PROLOGUE
In the year of Our Lord 417
May the fifth
Glastonbury Tor
Betrayal.
Cold and brutal, it always took the shape and form of the closest friend and ally. And stung so deep to the soul that it left you bleeding and weak, wondering if you’d ever find your way to trust again.
Left you adrift in misery and heartache. Unable to breathe for the pain of it.
Worse than that, the treacherous bastard always came when least expected. And at the worst fucking time.
Given the brutal circumstances of his birth, Falcyn Drago had never considered himself immune from its fetid claws. Far from it. Indeed, he’d been nursed on its most foul and bitter taste. He’d learned to anticipate it from everyone around him, at all times. And sadly, no one had ever disappointed him by being above it.
Never once.
Rather, they seemed to glory in stabbing him through his wounded heart as ruthlessly and viciously as possible.
And none more so than his own brother, who now stood before him in all of Max’s sanctimonious and smug glory. Something that would have been galling had his brother been in his real and true dragon’s body, but like this, in the guise of a man, the betrayal burned twice as deep.
And hurt all the more.
“Damn you, Maxis! Was it not enough you left Hadyn alone to die amongst the humans? Now you take my son, too!”
Maxis’s hazel green eyes flared to gold, then to red as his anger ignited. “That’s not fair! I did everything I could to save our brother. How dare you throw that in my face! I’d have given my life for his!”
“Bullshit! I should have strangled you the moment you crawled from your egg!”
Grabbing him by the throat, Max shoved him back against the wall of the stone room where Falcyn had thought to meet his son, but now instead found himself barred forever from the realm his child called home.
Because of Max!The flesh of his flesh.
His worst nightmare.
Max’s eyes showed the depths of his own despair. “I wish you had, brother. I wish you had.”
His brother’s agony scorched Falcyn, but not as much as his own misery that ate him whole and left him bereft of anything save utter despair. Damn him for caring about Max’s feelings when it was obvious that his brother didn’t give one shit for his. Tears blinded him. “Maddor was all I had in this world. How could you!”
A tic started in Max’s jaw as he stepped away. “I had no choice. Dammit, Falcyn! Be reasonable. The Adoni plan to use you as a tool. Nothing more. They bred a hybrid child with you, without your knowledge or consent, and you’re fine with this?”
“Igraine was to be my wife!”
“Igraine is a faithless whore. An Adoni sorceress who has killed two husbands before you… think you that she’d spare you her treachery?”
“As you have?”
Max drew back as if he’d hit him, but he must have rethought that stupidity. Because they both knew that Max would never survive a real fight with Falcyn. “If she truly loved you, brother, my spell on your child wouldn’t have mattered to her, would it?”
Nay, it wouldn’t. The truth was an even more bitter pill to swallow.
And for that, he hated Max most of all. Because now he knew for an indisputable fact that he was every bit as unlovable as hisdearestmother had proclaimed him to be upon his arrival into this hateful existence.
Max drew a ragged breath. “We were cursed from our births, and well you know it. The gods spurned us and our mothers abandoned us. The only hope your son has is that if he is more man than drake, he won’t come under their fire… or notice. Or control.”
“That wasn’t foryouto decide!”
