Page 15 of The White Dragon's Dilemma

“You are always there when tragedy strikes?”Jahara’s eyes narrowed.

“Now, no, that’s not always true!”Caden looked alarmed.

“None of these terrible things are Caden’s fault,” Valerius informed her coldly.“As you will discover at dinner.”

Jahara tilted her head to the side. “I am all ears and eyes, Valerius.I cannot wait to hear the explanation for how Caden and Iolaire do not live up to their name and history.”

EVERYTHING CHANGES

Later…

Caden put his hands to his face and covered his mouth with them.He had so much to say that he feared it would just spill out of him, but he had to be logical and adult about this so that his parents and his sister would hear what he had to say rather than hear only how he said it.

The three of them were sitting on a couch in the southern tower suite like three birds on a line.It had seven bedrooms and was five stories.More than enough room for his family, though they didn’t know that this was their permanent home.Not yet.And he supposed that they could decide not to live here.He had to convince them otherwise.

Caden though was keenly aware that from the balcony behind him he could see the pond where he and Valerius had made love.He quickly pushed that from his mind.Thelastthing he needed to be thinking of was the Black Dragon King’s incredibly beautiful body when he was trying to talk about something serious.

“These are very nice rooms, Caden,” his mother said with a sweet smile.

She seemed to have recovered from what had happened that afternoon.His father though did not.His father was seated between his mother and sister, holding onto their hands as if he feared they would be snatched from him.Though he absolutely hated to see his father afraid, Caden knew that might make giving up some of their freedom a little easier.

“I’m glad that you think so. Do you like your room, Tilly?”Caden asked his sister.

Tilly--reflecting the tenseness of their parents--immediately brightened and said, “Yeah!It’s so cool!I have this four-poster bed with purple hangings!And my own bathroom with a tub you can swim in and a shower so big you could have a party!”

Purple hangings and a great bathroom are enough to pull her out of a funk,Caden thought with amusement.

Iolaire twittered in agreement.It loved Tilly and her brightness, especially when things were so gloomy.

“And it’s on its own floor too.”Caden grinned at his sister.

“Totally!I can…” She cast a glance at her parents and quickly amended whatever she had been thinking of saying to, “Play my music like so loud and no one can hear!”

“Well, it’s only for a few days, honey.Don’t get too used to that,” their mother said.

“Oh, Mom--”

“Actually,” Caden interrupted Tilly’s oncoming diatribe against their mother.His single word had them all going silent.The knowledge of what he was going to say next hung in his mother’s eyes.His sister appeared wide-eyed. He covered his hands with his mouth again.“Actually, I was thinking that maybe… that this should be permanent.”

“But, Caden, we have a house, a home, my garden, your rooms…” His mother’s voice petered off as no one else objected.

Tilly bit her lower lip and swung her feet back and forth.She was fighting with herself very hard not to say anything. Tilly and their mother’s fights were legendary, especially when Tilly thought their mother wasn’t being “rational”.

His mother cleared her throat and said, “I know that today was scary.Hard and scary.And we’ve been all out of sorts since all of the changes that have occurred, but things will get back to normal.”

“What’s normal?”Tilly asked, losing her fight with herself over saying nothing, evidently.“Caden being a Dragon Shifter?The Faith planting bombs--”

“Tilly, that wasn’t the Faith!That was just some individuals with messed up ideas.Not the religion as a whole!”Their mother disputed, but with so little heat that Caden wondered if she even believed it any longer or was just mouthing platitudes. “And we don’t even know if they were the ones that planted all of the bombs--”

“Like the one that almost killed Caden?”Tilly’s voice went shrill and high spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “Caden, did they do it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”Caden scrubbed a hand over the back of his head.He was actually sure of it, not just because of what the two members of the Faith had said after the botched bombing, but Serai’s confession before she killed herself.He didn’t want to tell them about her, but he would do so if he had to in order to convince them that staying in High Reach was safest.The only bombing he wasn’t so sure about was the one at the Humans First meeting, though it would have been amusing to have those bigots become the Shifters they so hated.But the Faithful cherished the Spirits.A Humans First meeting would be the last place people like that would be.But he just said, “They want to make more Shifters to stop us from losing the war that’s coming.”

“War with who?”His mother lifted her hands in the air.

“Humans,” Caden said.

“There’s not going to be a war with humans, Caden!”His mother looked between his father and his sister.

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