by Haley Ryan
“One of my favorites.”
Somehow, I’d figured out Seamus’ secret book obsession, so I made it my business to bring him new titles whenever one came my way.
In return, he served me ginger ale on the house and never ratted me out to Faris when I’d had a bad day.
And before anyone gets the wrong idea, I should probably mention that the bartender was a huge fan of P.G. Wodehouse. Why he felt the need to hide a cover featuring nothing more scandalous than a starched up British butler I couldn’t begin to guess.
“Seen Wynter around lately?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t heard anything. But she’s off the grid a lot, so I wouldn’t worry.”
I wouldn’t, except I hadn’t heard from the elemental mercenary since about a week after she and Faris dropped me off following our return from the fae enclave in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. She’d stopped by the store, promised to be in touch, then muttered something about “hoity-toity fae” right before disappearing.
Part of me hoped that she could give me news of Draven, or even Rath—the entirely too-charming second son of Dathair, High King of the Fae. When I left them, they’d been preparing to deal with the fallout from our part in the death of Llyr—who, besides being a traitor, was also older brother to Rath and half brother to Draven.
I would have stayed, owned up to my part in Llyr’s death, and accepted the consequences, but it was far too dangerous for me to be anywhere near the fae. If any of them found out what I was, they would have killed me for my skin first and partied afterward.
“Kira!”
I turned, slid off my barstool, and hugged the giant elemental who, as usual, seemed to appear out of nowhere behind me.
Faris was tall, bearded, and forbidding, and should have seemed even scarier now that I knew what he was capable of. Instead, something about our mutual loss had made us more like family than friends. Often that meant that he hovered more than I preferred, but I also trusted him to have my back.
Today, however, his hug seemed tense, and when I pulled back far enough to look him in the eye, I could tell something was bothering him.
“I didn’t think you’d be here tonight,” he muttered. “I wanted a chance to think about things before I talked to you.”
“Think about what?” I raised my eyebrows at him and got only a scowl in return. “Faris, I’m pretty well acquainted with this face you’re making. What did you do, and why am I going to be mad at you about it?”
My attempt at humor did nothing to ease his tension.
“There was too much that didn’t add up. And you wanted to know about the black dragon, so I had to at least ask some questions.” His jaw clenched beneath his beard. “I just needed to know what really happened.”
“Okay,” I drawled, “and now you’re worrying me a little. How about you tell me what you’ve done, and then I’m sure we can fix it.”
He shook his head, and in his green eyes, I caught a glimpse of pain he hadn’t quite been able to hide. “I don’t think we can,” he told me. “But I want you to know, no matter what happens, you’re one of us now, and I’ll fight for your right to live however and wherever you want.”
“Faris.” I took a step back. “You’re scaring me.”
“You don’t need to be afraid,” he promised. “This won’t be easy, but it had to be done.”
“What had to be done?” I could feel my dragon starting to rise along with my anger and stuffed her back down.
“Will you come with me?”
I eyed him, wondering whether I’d made a mistake trusting him so completely. I still believed he would do his best to protect me, but in the past, he’d also seemed more than willing to go against my own wishes in the interest of my safety.
I’d thought we were past that, but perhaps I’d been wrong.
“Why?” I challenged him, and the look in his eyes nearly broke me.
“Because there’s someone you need to meet.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I nodded. “Okay. I trust you.”
He flinched, and for a brief instant, I considered leaving instead.
But if I were honest, curiosity already had the better of me, and I had a reasonable degree of confidence in my dragon. If necessary, I could shift, and rely on my own abilities to get me out of whatever mess Faris had gotten me into.
So I followed him past the end of the bar, to the same room where I had first confronted him about my aunt’s disappearance. He opened the door and motioned for me to go ahead of him.
Bracing myself for whatever he thought I needed to see, I entered, and stood to the side while he came in behind me and closed the door.
Seated at the round gaming table in the center of the room were four people who quickly leaped to their feet when they saw us.
Four enormous people. Three of them were men, ranging from probably their early twenties to mid-thirties, all of whom shared the same auburn hair, lightly-tanned skin, and amber eyes—shapeshifters, I assumed. The fourth was an older woman built on the heroic lines I might have imagined for Brunhilda—still broad-shouldered despite her age, and well over six feet, with silver-blonde hair confined to a braid thicker than my wrist. Her eyes, too, were amber, but they glowed as she stared at me, while her lips began to tremble uncontrollably.
The men shared a strange glance between them, but the woman’s gaze never seemed to leave my face as the silence grew thick and uncomfortable.
“Um, Faris?” This felt incredibly awkward. “Are you going to introduce us?”
He said nothing, and I was just beginning to edge backward, towards the door and freedom, when the woman spoke.
“It’s true,” she whispered, and to my horror, tears began to spill over and slide down her cheeks. She sat down, hard, in her chair, still staring at me. “By the fires of heaven, it’s true. You’re alive, and I am both so happy and so angry, I cannot seem to separate the two.”
The oldest of the three men placed a hand on her shoulder and fixed me with a glowing gaze of his own. “Are you sure?”
