Chapter 97: Dragon Scale

Azura’s POV

The pendant was cold against my chest now. I could still feel the warmth that had been there earlier, like a memory my skin had not let go of yet. I pressed my knees closer to my chest and stared into the fire, and turned the same questions over and over, the way you turned something over when you already knew it was not going to give you an answer, but you could not make yourself stop.

The scale.

I had seen it. Clearly and completely and impossibly. Jagged at the edges, deep crimson, sitting inside the pendant like it had always been there. Like it had been waiting for me to finally notice it.

But what scale? What is it from? And why was it inside something my parents had left me?

The fire crackled and gave me nothing.

Torin was across from me, turning something on a stick over the flames with the focused patience of someone who genuinely cared about how evenly it cooked. The fat dripped into the fire with small soft hisses. Liona was beside him doing the same thing with her own stick, staring at it like it was telling her something important.

I watched both of them without really seeing either of them.

Then I looked at Torin properly. Effortlessly, he held himself in the firelight. The way he seemed to carry knowledge about most things without ever needing to announce it.

He had been alive longer than either of us. He had seen things and gone places and knew stories that never made it into the accounts most wolves grew up hearing.

If anyone sitting at this fire had an answer, it was him.

"Torin," I said.

He looked up from his stick.

"What type of creatures have horns?" I asked. "Even when they are in their human form. When they are not shifted."

He tilted his head slightly. "That is a specific question."

"I’m just curious," I said.

He looked at me for a moment, the way he looked at things, he was deciding whether to examine further or let pass. Then he let it pass and sat back.

"Shifters mostly," he said. "Some are born with them. Some grow into them with age and power." He turned his stick again. "Bull shifters have them. Ram shifters. Demons from the old territories, though most of those bloodlines are gone now. Wraithkin sometimes, if they are old enough. Forest spirits, the ancient ones." He paused, frowned like he was thinking. "And... Yeah dragons."

I kept my face completely still.

"Dragons have horns in their human form?" I said.

"Always," he said. "It is one of the ways you recognize them. It is part of what they are." He looked at me a little more carefully now. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," I said. "Just wondering."

His eyes stayed on me for a second longer than felt entirely comfortable. Then he went back to his stick.

Across the fire, Liona caught my eye.

No words. Just a look. The specific look meant we needed to talk, and we needed to do it somewhere else.

I stretched my arms above my head and stood up slowly like I had simply been sitting too long.

"I am going to take a walk," I said. "Get some air."

Liona was already on her feet. "I will come with you."

Torin looked up at both of us. "Do not go far. It is dark and you do not know these woods."

"We will stay close," I said.

We walked away from the fire together, moving into the shadows at the edge of the clearing. I kept walking until the firelight was just a warm glow behind us and the voices had dropped away completely. Then I stopped and turned and checked once more that Torin had not followed.

He had not.

I looked at Liona.

She looked back at me.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Talk."

I lowered my voice.

"Do you remember this afternoon?" I said. "When you woke me up ?"

"Yes," she said. Looking around.

"You saw the pendant glow right?

"Yeah..."

"But did you see the scale inside it?" I watched her face carefully.

"Scale?"

"Mmm, a scale," I replied

"I just saw the glow. I couldn’t see anything else inside it," then she added, "And I remember Genevieve said, not all eyes could see it."

She was quiet for a second, and looked at me seriously.

"Did you see it?"

I nodded slowly.

"How’s that possible?" she asked with a surprised look.

"I do not know," I said. "But that is not the point right now."

She frowned, "Then what is the point?"

I looked at her directly.

"Do you remember what your mate called me?" I said.

"A thief," she said.

"Yes. And do you remember what Torin just listed? The creatures that have horns in their human form?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Your mate had horns," I said.

"Yes?" she said slowly.

"Out of every creature Torin named, which ones have scales?"

She frowned. I could see her going back through the list in her head, moving through each creature he described. Then her expression shifted. Something clicked behind her eyes.

"Why are you asking me that?" she said.

"Just answer the damn question Liona."

She looked at me. "A dragon," she said. "Obviously a dragon has scales."

"Yes," I said. "Exactly."

I let that sit for a second.

"I saw a scale inside my pendant this afternoon," I said. "Your mate called me a thief. Your mate had horns. And a dragon is the only creature on that list with scales." I held her gaze. "So what does that tell you?"

Liona went completely still.

I watched it land. Watched her take it in pieces by pieces, her face moving through several things at once. Then she looked at me.

"Wait," she said. Her voice had gone slightly higher than normal. "Are you trying to say my mate is a dragon?"

"That is not all I am trying to say," I said. "Yes, your mate is most likely a dragon. But that is not the main point right now."

"What do you mean that is not the main point?" she said. "How is my mate being a dragon not the main point?"

"Because," I said carefully, "what I am actually trying to tell you is that your mate’s scale is inside my pendant. And he came to our pack house because he thinks I stole it from him."

Liona stared at me.

"I do not care about that right now," she said. "My mate is a dragon, Azura."

"Liona."

"My mate is a dragon. A dragon. How am I supposed to react to that normally? What was I even expecting him to be?"

"You saw his horns," I said. "You already knew he was not a wolf. You knew that from the beginning."

She went quiet. She knew I was right. The knowledge of it was sitting on her face even while the rest of her was still catching up with the rest of the information.

She took a breath. A real one. The kind that meant she was trying to pull herself back into the conversation properly.

"Okay," she said. "So. If his scale is inside your pendant." She paused. "That is what he came for. That is what he thinks you took."

"Yes," I said.

"How did you even get that pendant?"

"I told you before it was the one thing my parents left me," I said. "The last property I had from them."

She looked at me. "Do you have any idea how they got it?"

I shook my head. "I don’t even know them."

She was quiet for a moment. Thinking. I could see it happening, the pieces arranging themselves behind her eyes.

"Then we need to find out," she said. "Because if a dragon scale is inside that pendant then it was never ordinary. It was never just a keepsake or a piece of jewelry. Something is inside that pendant that was important enough for a dragon to walk through an entire attack on a pack house to get back." She looked at me. "Which means your parents had it for a reason. They gave it to you for a reason. And that man has been looking for it for a long time."

I said nothing. My life has never been simple. But this was something else entirely.

"And he did not come looking for your parents," Liona said quietly. "He came looking for you. Specifically you. Which means somewhere along the way, he found out you had it."

The fire crackled in the distance behind us.

The night was still and dark and completely unbothered by any of this.

She looked at me for a long moment. Then her expression shifted. Slower this time. Careful. Like she had reached a thought she was not sure she wanted to say.

"Do you think it is safe?" she said. "Wearing that around your neck?"

I looked down at the pendant resting against my chest. I have worn it for a long time now.

"I have worn it for quite a long time now," I said. "It has not done anything to me."

She looked at the pendant. Then at my face. Then at the pendant again.

"Azura," she said. Quietly. "It has a dragon scale inside it."

She held my gaze with an expression that was not quite fear and not quite urgency but was sitting in the exact place between them where both of those things lived.

"Are you sure it is safe?"