Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(20)

“Where did you learn to fight?” I released her sword and moved back, putting some space between us. I needed a break, and part of it was just because of how beautiful she was, how disconcerting I found her.

The two of us prowled around each other, looking for an opening. “My father thought every girl should learn some useful skills. How to cook and bake, how to drive a pen through a man’s eye… You get the picture.”

“He sounds like a wise man.”

“In some ways.”

The two of us sparred again, then finally paused, both of us guzzling water and eying each other.

“What kind of shifter are you?” she asked.

My jaw set. “Wolf shifter.”

I hadn’t known until I finally reached my shifting ceremony and disappointed my family. But there was no reason to shy away from the truth.

“Ohh,” she said, a note of admiration in her voice.

“Are you coming up on your ceremony?”

She nodded and held up a finger. “One more day.”

“Do you know…?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know my birth parents, so I don’t know what I’ll be. But they weren’t exactly the finest stock.”

“How do you know that, if you don’t know them?”

“The part where they abandoned me suggests they weren’t entirely awesome,” she answered.

“What do you hope you are?”

She shrugged, tucked a wayward strand of strawberry hair behind her ear. Finally she admitted, “Maybe a cat, or a hawk…”

She wasn’t being honest. She couldn’t even admit to herself how big her dreams were. “So you want to fight the Scourge, but you don’t think you’ll be good enough?”

“I don’t understand why your soul creature determines what you get to do with your life even when you’re in human form,” she said, her voice intense as if this thought plagued her.

“Because there’s no truer indication of who you are on the inside?”

“Except maybe for what we do?”

“Maybe,” I admitted, although our soul creatures were everything about who we truly were.

Besides, certain shifters could do more in battle than anyone else. Dragons saved lives on the battlefield below them; a dragon shifter breathing fire from on high was worth a dozen wolf shifters tearing out throats of the Scourge. That was the hard truth.

“Can we pick this up again next week?” Her voice came out light, but she bit her lower lip as if she were hanging on my answer.

“Yes,” I said, surprised at how my heart thrilled at the thought of seeing her again. “You’ll get a little less pathetic every day.”

“And perhaps you’ll get a little less arrogant every day.” But she couldn’t resist smiling at me, and I couldn’t resist smiling back.





Honor



The next day passed in an expectant haze until I dressed for the shifter ceremony. My hands trembled as I fastened the straps of my dress.

The door clicked open behind me, and I turned, expecting to see Hanna. Instead, my stepmother glided into the room.

“You look lovely.” Alis could make even a compliment sound like a curse.

Hanna materialized in the doorway behind her, rolling her eyes, and I smothered my smile. I didn’t mind Alis’s insults when Hanna and I laughed at her together.

I ran my hands down the sides of my long red gown, smoothing the soft fabric against my legs. “Thank you.”

Hanna threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck as I swayed, trying to keep us both upright. “Good luck, Honor.”

“Oh, she doesn’t need luck,” Alis said. “She is what she is.”

If only that were comforting. I rumpled my little sister’s hair and headed for the door. Calla and June were having their first shifter night too, and I’d join them there, but I wanted to walk alone.

As I headed down the walkway beneath the trees, Hanna stood on the porch, watching me. I raised my hand to wave before I turned the corner out of sight. She waved back, a frozen smile on her face that obviously hid her real feelings. Alis had forbidden her to go tonight, even though many families would be thronging outside the temple.

Hanna’s heritage was bear shifters and swans, a strange marriage of grace and brawn. That seemed to suit my little sister perfectly, though it was hard to imagine which she would be. Women more often followed in their mother’s footsteps. The dragons, for instance, were always male, but their sisters were almost always wolves or panthers, graceful and fierce. I wished so badly to be a bear that it burned in my chest. It would feel like another connection to the man who’d raised me.

I joined the rowdy procession through the streets; the noise and bustle made me feel even more alone.

Strangely enough, when I felt lonely, part of me always wanted to pull back from crowds. But Calla saw me first, and threw her arm around me, dragging me into her body. June smiled at me distractedly as if she were nervous.

I hugged Calla around the waist. She was already chattering about celebrating afterward, even though I wasn’t sure there would be anything to celebrate. When she invited me to join her family afterward, I made an excuse. The only thing that seemed more lonely than losing my own family was being with someone else’s.