Page 103 of The Breeding Cave
“I don’t fucking believe you,” he growled.
“Then why’d you ask?”
After a couple more silent moments, Luciano drew his tongue across his teeth. “What’s the orb? The orange one that Mom always knew about. Tell me what it is, and I’ll think about trusting you.”
I leaned on the closest tree and held my side, biting back a grunt. Luciano might’ve been wounded, but he was and would always be stronger than me in hand-to-hand combat. I had never met anyone as strong as him, not even the dragons.
“You’re not going to believe me,” I said honestly.
“Try me.”
“Please,” I pleaded. “Let me get you help first.”
“Fucking useless,” Luciano growled, turning around and walking through the woods.
The wind picked up, and I cursed to myself and hurried after him. “The orb is an egg.”
Luciano stopped. “A what?”
“An egg.”
“Bullshit.”
“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”
“What kind of fucking egg is this?” he asked, pulling the orb out of his pocket.
With an orange glow, the sphere rolled around in Luciano’s palm. My eyes widened at the sight of it because Mom had told me so much yet so little about it before she died. It was more than just an egg. It was a symbol.
A symbol of the firebird. The phoenix. My father.
“It’s …” I started trying to figure out how to explain this all. I’d had decades to figure it out, and I still couldn’t. I still had questions that had been left unexplained, questions that I might never find the answers to without Yeosin. “It’s a phoenix egg.”
His lip curled in disgust. “Liar.”
“I swear, Luciano,” I said, holding up my arms. “I don’t know much. I’ve been trying to figure it all out for years now, but none of it makes sense. Mom told me that it was a phoenix egg. It’s from my father.”
“Your father was my father,” Luciano growled. “Quit making shit up.”
“No, he wasn’t. Mom … Mom had an affair.”
“She wouldn’t have done that,” he said. “Dad and she were mates.”
“You don’t get it. Mom was mated to more than one person, just like Yeosin.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-EIGHT
YEOSIN
“Get off me,” I growled through gritted teeth, trying to shoulder Alvin away.
Alvin shoved me back, and I landed on the ground with a thud in his nest of gold and twigs and souvenirs that he had stolen throughout the years. In the mess of items were several glowing orange orbs, like the ones Luciano had earlier.
“Little Mouse,” Alvin murmured, “I’m not letting you out of my sight. Not anymore.”
“I hate you,” I snarled, more so to myself.