“How could I not be sure, Callum?”
“She’s… tiny,” one of the other men said, looking at me with wide, astonished eyes.
“And she doesn’t really look like you,” the third one interjected. “Doesn’t smell like a dragon, either.”
My nostrils flared, and this time I didn’t even consider hesitating. I just bolted for the door and was only stopped by Faris’s treelike arm blocking my way.
“No, Kira. Please. Wait for a moment,” he pleaded.
“You want me to wait until this gets more creepy?” I demanded. “Who are they, Faris, and what did you tell them? I trusted you!”
“Please.” The woman’s voice turned my head in spite of my inclination to run. She regarded me solemnly. “Please, don’t be afraid of us. I have searched for you to the ends of the Earth, and for years I thought you were dead. Forgive me, Kira. No…” She paused. “Kirasha-li-Tairen,” she said, and my frantic need to escape died as a jackhammer took up residence in my chest.
“That name,” I whispered. “Whose is it? Is it mine? How do you know it?”
I had heard it only once before, as the final cry of the black dragon who saved my life. It had echoed inside my head as she fell to her death, taking the fae traitor Llyr with her.
“Whose is it?” The blonde woman echoed, looking puzzled. “It is yours. How could you not know your name?”
“Who are you?” I asked, my lips gone numb with shock.
But she was crying again and couldn’t seem to answer.
“Kira,” Faris said gently from behind me, “this is Tairen-li-Corva.”
I’d never heard that name, but judging by the grim looks exchanged by the three men in front of me, I should have.
“She’s also known as Lady Tairen,” Faris continued. “First among shapeshifters.” He paused. “Kira, she’s Queen of the Dragons. And you’re her daughter.”
Two
Can you rea
lly blame me for panicking?
I’d spent my whole life in hiding—never shifting into a dragon, never coming into contact with my own kind—because when I was a baby, my family tried to kill me. I’d only survived to adulthood thanks to my Aunt Morgan, who’d stolen me away while I was still an infant.
But now I was trapped in a room with my mother, who was apparently not only a terrifying giant of a woman, she was also Queen of the Dragons. What her dragon form looked like I had no idea, but I had little doubt she could crush me with a single snap of her jaws.
As I scrabbled for the doorknob and tried to rein in the fear and nausea choking off my ability to breathe, I had room for only one coherent thought.
Faris had betrayed me.
He knew about my family. Knew why I’d been in hiding. Yet he’d gone behind my back to bring them here and tell them who I was.
And he still wasn’t letting me leave. He held the door shut by leaning against it while holding out a placating hand as if I were no more than a frightened animal he could tame.
“Kira, this isn’t what you think,” he said, with quiet persistence.“They aren’t here to hurt you. They had no idea whether you were even still alive.”
His tone set my back up even further. “They weren’t supposed to know,” I snarled, and saw the woman flinch.
“They were the ones who faked your death,” Faris went on doggedly. “Someone tried to assassinate you when you were a baby, but it wasn’t the dragons. Morghaine was only supposed to take you into hiding until you were old enough to defend yourself. Instead, she stayed in contact until around the time you were eight years old, then you both disappeared, and your family has been trying to find you ever since.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I snapped, shoving down all of the doubts that had plagued me since my aunt flew away from me in Idria. “Why would Aunt Morgan do that? She loves me! She gave up her whole life to protect me. Why would she hide from my family unless they were a danger to both of us?”
“Morghaine is not your aunt,” the woman said, sounding puzzled. “She is my most trusted seneschal, but we are not related in any way. Your only aunt’s name is Jaida.”
“It’s what I call her,” I said through frozen lips. “I know she’s not really my aunt, but why does it matter?”
“Where is Morghaine?” the woman claiming to be my mother asked, beginning to sound more purposeful than sad. More like the queen Faris believed her to be. “I’m sure she can help clear up this misunderstanding. Perhaps she told you there was danger to prevent you from trying to contact us, but she knows we would have died to protect you.”
Faris fished a chain out from under his shirt, pulled it over his head, and dropped it on the table. “We don’t know where she is. She disappeared months ago, leaving her seneschal ring with me. We saw her briefly, a few weeks afterward, but then she disappeared again, and no one has seen her since.”
But the eyes of all four shapeshifters were glued to the chain and ring lying on the table.
“She took it off?” Lady Tairen sounded both confused and a little outraged. “Seneschals do not remove their rings. Not ever. These rings represent their honor and their vow, and it would be a betrayal of them both to remove it.”
Make that a lot outraged. Oddly, I remembered Draven saying something similar when we encountered a fae seneschal who had turned traitor.
Faris shrugged. “I don’t know about that, but I know she’s left this with me periodically over the years. Until now, though, she’s always returned to claim it.”
My back still pressed against the wall—as far as I could get from my supposed parent—I looked from Faris to Lady Tairen, then glanced at the three men who’d come with her.
They were probably dragons as well, given that one of them had commented on how I smelled. The jerk. Were they here to subdue me and carry me off? Not like the queen would need any help with that.
