“It won’t happen again,” I assure him.
He’s still gripping my hair and neck, bending me in a way that makes it hard to stay on the column. I try to steady myself as he leans in, his mouth so close to my neck I can feel the threat of imaginary fangs there. “See that it doesn’t,” he whispers in my ear.
Another hot wash of arousal quivers through me, mixing with humiliation and annoyance. Not that Bale humiliated me. I did a good job of that myself. I fight the arousal. I don’t want anyone to know my secrets—especially Bale—though it’s not like most people wouldn’t react the same way if they’d just felt the Dragon King’s breath on their neck and his hand in their hair.
Bale backs away from me, his stare volcanic and his thumb drawing a hard line down the entire throbbing vein in my neck before he finally releases me.
I lurch upright, nearly falling from the pillar. My blood pumps hot and cold—a horrible feeling. I don’t know what’s worse. The heat of embarrassment and reflexive arousal, or the ice of being furious with myself.
“I should’ve reminded you.” My hard-pounding heart nearly drowns out Fyrestar’s remorseful words.
Glancing up, I shake my head. I can’t answer him, but it’s not his fault. It’s mine. Bale would say my biggest flaw is getting easily distracted and losing focus. He’s wrong. It’s vanity that does me in again and again.
In front of me, Maia’s perfect, tight bun is a mocking reminder of the one I wore earlier today. Danica sheared her hair to spiky black curls ages ago. The men all wear their hair short. We’re soldiers of Torridaig. There are rules that make us battle-ready and keep us safe. Rules I’m stupid enough to ignore.
I’m also stupid enough to harbor a fierce attraction for my king, but I’m definitely not stupid enough to act on it. I already tried romance with a teammate once and learned my lesson. Things didn’t even end badly with Kellan; they just ended because my feelings changed, and I’m still caught in the middle of a complicated and awkward something and paying for it thirty years on. With Bale, an ending—especially a bad one—would be exponentially worse. We’re not equals. He rules me and my warbirds. I’m not putting myself in a position of potentially having to leave my team and my home, and no force under the stars would make me leave my birds.
Thankfully, I have nothing to worry about. There’s no evidence of the attraction going both ways, and Bale hasn’t taken a lover in so long that none of us have ever even seen him walk these mountain halls with anyone by his side.
As Bale resumes his position in front of us, Maia fishes around in her pocket and pulls out a leather hair tie. She discreetly holds it out behind her, and I take it. Securing my hair back doesn’t replace a tight bun, but it’s better than nothing, and I’m grateful to my friend. I make quick work of a braid and tie it off at the end with Bale’s amber eyes flicking over me.
“Weres struck again in the northwest,” he announces darkly as my hands drop back to my sides. “The Muirvale forces answered the alert horns and countered the assault. They drove the invading weres back over the border and are guarding it now, but there were kidnappings. We need a small, fast force to penetrate Wyndwood and try to recover the children.”
My tense shoulders loosen, and I take my first normal breath since Bale arrived despite the grim news. Great Cealastra, it never ends. Weres keep attacking their own kind, which somehow seems worse than attacking us.
“A were-heavy section of Muirvale?” Danica asks.
“All of Muirvale’s were-heavy,” Kellan mutters from his right-wing perch.
Most werebeasts who already lived close to the northern forests decided not to move across the official border when the lines were drawn by the kings and queens of Ellonrift. It was the only time the six rulers ever agreed on anything, and it still took two and a half decades to negotiate. The borders were drawn with ancestral lands in mind, as they already contained the heaviest populations of each of the peoples, and resulted in a fairly equitable split of territory and resources in the end.
No one was forced to go anywhere, and most of the weres who already lived close to the new line weren’t about to move across a valley or over a hillside simply to answer to a were king rather than a dragon shifter. Their homes were already in their historical territory, or at least, close enough. They had their roots, their dens, their lives. They weren’t stuck right in the middle of Ellonrift or in some hostile place far from their ancestors and traditions or the great, wild forests where they hunt and mate as their instincts demand. They lived under Bale Cinderheart’s protection. So why leave?
What they didn’t count on were the weres who did cross thinking everyone should’ve done the same. At first, there was shunning, shaming, and prejudice. That lasted centuries. Then a new group cropped up with a new tactic. Steal werechildren before the pups, cubs, and calves are old enough to decide for themselves—and kill anyone who gets in their way.
“These are Torridaig weres.” Bale’s eyes flame. “My weres. My tolerance for the Were King’s weakness regarding these fanatics is at an end. He needs to control his people, or I will.” Bale’s ominous words ring of war. We all know it’s rushing toward us from Bloodwold in the east, and now it could be rising in Wyndwood to the north. If the leaders of Ellonrift still can’t reach any significant or satisfying agreements at the quickly approaching yearly Council, I’m almost certain Bale will finally give up on diplomacy, when he’s the only ruler even keeping diplomacy alive.
His gaze sweeps over us, the bitter hardness in his expression seeming to echo my thoughts. “You know what to do. You know how to do it.” Darkness wraps around him as he begins to shift. My breath shortens, the magic in the room immediately so thick it clogs my lungs and sits on my ribs. Those werebeasts chose not to leave Torridaig, which means they’re Bale’s. No one takes what’s his, and a dragon shifter doesn’t share. Fire roils in his elongated mouth, and his words thunder in my mind as he pushes off on powerful legs and thumps tremendous wings. “To the north!”
“To the north!” we cry, the shifters changing form and Fyrestar swooping in to pick me up.
I leap off my pillar onto Fyrestar’s back, hook my legs around his body, grab his black neck feathers, and hold on as he gathers speed. We barrel out of Drayke Mountain’s south-facing windows and swoop back around the giant peak, heading toward the were kingdom of Wyndwood. Quickly solidifying our formation, we fly at the speed of fire. I’m in the middle again, tucked between two of the squadron and their wing guards.
I try not to let my position irk me. I’m still one of the six elite soldiers of Torridaig, handpicked by the Dragon King himself and the only non-dragon shifter on the team. Despite this unprecedented accomplishment, apart from a pillar-race victory here and there—mainly over Kellan—the middle is my usual place.
My mouth thins, tension keeping me rigid. Not good enough to be first, but good enough not to be last.
Or maybe that’s not even true. Maybe the only reason I’m not consistently bringing up the rear is because Fyrestar is so exceptional.
I grip his feathers, my fingers already chilled from the thin, cold air. Fyrestar’s colorful plumage starts to glow with his inner fire, warming me all over before I start to shiver.
He knows me well—probably better than I know myself, since I don’t know a thing about where I come from.
I will do better. And maybe when I’m the best soldier here, I’ll be good enough to find the answers to the questions about my origins and abilities that have haunted me for years.
CHAPTER THREE
BALE
