Page 5 of Dallas

She reached out and grabbed me, but I hurled her hand away without touching. “Come on, now.” I tossed back my hair. “You have to try harder than that.”

“I don’t want to fight.”

“Neither do I. I wasn’t trying to fight. But please, don’t expect me to be delighted when I think of my sister mating with a dragon. And don’t expect me to welcome her daughter with open arms—especially since she was not raised in either our world or the clan’s. She has no desire to be one of us or to take her rightful place.”

“You don’t know that for certain. Not even I know it, and don’t think for a second that I haven’t tried to comb through her thoughts.”

“Calliope!” One of our unwritten-yet-firm rules concerned itself with the abuse of power—namely, using our power against unsuspecting third parties. Unless warned or asked if she wouldn’t mind having another party in her head, Keira’s thoughts ought to have remained private.

“I know.” She shrugged, turning toward the loch, folding her arms. “I was curious. And it does matter, to all of us, whether or not she wants to take her place in the coven.”

“You know she doesn’t.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

I winced. There were times when I was every bit the older sister, and this was one of those times. She didn’t flinch away when I slid an arm around her. “Whatever happens, happens,” I murmured, resting my chin on her shoulder. “It’s always for the best, you know.”

“Demeter being banished wasn’t for the best.”

“There’s much more than what’s already happened,” I whispered. “A much larger story, with much more future ahead of us. We don’t yet know how everything will unfold.”

“I know. I know.” Yet there was nothing but sadness in her voice, and I wished I could take it away.

“Something will change. For the better. I can feel it. Can’t you? Can’t you feel how things have changed?”

“Quite a bit has changed.” She chuckled, not in a humorous way. “And you are hardly the optimist, so my apologies if I don’t quite believe this show of positive thinking is quite legitimate. Only minutes ago, I was the one trying to convince you to cheer up.”

There was more I wanted to say, but the sound of Iris’s voice cutting across the empty space between us and the boulder at the start of the footpath caught our attention.

“Dallas says we need to meet!” she called out, hands cupped around her mouth.

And she did not look pleased.

“Dallas says,” I grumbled as we turned about and began the climb up the hill. “We wouldn’t want to keep Dallas waiting.”

“You truly can’t stand him, can you?”

“I can’t. I really can’t.”

“Why not? He always seems to be in a good mood. Joking and such. He’s clever enough. I’ve come to quite appreciate his company.”

I fixed her with a sharp look. “Tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean.”

“No!” she gasped, a hand over her chest. “Hecate, please. Whatever happened to being friends? You do remember friendship, don’t you?”

“Honestly? No.” I couldn’t help but laugh in spite of myself, though it was a bitter laugh. Friendship. Just another aspect of life I’d adjusted to living without. All thanks to Gavin’s treachery and my sister’s inability to stay away from a dragon.

Dallas’s image floated across my consciousness. His sure smile, his intense gaze, his air of cockiness. What my sister construed as charm was nothing more than his ego’s insatiable need to be adored. Why couldn’t she see it?

Probably because she hadn’t shielded herself as I had.

“You should try being friends, just for a little while,” she suggested. “Who knows? You might surprise yourself.”

“I’ve had enough surprises to last the rest of my life,” I chuckled.

3

“Mary, it’s good to see you.” I was doing little more than passing the time with small talk while I waited for those Mary had asked me to summon. Selene, Alan, Tamhas, Owen, the coven. I wondered how many of them would even fit in the room, but Mary would hardly care about logistics.

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