Page 60 of Dragon's Revenge

“That’s fine.” Duff slowly took Adar in. “Not that I think you’d be much of a threat in your current state, even if I did have bad intentions. No offense, but I’m an experienced warrior.”

Adar inhaled sharply, but Delton squeezed his hand to signal he had this. “Do you know how he got hurt?”

Duff shook his head.

“He fought a dragon who was using dark magic…and he won. He killed him. So trust me when I say his current state, as you called it, is no reason not to fear him. He’d kill you with his bare hands if he thought you were threatening me.”

As awful as killing someone was, Delton couldn’t help but feel proud of Adar, not only for avenging their mate but also for continuing on long after anyone else would’ve given up.

Duff visibly swallowed. “Duly noted. Also, I’d love to hear more about why he had to kill a dragon.”

Of course he would. It would only reinforce his ideas that all dragons were bad and dishonorable. “You’ll have to ask him. I wasn’t there. Anyway, why did Rhene suggest you talk to me?”

“He said you could give insight into the traumas several of the dragons here wrestle with.”

“In general terms, yes. Not specifics.”

Duff tilted his head, studying Delton. “Rhene ordered you all to give me full access. I would think that as pack alpha, he’d have authority.”

“His authority as pack alpha does not supersede my ethical boundaries as a psychologist,” Delton said coolly. “I won’t break patient confidentiality, regardless of what my pack alpha says.”

Duff looked puzzled. “I have to admit I’m really confused about how this clan functions.”

“Pack,” Delton corrected him. “We’re a pack.”

“Pack, clan, isn’t that a semantic difference?”

“Not to me. There’s the Hightower pack and then there’s the True Doyle clan, now the only Doyle clan. They’re not the same, though it may appear so from the outside.”

“But you have to obey your pack alpha like the dragons have to obey their king.”

Delton hesitated. Something about the way Duff had worded that didn’t sit well with him. “Define what you mean by ‘have to obey.’”

Duff frowned. “What’s there to define? He’s your pack alpha or your king. He gives you a command, and you have to execute it.”

Delton immediately shook his head. “That’s not how this works. There’s no blind obedience, and moreover, neither Rhene nor Erwan would expect it or even welcome it.”

“You can say no?” Duff seemed shocked.

“Of course. What, you think Rhene could tell me to jump and I would ask how high? If you do, you truly don’t understand how we work. He’s our leader, but he’s not a dictator. We have a say through pack meetings, and if he gave an order I disagreed with, I wouldn’t do it. And while he may ask me why, and we’d have a conversation about it, he’d ultimately accept it. I wouldn’t be punished for refusing an order or something. It’s not the military.”

“But you’d be kicked out of the clan. Pack.”

“Of course not. Sure, if someone consistently goes against the pack alpha’s orders, a conversation would take place. But that has never happened. Also, Rhene welcomes pushback and an honest exchange of ideas and opinions. That’s why he made Sivney his second-in-command.”

“I thought that was a symbolic thing to appease the omegas.”

Adar snorted. “Symbolic? Have you met Sivney? There’s nothing symbolic about him. In fact, most of us are far more scared of him than of Rhene.”

Duff’s face showed nothing but utter confusion. “Scared? Of an omega? Or does he have the power to order punishments?”

With every word he spoke, Duff showed how little he understood about pack culture. Delton was beginning to understand why Rhene had brought him here.

Adar shook his head. “It’s not about punishments. Not in the way you think, anyway. Sivney’s displeasure is punishment in itself. The pack loves and respects him, and we want to please him, for lack of a better word. He works harder than anyone else and has our best interests at heart. That makes it easy for us to do as he says.”

Duff looked from Delton to Adar, then back. “I don’t understand any of this. It’s like you’re speaking another language.”

They were. Duff’s framework was so fundamentally different that nothing they said came across the way they wanted it to. He was filtering everything through a lens that was so dark, so wrong, so distorted. If they wanted him to see the truth, they’d have to start at the very beginning. They’d have to teach him their history, their language, their framework.

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