Hadyn nodded his agreement.
“I’m concurring with the kids.” Blaise smiled.
Ignoring the comment, Sebastian met Fang’s gaze. “If you want me to issue the challenge, I will do so. But watch your back. I have a bad feeling about all this.”
Fang sighed. “We will. Give Channon my best.”
Sebastian inclined his head to them before he vanished.
“Channon?” Seraphina asked.
“His mate.” Fang gestured toward the blood on Max’s body. “You guys need me to get Carson?”
Max shook his head. “I just need to rest. I’ll be fine.” He glanced to Hadyn. “What about you, kid?”
Hadyn glanced to his mother and bit his lip. “Are you good, Matera?”
“How do you mean?”
“About our father?”
She scowled, still not sure what he was talking about.
Edena stepped forward to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Tell her, Hadyn. It’s time.”
Nodding, he bent forward onto all fours as Edena stepped back to give him plenty of room. A second later, Hadyn sprang into a dragon form that was almost indistinguishable from Maxis’s.
With a deep, relieved moan, he rolled over onto his back and let his tongue hang out of his mouth. “Thank the gods. I needed this.” He panted and groaned his misery. “Ah, gah, it was so hard to stay human!” His tail swished like a happy puppy’s.
Seraphina wasn’t sure what to make of him or his comments. “Hadyn?”
Laughing at his anguish, Edena moved to rub his belly. “He’ll be fine, Mom. He’s just a big baby.”
“Baby, my ass. That shit hurt!”
“Hadyn!”
“Sorry, Matera. It was brutal!” He draped one claw over his snout.
Stunned, Seraphina tried to make sense of this. “Are you telling me that you’re Katagaria?”
Everything went still in the room. As if every one of them waited with bated breath for his response and her reaction.
“Yes,” he squeaked.
Seraphina winced at the underlying hesitation in her son’s voice. “Oh, Hadyn.” Choking on tears, she went to him and nuzzled his snout like she’d done Maxis’s earlier. “Precious! How could you think for one moment that I wouldn’t love you for this?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The fact that you’re a dragonslayer who wears boots made from the hides of dragons you’ve slain?”
“Like father, like son.” She held her hand out toward Maxis while she stroked her son’s scaly cheek. “I don’t care what form you take, boy. You are still the baby I carried inside me. The angel I nursed and protected. How could you think for one second that I could ever hate you for something you can’t help?”
Edena slapped his stomach. “Told you.”
Hadyn popped her with his tail.
“Mom!”
“Hadyn, stop hitting your sister with your tail.”