit of a gap. It was sad, but they mostly kept to themselves anyway because of their ages. We were just waiting for them to produce more kids.”

I saw pictures of various events. Birthdays are apparently a big thing among dragons because the parties shown in the albums were large events. Homemade signs and banners, streamers, and more. Games and activities and lots of costumes. Every few pages it looked like they were dressing up.

The kids grew older, but the smiles never faded. I closed another book, reaching into the box nearest me for the last album. That one I saw was only half full. The kids were all teenagers or nearing their teens by that point.

A few pages in, Cade stopped appearing in any pictures. I bit my lip, unsure if he would want to see it. But I did. I watched the others grow older. For a while, nothing else changed. The smiles were a plenty, the birthday parties were festive and filled with love. But then, toward the middle of the album, things took a turn. They stopped dressing up as much. The costumes often looked the same. Hard hats and vests, like they were on some sort of construction site.

Faces grew grimmer.

More people disappeared—a lot.

The album ended there. The grandparents were gone, as were half the others or more. Those who were left did not look happy. They smiled, but the animation in their faces was gone. They were drawn taut.

Something bad had happened.

I closed the album, glancing over at Cade. His cheeks were almost gaunt, the corners of his eyes slightly narrowed. Trouble flickered in his eyes, the light in them dimmed. He, too, was reliving this pain. Of what he’d left behind.

“Cade,” I said, reaching out a hand to rest on his leg.

He flinched, nearly yanking his leg away.

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” I said, wanting to make sure I got that out. “For showing me these. For letting me look into your past. I can’t imagine this is easy.”

He just nodded, perhaps not trusting his voice.

“I appreciate you making this effort. I really do.” That was the truth. It was his way of letting me in, letting me see it. But there was still more that was missing.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Although I sense a giant ‘but’ coming.”

“Of course you do.” I squeezed his leg, reassuringly. I was present. I wasn’t leaving. “You knew it was coming the instant you showed me these and let me in this far.”

“I know,” he whispered.

“Cade,” I said as gently as I could, waiting until he looked at me. “What happened to your family?”

Chapter Thirty

Cade

There it was. The question I dreaded. A question I wanted to answer.

And couldn’t.

“Please,” she said as I stared at her silently. “Let me in, Cade. Tell me what happened to them? Where did they go? Why did they abandon this place?”

Her eyes darted to the photo albums and then back to me.

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