Ember's Kiss by Deborah Cooke Read Free Book Online Page B

sense of union with her, the kind of connection he’d always dreamed of having.
    But it had all been trashed by his dragon’s base urges.
    Brandon couldn’t escape what he was. He couldn’t change what he was. And he wasn’t sure he could live with what he was. That old familiar shadow engulfed him, almost burying him beneath an oppressive weight of despair. Once he’d been almost paralyzed by his hatred of his own truth, but Chen had helped him to manage his dragon. He’d almost forgotten how awful it could be.
    Or maybe the dragon had been gathering strength while he focused on other things.
    Brandon knew for sure that it was worse to tastehope, then have it snatched away, than it was to never have had hope at all.
    At least he had retrieved the silver vial from Matt. He rolled it between his fingers, his hands jammed into his pockets, as he struggled for control. Maybe it would help.
    Although it didn’t seem to.
    It seemed like hours had passed before his dragon finally retreated with a snarl to the deep shadows of his mind. It couldn’t have been that long, because they weren’t in Hale‘iwa yet. Brandon closed his eyes, exhausted. There was no telling how long it would stay there or when it would resume the battle.
    For the moment, Brandon would take the reprieve. He rolled to his back and stared at the starlit sky. His muscles were taut, his gut was churning, and his shirt was damp. He ached all over. His hands were clenched into fists.
    He was angry, wanting to carve the dragon out of him and roast it slowly to death over a blazing fire.
    But that was the violence of the dragon.
    Brandon deliberately thought about Liz. He thought about her smile. He thought about her being his destined mate and his mouth went dry. It was strange to have anything in common with his father, but he knew that his dad must have felt this once for his mom. And that gave him a revelation.
    After the divorce, his father had stepped away from the dragon side of his nature. He’d been living as a normal human man and working as a firefighter. Thetime that Brandt had inadvertently revealed himself to Kay had been one of the last times that Brandon knew of his dad shifting shape.
    Brandon blinked. The very fact that his dad had that much control over his dragon implied that the firestorm sparked a change.
    Or the consummation of the firestorm had led to the change.
    What if being
Pyr
was about satisfying the firestorm?
    What if the firestorm could change everything?
    What if consummating the firestorm meant that Brandon’s dragon-shifter nature could be shed forever—or, at least, better controlled? This could be the opportunity that Chen had told him about! Chen had insisted that Brandon could weaken his dragon by the removal of the scales and that this could create the chance to banish his dragon forever. The old guy had been vague about the details, maybe because there was no way to predict when the firestorm would happen. The idea made perfect sense to Brandon.
    What if his dragon had roared because it knew its days were numbered?
    The idea was exciting. Even thinking about Liz had driven the dragon further into the shadows. This could be his chance to ditch it forever. Brandon had to find out the truth.
    They were almost at Hale‘iwa, so he pretended to wake up. He let the guys razz him and accepted Matt’sapology for taking the vial, his thoughts churning all the while.
    There
was
one good thing about his dragon nature. Courtesy of his keen senses, he could find Liz anywhere, even without knowing her last name or where she was staying. Having inhaled her scent, he could follow it wherever she went. That made his quest simpler.
    It also reinforced his theory that being
Pyr
was about the firestorm.
    Even better than that, Brandon could shift shape once everyone was asleep, fly back to Kane‘ohe, and track Liz to wherever she’d gone. He knew that the heat of the firestorm