Chapter 7 #2
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 threats the 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. "
The memory of my father surfaced unbidden. Three boys who never got up. A father who walked into the snow.
"I know what happens when ice dragons lose control," I said quietly. "I've seen it."
"I know you have." Ignatius studied me for a long moment. I wasn’t surprised he knew. "Your medic—Cinder—he noticed your temperature dropping before anyone else did. He tried to intervene, and he was brushed off. Correct?"
I nodded, throat tight.
He leaned back in his chair. "It means he'll be the first to notice if something goes wrong. The first in danger if your control slips."
"I would never hurt him." The words came out fierce, absolute.
"Not intentionally," Ignatius agreed. "But your dragon doesn't distinguish between protecting him and protecting yourself. If it perceives a threat to either of you—if the stress becomes too great—the cold will spread whether you want it to or not."
I stared at the table, my reflection distorted in the polished surface. Everything he was saying confirmed my worst fears. The reasons I'd been keeping my distance. The reasons I'd convinced myself that wanting Cinder was selfish, dangerous, impossible.
"What am I supposed to do?" I asked and hated how lost I sounded.
Keegan spoke for the first time since we'd sat down. "You learn," he said simply. "The way all of us had to learn. Uncle Ignatius helped Cole when his fire kept flaring during games. Sorin too, when his lightning wouldn't settle."
"Ice is different," I said.
"Ice is harder," Ignatius corrected. "But not impossible. You need an anchor, Taranis. Something—or someone—who grounds you when the cold starts to spread. Someone whose presence reminds your dragon that protection doesn't always mean freezing everything in sight."
My mind went immediately to Cinder. To his steady hands and calm voice. To the way he'd touched me in the medical bay and I'd felt something inside me settle for the first time in years.
"He doesn't want me," I said quietly. "He made that clear."
Ignatius smiled—a small, knowing expression that made me deeply uncomfortable. "He said he couldn't get involved with someone from work. That's not the same thing as not wanting you."
I sighed. “Is there anything you don’t know?” Max had obviously talked, but I wasn’t mad. He didn’t gossip. He was trying to help.
“The issue is whether he is to be trusted,” Ignatius said.
I stiffened and opened my mouth to tear Ignatius apart, but my breath fogged.
“Interesting,” he murmured. “As confirmations go, that was quite on point.” He glanced at Keegan and nodded. Keegan briefly rested his arm on my hand, and I felt instant warmth.
I gazed at our rookie in astonishment. “How did you do that?”
“Keegan is an anomaly,” Ignatius smirked. “He cannot produce ice, but he can lower his body temperature quite significantly. He also has some healing gifts. Nothing instantaneous, but he can speed up healing in his mate.” Ignatius shrugged. “Although, as I’m sure you’re aware, that’s quite common.”
I stared at Ignatius, then at Keegan, the words settling into my chest like a rock.
"I didn't know that," I admitted, and the confession felt like pulling teeth. "About mates. About healing. About any of it."
Ignatius's expression shifted—curiosity giving way to something sharper. More concerned. "Your father didn't teach you?"
"My father walked into the snow when I was nine." The words came out flat, practiced. "My mother called the Council to come get me after my first shift a year later. She called me a monster and told them to take me away."
Keegan went very still beside me. I could feel his heat intensifying slightly, the way fire dragons ran hotter when they were upset.
"I was raised by trusted humans," I continued, forcing myself to keep talking, even though every instinct screamed at me to stop.
To protect myself the way I always had—by keeping the worst parts buried where no one could see them.
"Good people. Kind people. But they couldn't shift.
They didn't know how to teach me about any of this.
I learned control through hockey. Through discipline.
Through making myself so focused on the ice that there wasn't room for anything else. "
Ignatius's eyes had gone soft in a way that made my chest ache. "I’m sorry. I knew of your family and the incident that made the Council relocate you to Canada. But I hadn’t realized you've been alone with this for so many years."
"I managed."
"You survived," he corrected gently. "That's not the same thing."
I looked away, unable to hold his gaze. The conference room felt too small suddenly, the walls pressing in. My breath fogged again, and I saw Keegan shift closer, ready to offer warmth if I needed it.
"The day my father lost control," I began, my voice barely above a whisper. "I was being bullied. Three boys from school. They had me on the ground, kicking me, and my father—" I swallowed hard. "He saw. And he snapped."
The memory rose up, vivid and terrible. Ice racing across the pavement. Screams cutting short. Bodies that stopped moving.
"Three children died," I said. "Because of me. Because I was weak and couldn't defend myself, and my father's dragon decided the threat needed to be eliminated."
"That wasn't your fault," Keegan said quietly.
"Wasn't it?" I turned to look at him, and I knew my eyes were too bright, too wild.
"My mother said it was. Said I made him lose control.
Said I ruined everything." I laughed, the sound bitter and broken.
"And maybe she was right. Because a year later, he walked into the snow and didn't come back.
And I've spent every day since then terrified that I'm exactly like him. "
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then Ignatius spoke, his voice gentle but firm.
"Your father lost control because he was untrained, unsupported, and pushed past his limits by watching his child be hurt.
That is not the same as being a monster.
And you—" He leaned forward, holding my gaze with an intensity that made it impossible to look away.
"You are not your father, Taranis. You have spent thirty years learning discipline that most dragons never achieve.
You have contained your ice through circumstances that would have broken lesser men. "
"But what if I can't anymore?" The question tore out of me, raw and desperate. "What if I get close to Cinder and something happens and I—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't say the words. Couldn't voice the nightmare that had haunted me since I was eight years old.
"What if you freeze him," Ignatius said quietly. "The way your father froze those boys."
I nodded, unable to speak.
Ignatius was silent for a long moment. Then he stood and walked around the table until he was standing directly in front of me. He placed one hand on my shoulder—warm, grounding, the touch of someone who understood exactly what I was carrying.
"Dragons who love," he said softly, "do not destroy what they love.
They protect it. They shelter it. Ice dragons become the cold that shields rather than the cold that kills.
" He squeezed my shoulder. "Your father lost control because he was alone and afraid and had no one to anchor him. You have something he never had."
"What?"
"People who see you," Ignatius said simply.
"Keegan. Max. Your teammates. And if you let him, Cinder.
" He released my shoulder and stepped back.
"The cold responds to isolation, Taranis.
It feeds on loneliness. The more you push people away, the harder it becomes to control.
But connection—genuine, vulnerable connection—that's what grounds ice dragons.
That's what turns the storm into shelter." He gazed at me in silence for a few seconds. “I wasn’t involved with the Council then, so I don’t know, but at the risk of resurfacing bad memories, do you know why your mom behaved the way she did? She was fully human but obviously was aware of your dad.”
I shook my head. "She knew what we were, but they were fighting even before we had to leave Scotland."
“Is it something you want me to look into?” he asked very gently.
“I don’t want anything to do with her.” For so many years I’d dreamed she’d just turn up, tell me she’d made a mistake and that she loved me. But that never happened.
“You don’t have to be. She will be unaware of any investigation I do. But I think we need to know the background so you can keep your mate safe.”
“He’s not my mate,” I whispered and felt Keegan step really close this time.
Ignatius smiled. “We both know your dragon has already made that decision.” So had I. I stared at him, something breaking open in my chest. Something that had been frozen for so long I'd forgotten it was there.
Keegan spoke up, his voice warm. "We can help. And you stop trying to carry this alone."
"Will you teach me?" I asked Ignatius. "Whatever I need to know to keep him safe?”
Ignatius stood and offered his hand. I took it. “Welcome to the family.”