“So are you!”

Amy scooted onto the bed and flung her arms around Stacy. The latter couldn’t help the tears that burst forth. She didn’t know what to say. She was caught between the desire to tell Amy everything that happened, express how sorry she was about Spencer, and share how relieved she was to see her friend well and alive.

Amy pulled away, tears glistening in her eyes. “Rowan told me what happened, so no need to repeat it. I can see how tired you are.”

“And what about you?” Stacy asked. “You were in the hospital.”

Amy couldn’t contain a sob of her own. It broke forth, and she bent her head. They cried softly for several minutes, neither able to express what the tears were for. They both knew, though. Spencer. “I’m so sorry,” Stacy managed, her voice broken and rasping.

Amy shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. It was my fault. I should have been more careful. I⁠—”

Stacy grabbed her friend’s shoulders. “It was not your fault. None of it was.”

“Spencer, he… We were going to go out on a date. He kissed me at the gala. We were happy, then it was all taken away from me.” Amy’s voice broke, and she cried again.

Grief overtook Stacy like a storm. Several more minutes passed before she could ask how Amy had recovered and come home.

“Rowan came and picked me up after whoever or whatever healed me. I know it was magic, but Rowan said it was best I didn’t hear the full story.”

“Even I don’t know that,” Stacy admitted.

Amy told her about the chaos at the hospital resulting from Rowan showing up to take her away. He had ignored all requests from the hospital for more information, giving them a card to call him. The estate’s legal team, he’d told them. “Which is me,” Stacy remarked, shaking her head. “I don’t plan on answering any calls from the hospital.”

“I think giving people his ‘card’ is Rowan’s way of getting out of conversations he doesn’t want to or shouldn’t be having,” Amy replied.

Whatever else they might have said was interrupted by a knock on the door. Miles entered, smiling. “I thought I heard voices. Glad to see you doing well, Stacy.”

“Same to you, Miles. You certainly don’t look like you were battling werewolves all last night.”

“I’ve come to tell you the magical defenses here are well and secured, and Rowan and I will soon work on the land we were at last night to heal it and ensure its recovery. All to lead to a greener future.” He winked, chuckling at his joke.

“Good,” Stacy replied. “The land and the magic in it don’t need to suffer because of what happened.”

Amy raised a brow at this, and when Miles departed, she shook her head. “Some of the shit you guys talk about goes right over my head.”

Stacy squeezed her friend’s hand. “Trust me, some of it still goes over my head, too.”

Stacy stood at the highest window of her home, gazing across her lands. The sky was turning from dark blue to soft gray, the first hints of the coming dawn. Rowan and Amy flanked her. Her green eyes were dark and shadowy this morning, her determination to restore peace reflected in them.

“I want to forge a future that isn’t only beneficial to the people who live here,” Stacy commented. “It has to be good for others, too.” She thought of Spencer and his grieving family. Ethan and her other friends in the city came to mind. She wanted to establish her practice soon while Rowan handled the details of the estate with Kiera and Miles’ help. She approved Rowan’s plan to expand their team as long as the people brought on were as perfect for the estate as his two old friends.

She turned to see Rowan pouring white wine into three glasses. He handed one to her, one to Amy, and kept the last for himself. A smile creased his lips. “To the future of the Thorn estate. And to you, Stacy, its dragon protector.”

Amy chuckled. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I wasn’t there to fight werewolves, but I sort of wish I had seen your new body, Stacy.”

Stacy still hadn’t wrapped her head around the fact that she had transformed. She doubted it would happen again anytime soon and said as much to Amy. “Well, when it does, I want to be there,” her friend quipped.

The trio drank to Rowan’s toast, then Stacy watched the estate spirits floating across the grounds. She had a lot to be thankful for despite the sorrow hanging in her heart. We will make a better future for Spencer’s sake, she promised. Rowan and Amy left her, and Stacy decided now was as good a time as any to call her father.

The call went as well as Khan had expected.

Stacy wasn’t happy with him for going to Ethan’s shop, though she had to admit Ethan showing up for her proved how valuable of a friend he was. They had skirted around the topic of her becoming a dragon until finally, she sighed, saying she needed to come over and ask questions.

“Dinner this weekend?” Khan had asked.

“I’m having friends over then. We can after that. How about you, Regi, and the others come over, too?”

“I’ll ask Esme to make one of her famous desserts.”

They’d ended the call with Khan expressing how proud of her he was and how relieved that she was doing well.

Now, he was sitting in the quiet library, joined by the sounds of a crackling fire and rain pattering against the panes. He allowed himself a rare smile of pride as he glanced at the portrait of his wife. Her eyes seemed to say, See? Good things can happen when you allow your daughter to forge her own path.

I helped a little.

You protected her as a father should.

Stacy was fulfilling her role as the Drakethorn heir well. He could hardly believe she was a grown woman coming into her full potential. It seemed like only yesterday, she’d been a five-year-old stealing pastries from Esme’s kitchen and being chased into the garden by Torin.

He stood, his stomach grumbling for breakfast. “She will shape the world for the better, as she was always meant to do.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Things might have gotten out of hand,” Jenny admitted over the phone.

Stacy groaned. “What did you do this time?”

Kiera, who stood at the stove stirring a pot of something savory-smelling, cast Stacy a look.

“Well, I may or may not have mentioned at the office that I was going to your place for a ‘small get-together.’ The next thing I knew, I was saying yes to a few others coming by. Now we have a few friends from work, clients, and the firm’s head lawyers excited for this weekend.”

“Jenny!”

“I’m sorry,” she squeaked. “But you said your house was big. It can fit, like…twenty extra people, right?”

Stacy face-palmed herself. She had also invited Ethan and everyone at her dad’s house. Good thing the estate was big enough for a sizeable gathering. “All good,” she replied at last, issuing a sigh. “I’ll have to convince my cook to make enough food, though.”

Kiera raised a brow at this.

Stacy laughed into the phone. “Might as well have all those people here. It can be my coming-out party.”

Kiera snorted, and Jenny declared, “Amy must be your girlfriend! That’s why you haven’t banged that bookshop guy you see all the time. Is he gay, too?”

“No, you jackass! Ethan is straight. I think. And Amy is not my girlfriend. I only meant I could tell everyone what I plan to do next.”