Page 20 of The Alliance

Alfie’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. “Your elder lets him shift indoors?”

“Well… yes. If he wants to be in his dragon form, why shouldn’t he be?”

“I don’t know, it’s just I thought we weren’t meant to do that. My father never let anyone shift indoors, so I thought it wasn’t allowed anywhere.”

Cuthbert said, “I can tell you aboutuasalcustoms, if you like. We’ve got some texts on them. We don’t know as much as we do aboutcuraidhcustoms, obviously, but we know a bit.”

Alfie tried to smile and said, “Yeah, thanks, that would be great,” but he glanced over my shoulder into the distance again. It really was bothering him that there was someone he hadn’t met.

“Matty was here for weeks before he even met Daniel, weren’t you, Matty?”

Matty was still standing there with his arms folded and a scowl on his face. He grunted.

“See,” I said to Alfie, as though that grunt had been an actual answer. I was going to have to tell Matty off for that later, but not now. I didn’t want to do it in front of strangers. Besides, I knew he was only there to keep me safe, which was incredibly sweet of him, even if it was entirely unnecessary.

Blaze sidled up to his mate and pressed his slender body down Alfie’s side. He whispered, “He’s getting further away, my darling. He’s not going to come over and see us.”

“I suppose I could ring him, if you wanted me to. He has his phone strapped to his ankle so he’ll have it with him.”

Alfie actually considered it. In the end, he said, “No, that’s not necessary. Thank you for offering, though.”

I smiled at him. “You can always change your mind. Do your scales feel different from silver dragon scales?”

Alfie blinked at me. “Uh, I don’t know.”

I realised belatedly that it was a sudden change in topic but I’d beencurious!

“I was just wondering.” Maybe I sounded slightly defensive but Matty moved closer to me and Alfie blinked again.

“Uh, I suppose we can check?”

I lit up. “Can we?”

Cuthbert chuckled. “I knew you’d ask about his scales.”

“I’m only curious,” I mumbled.

He pressed a kiss to my cheek and smiled at me with those dimples fully on display. He couldn’t be mad at me if he was smiling like that. His whole face was glowing with happiness and his smile made me want to press my lips to his and never part.

“I know you are. As long as Alfie doesn’t mind shifting for us, we’ll take a look and you can ask as many questions as you like.”

I almost vibrated out of my own skin with excitement. I was going to see a golden dragon. I’d get to identify any ways they differed from silver dragons. It was utterly fascinating!

Chapter 8

Matty

Ant was flipping out about being able to study a fire spirit and a golden dragon, all in the one day. He’d probably class this as the best day of his life (maybe with the exception of the day his mate claimed him, but then again, knowing Ant, maybe not).

I still wasn’t going to relax.

Ant might be a trusting person but I wasn’t. And that dragon had smacked Ant’s hand away so easily and quickly that I hadn’t been able to stop it. I’d felt the crack against my spells, the protective ones that were layered up over Ant. They were there to keep him safe but they actually weren’t that effective at protecting him from physical harm. My spells were there to stop himgetting sick, to let me keep track of him in case he wandered off or was kidnapped or something.

What? I wasn’t paranoid, I was just cautious!

Ant and I had been through a lot in our lives and just because we were safe and happy now didn’t mean I would suddenly get a personality transplant and think the world was a good place. It wasn’t.

The problem was that Ant thought itwas.

---