Kitten hissed at that, snorting smoke that mingled with the steam rising from her tea. "Humans have killed dragons at home, too, and others have seen them as commodities or weapons. My mother was the most recent among those."

She has only a fuzzy memory or two of her mother, who died just after Kitten's birth. "That is why many of my kind did not approve of me staying with Mama and Papa. They wanted me back in the Dragonlands, where we have lived in isolation for centuries. There are old grudges, and dragons have long memories. Grandfather Diamondflame let me stay with my adoptive parents. He told everyone it was none of their business what he did with his own family."