"The rest of it is your ex-boyfriend being a piece of shit and reporters being vultures." I tightened my grip on his arms, willing him to hear me. "You did nothing wrong. Not then. Not now. And anyone who reads that article and thinks otherwise isn't worth your time."
He stared at me, breath coming in ragged gasps. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?"
"Warning me. Being here. Being—" He gestured helplessly. "Kind. After I pushed you away. After I told you I couldn't—"
"Because you deserve kindness," I said simply. "Whether or not you want anything else from me. Whether or not you ever let me close enough to matter. You deserve to know that someone sees you. The real you. Not what they wrote."
His face crumpled, and before I could second-guess myself, I pulled him into my chest.
He didn't fight it.
He just collapsed against me, fists clutching my jacket. I held him in that parking lot, my dragon settling into something fierce and certain beneath my ribs. We both heard a door slam and looked up. Cinder took a step back, and I missed him already. “Are they going to fire me?”
It was Nancy, and she looked so fierce. “Of course not,” she snapped out. I smiled because Nancy was capable of going full-on mama bear. “Come on, let’s get a hot drink in you, and I want to go through the rookie medicals.”
Cinder nodded and went with her, but at the last moment, he turned and smiled. It was wobbly but it was for me. My dragon practically purred.
Practice was light—just enough to keep legs fresh before tomorrow's game. I moved through the drills on autopilot, my body knowing what to do while my mind stayed locked on the image of Cinder's face crumpling in that parking lot.
The team had seen the article. Of course they had. But no one said anything cruel—just careful glances, the occasional murmur that died when I skated past. Max had clapped me on the shoulder before warmups and said, "He's tougher than he looks, Taz. He'll be okay."
I wanted to believe that.
After practice, I was stripping off my pads when Keegan appeared at my stall. He moved differently than the younger players—patient, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. Which, being a dragon, he probably did.
"Got a minute?" he asked.
I glanced up. "For you? Always."
He jerked his chin toward the hallway. "Not here. Somewhere private."
My dragon stirred, sensing something significant in Keegan's careful tone. I finished unlacing my skates and followed him out of the locker room, down a corridor I rarely used, to a small conference room tucked behind the training offices.
Ignatius was waiting inside.
I stopped in the doorway, surprised. Keegan's uncle was a legend among dragons—old, powerful, connected to the Council in ways most of us couldn't fathom. He sat at the head of the table like he belonged there, silver hair swept back, eyes that missed nothing fixed on me with unsettling intensity.
"Taranis Rees," he said. Not a question. "Please. Sit."
I sat, because refusing felt unwise. Keegan closed the door and took the chair beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off him—a fire dragon's constant heat, the opposite of everything I was.
"Kincaid tells me you've been experiencing temperature dysregulation," Ignatius said without preamble. "Significant drops during periods of stress. Cold that spreads without physical injury to trigger it."
My jaw tightened. "It's under control."
"Is it?" Ignatius leaned forward slightly. "Because what Kincaid described—and what I've heard from other sources—suggests otherwise. Your dragon is reacting to emotional threatsthe same way it would react to physical ones. That's not control, Taranis. That's instinct running unchecked."
The words landed like a blow to the chest.
"It hasn’t always been like this," I said, hating how defensive I sounded. And I remembered my dad and what really terrified me about losing control.
"Protection that you cannot direct becomes a liability." He paused, letting that sink in. "I understand you've developed... feelings. For the human medic."
My hands curled into fists under the table. "That's not relevant."
"It's entirely relevant." Ignatius's voice softened slightly—not with pity, but with understanding that made something in my chest ache. "Ice dragons are rare, Taranis. All magic responds to emotion more intensely than other elemental lines, but ice dragons are particularly susceptible. When dragons care deeply—when we love—that power amplifies. It can become beautiful, or it can become devastating."