Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers) Read Online Free

don’t see—”
    “That is exactly the problem!” she yelled, making his ears ring. “You don’t see. If one of your siblings was doing something I wanted them to stop, I’d just threaten their plans or thwart their ambitions, but you don’t have any of those. You don’t have anything , and so I was forced to take the only thing I could.”
    She touched his seal again as she said this, and suddenly, Julius couldn’t breathe.
    “You are the worst excuse for a dragon I’ve ever seen,” she snarled. “But even you still need to actually be a dragon. So if you don’t want to spend the rest of your soon-to-be very short life as little more than trumped-up mortal, you’ll listen closely to what I’m about to say.”
    She released him after that, and it was all Julius could do not to flop panting on to the counter. But showing weakness would not improve his mother’s mood, so he forced himself back together, breathing deep until he could trust his voice enough to say, “I’m listening.”
    “Good,” Bethesda replied. “Because I’ve fought too long and too hard to get where I am to be made a fool of by my youngest child. I really should have eaten you years ago, but a mother’s hope springs eternal, so I’ve decided to give you one last chance. A final opportunity to make something of yourself.”
    Julius didn’t like the sound of that at all. “What am I supposed to do?”
    “You’re a dragon,” she said flippantly. “Be draconic. Take something over, destroy one of our enemies, win a duel, capture an advantage for our clan. I don’t really care what you do, but you will do something to make me proud to call you my son before the end of the month, or I will do to you what I did to my other under-performing whelps.”
    Julius didn’t need the snap of her fangs at the end. His blood was already running cold, especially when he realized today was already August 8th. “But…that’s not even four weeks.”
    “Think of it as a trial by fire,” Bethesda said sweetly. “You’ll come out of this a real Heartstriker or not at all. Either way, you won’t be an embarrassment to the clan anymore, which makes it a win-win for me, and we all know that’s what really matters.”
    Julius closed his eyes. Trial by fire. How excessively draconic.
    “I can hear you moping,” she warned. “Don’t be so defeatist. That’s exactly the type of behavior this little exercise is supposed to correct. And sorely as I’m tempted to let you dangle, I’m not throwing you out completely on your own. It just so happens that your brother Ian has some work he’s agreed to let you take on, a little jump-start to get you going on the path toward respectability.” Her voice turned rapturous. “Now there is a dragon, and an excellent son.”
    Julius frowned, trying to remember which brother Ian was. He had the vague recollection of an icy demeanor and a calculating smile, which probably meant Ian was one of those plotting, ambitious siblings he normally stayed far, far away from. Of course, if Mother liked him, the ambitious part was a given. Bethesda never loved her children more than when they were trying to engineer each other’s downfalls.
    “I already sent him your information while you were whining,” she continued. “He should be contacting you soon. And Julius?”
    He fought the urge to sigh. “Yes, Mother?”
    Bethesda’s voice sharpened until the words dug into him like claws. “Don’t fail me.”
    The call cut out right after that, but it took Julius a full thirty seconds to unclench his fingers enough to set the phone down safely below Jessica’s never-used collection of copper cookware. When it was out of harm’s way, he dropped his head to the cold marble counter with a thunk. He was still lying there when his phone buzzed again with Ian’s terse message to meet him at a club halfway across town in fifteen minutes.

    ***

    In the end, he had to take a cab.
    He couldn’t afford it, not really,