Page 54 of Dragon's Honor

“Uh…both, I guess.”

Ash sighed. “Dragons have been around at least as long as humans. Our bones turn to the stones we’re connected to.”

“You mean when you die, you’ll become a pile of tourmaline?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why no one has discovered the existence of dragons. I mean, your bones and DNA have to be different, right?”

“Could be. I’m not sure. There are dragon scientists, I don’t run in the same circles as they do. My father had those connections.” He stabbed a mushroom and ate it before he answered the second part of her question. “I’m not hundreds of years old, but I’m nearly a hundred.”

She blinked at him with big brown eyes. “You’ve seen so much of the world.”

“Merely minutes compared to other dragons, but yes, I’ve seen a lot. I know a lot about what happened with your history at the turn of the century. My father had seen a few centuries.”

“How are there are not more dragons?”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been around forever, why is the dragon population not bursting at the seams like the human population?”

“We don’t procreate like humans. You have a short window of life to reproduce. Twenty, maybe thirty years. Dragons can reproduce for a lot of their lifespan, but rarely do they have so many children. My parents had seven children, but that’s far from normal. Most have two to three over the span of three or four hundred years. And some will only have one. Though, with the way our female population has dwindled to nothing in the last millennium, perhaps we should’ve had more.”

“Do you have any children?”

Ash cocked an eyebrow. “You can only reproduce with a mate.”

“Do a lot of dragons mate with humans?”

“No. In fact, it’s against the law.”

Her head jerked back. “What? Then how…” Her gaze flickered down to her wrist and then back to him.

“Dragons spent a lot of the time before the Industrial Revolution, trying to outrun slayers.”

“Slayers? LikeBuffy the Vampire Slayer?”

He chuckled. He couldn’t help it. “No. Like men and women who thought dragons were evil. They found the best ways to kill us and they dedicated their lives to it.”

“Are they still around?”

“They are. They’re not my concern right now.”

“What is your concern?”

“Whatever Tristian is doing. He destroyed my clan for a reason, and I’m determined to get to the bottom of it.”

“You think he’s connected to the Dragon Fire?”

“You heard the witch in the warehouse. He has to be. It’s just a matter of time before I can prove it.”

She grew quiet and ate for a few minutes. He didn’t mind the silence. His beast was calm taking care of her, feeding her, having her close. He was soothed for the time being, though they both wanted more. They wanted all of her forever.

Ash wanted to know more about her. He’d spent so much time focused on him and seeking justice that he still didn’t know a lot about her. It wasn’t difficult to see she was keeping him at arm’s length. He wanted to know why.

Was it him? Was it all the supernatural?

“If you’re only supposed to mate with dragons, how does that work when there are so few female dragons? And why would the female dragons population be so low?”

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