Lucan looked up to see his brother, Janos, approaching him. He closed his eyes and bit back a groan at what he knew was about to happen. The discussion. Lucan had been avoiding it for weeks, dodging his brother, who also happened to be the leader of the Cruentus Clan. Janos had an agenda, and Lucan wanted no part of it. “No,” he said, glaring at his sibling. Though he’d lived here for only four years, since Janos and their brother, Niko, had rescued him from the fiery accident that had ended his old life, he felt a familial closeness that allowed him to stand up to the clan leader when few others would. “You can’t avoid this,” Janos said, pulling a wrinkled piece of parchment from his pants pocket and sitting in the chair opposite Lucan in the great hall of the Cruentus compound. Four levels of balconies circled the cavernous space, and though Lucan was alone with his brother, he felt the curious stares of the other Dragons who lived in this community. Lucan cringed. The dreaded paper.
