“Never?”
“Never,” he reiterated. “Declan is independent. We all are. We all work together, and we need each other, yes, but Declan has always focused on doing his own thing. He likes working independently as much as possible. He’s the one who likes to go do installations, like the one he was doing at Kellen’s place.”
“He’s very kind,” Zoa found herself whispering.
“Yes,” Christopher agreed. “Declan has a good heart.”
Zoa sat back against the couch. She closed her eyes for a moment and thought about everything that Christopher had just said. Was he right? Was Declan her one, true mate? Could dragons fall in love with human mates? Or was that type of thing going to cause problems? And what if they had kids?
“Stop.”
“Excuse me?”
“I can practically feel you thinking,” Christopher said. “Stop.”
“Well, excuse me,” she snapped. Zoa was irritated. Whose business was it that she was thinking?
Seriously.
Christopher had some nerve. She knew she had a lot to learn about dragons, and honestly, Christopher wasn’t doing anything wrong. It was just that Zoa was in sort of an overwhelming situation, and Christopher complaining about her thinking too much wasn’t really helping her.
“Look, Declan likes you,” Christopher softened his tone. “He cares about you. Brian and I both think it’s very obvious that you’re the one he’s meant to be with, but it’s always hardest for the person involved to see that, isn’t it?”
He was right, Zoa thought. Most of the time, people struggled to see what was right in front of them. Whenever someone fell in love, their perception of the situati
on became skewed. It was hard. It was always easier to spot the faults or perks in someone else’s relationship than in your own.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“I’ve known my brother a lot of time. He’s a good dragon. He’ll figure it out.”
Zoa wondered if Christopher was right. Did she want him to be? Somehow, the idea of being Declan’s mate didn’t scare her as much as she felt like it should have. She had this idea that she should be horrified, but she wasn’t. Why wasn’t she scared? He was a huge, incredible creature, and she was just...
Well, she was just herself.
Chapter 9
Declan and Brian landed in the forest and approached Kellen’s place from the South. Declan knew they needed to time things perfectly. They had to proceed with utmost caution if they wanted to do this thing, and oh, he wanted to do this thing.
They took their time approaching, careful not to reveal themselves. Neither one of them knew what they were walking into. For all they knew, they could have been approaching a bomb. They could have been dealing with a trap or an army of shifters just lying in wait.
“Do you think he’ll be there?” Brian whispered as they walked through the forest. His voice was quiet.
“He’d better be,” Declan muttered. He wanted the honor of slaying the man who had hurt Zoa.
They were careful as they made their way from the cover of the trees and into the open area where the mansion stood. Correction: where the mansion had once stood. As soon as they exited the forest, they knew that they had gotten there too late. Declan’s heart fell as he surveyed the space in front of them. He’d messed up. They’d been too slow.
“Uh, brother?” Brian turned to Declan. Then he gestured to the empty space ahead of them. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a house of some sort here?” Yes, there was supposed to be. It had stood there just the day before.
“There was a house of some sort here,” Declan muttered, stepping forward. He stared at the empty space. Well, it wasn’t really empty, so much as it was completely filled with rubble and boards and trash. It looked like someone had taken a long, flat surface and just pushed down until the entire mansion had squished into the ground.
The house was gone.
The roof was gone, the garages were gone, and the porch was gone. The outbuildings were gone. The grass, the flowers, and the gardens were gone, too. The earth was destroyed. All that remained was a hefty pile of rubble and broken dreams.
“Looks like someone blew it up,” Brian pointed out.
“Looks like someone blew it up,” Declan agreed.