“Look,” I said, “this is all very interesting, but can we be done here? It’s been lovely to meet you, but I left a gargoyle in charge at home, so I should probably be getting back before he decides to rearrange my sock drawer.”
“Kira.” Faris was glaring at me now. “This is your family. They’ve spent eleven years wondering whether you were dead. You aren’t just going to walk out on them now.”
“Yes, actually, I am,” I replied, and as my fear turned to anger, I let it off its chain just enough to bring a glow to my amber eyes. “Faris, I trusted you, and you betrayed me! These are the people I’ve been hiding from my whole life, but you just handed them my secrets, and for what? Does Morghaine mean nothing to you anymore?”
His jaw clenched, but he showed no remorse—only determination. “I’ve had to face up to the truth, Kira, and so should you. Morghaine lied to both of us. She wasn’t in Idria to protect you, and she wasn’t a prisoner. She was a part of it. The only explanation for all the evidence is that she was working. With. Llyr.”
“No!” I shouted, only to realize that someone else had said it along with me.
Lady Tairen. The Queen of the Dragons stood to her full, imposing height, folded her arms, and shook her head fiercely. “That is utterly impossible. Morghaine would never work with the fae. It was fae assassins who tried to kill Kira in the first place. There must be another explanation for what you saw.”
Huh. An unexpected ally. But that didn’t mean I was going to hang around for more friendly family chit-chat.
“So, I’ll just leave you two to fight about it, shall I?” I turned to yank at the doorknob again and glared at Faris when it refused to budge.
Which seemed to be the cue for both of them to focus their sole attention on me.
“Please.” Lady Tairen took a step towards me, an expression of what looked like genuine pleading on her face. “Don’t leave. I know this has to be incredibly difficult and strange, but I beg you to stay and hear me out before you decide not to trust me. I swear that neither I nor mine would ever hurt you in any way we could prevent.”
“Why on earth would I trust you?” Related to me or not, she was obviously insane. “You showed up here unannounced, with three giant bodyguards, and lured me into a room by myself where you could intimidate me however you choose. How is that supposed to make me feel safe?”
And that’s when the tears started again.
“Kirasha,” she said softly, “these aren’t my bodyguards.”
I threw them a quick, nervous glance. They looked a lot like bodyguards to me—tall, stoic, muscular guys with near-identical expressions of frustration.
“They’re your brothers.”
Say what again?
It said a lot about my mental state that I immediately wondered which of those options would turn out to be worse.
“Surprise,” one of them muttered under his breath, and I instantly experienced a strong desire to kick him in the kneecap.
Which seemed to verify the brother thing, if I were being honest.
But how could I have brothers? By this point, all three enormous, actually-kinda-hot guys were staring at me as though they expected me to recognize them, but how could I possibly do that?
Would the dragon recognize them?
And if she could, did I want her to?
These four strangers could be my family. Or they could be imposters. And either one of those things might still want to kill me.
But I’d sensed no hostility from any of them—only sadness, confusion, and skepticism. Also no small amount of outrage, but at least that part didn’t seem to be directed at me.
And Faris… Up until this moment, I would have said that I trusted him with my safety. He’d nearly died protecting me, and even Draven had agreed that Faris had proven himself. But I’d only known him a few months. How ready was I to trust him with something this big?
Slowly, cautiously, I reached for my dragon and let her closer to the surface. I kept a tight hold, because after years of being chained by a magical bracelet that prevented me fro
m shifting, she was a little too excited about the possibility that she might get to come out and play.
I’d only shifted a handful of times since returning from Idria, and each time it was easier. More natural. As though the dragon was a part of me, rather than a separate beast that lived inside my skin. But now she strained against my control, fighting to be allowed to shift, and it was everything I could do to hold back.
Stepping away from the door, I took a deep breath…
It turned out to be a big mistake.
The smell of dragon flooded my nostrils, filled my head, and set off a cacophony of reactions.
My dragon screamed, not with rage, but with some other emotion, so powerful it literally knocked me off my feet. I fell to the floor and gasped for breath, making a grab for the mental chains I’d used since I was a child, but it was too late.
I caught stricken glances from all around me just before I completely lost control.
Four legs instead of two. Clawed hands, a long sinuous neck, flexible tail, and fanged jaws that snapped together like a deadly trap, all of it sheathed in shimmering bronze scales.
And as I clambered to my feet afterward, shaking my head, I was still the shortest person in the room—my dragon form, not counting my wings, wasn’t much bigger than a pony.
Jaws dropped all around me. The four other dragons exchanged stunned glances.
“Well, that explains a lot,” one of them muttered.
“Is that a…” another one started to say, before the third one interrupted.
“She’s bronze,” the oldest one—Callum—said grimly. “Mother, did you know?”
“No,” Lady Tairen whispered, looking at me as though she’d seen a ghost. “There was no way to know what color she would be.”
“So the assassins couldn’t have known either?”
She shook her head. “There had to be another explanation. But perhaps this is why Morghaine hid her so completely. If she shifted for the first time around seven or eight, the danger would have been astronomical. But why wouldn’t she come to me? We could have protected her better at the enclave!”
