Gregor’s breath caught. Not because of the wolf—though the creature was magnificent, far larger than any natural wolf and radiating a power that prickled against Gregor’s magical senses. But because of what the shift represented. A wolf at a Dragon Council. A wolf defending a dragon king. An alliance that had been broken and betrayed and abandoned generations ago, standing incarnate in the bond between these two men.
“My mate is Rhene Hightower, pack alpha of the Hightower pack and brother-in-law to Lidon Hayes, the True Alpha of his generation.”
The True Alpha. The name hit Gregor like a physical blow, reverberating through every magical frequency he possessed.
The wolf standing before him radiated a power that wasn’t his own, a borrowed strength that connected him to something vast and ancient and unmistakably real. Gregor could sense the thread of power running through Rhene that led somewhere immense, somewhere that made the hair on his arms stand up and his dragon stir with recognition.
The prophecy was true. The True Alpha had risen. He felt it in every cell of his being.
That meant that the other half had to be true as well. Erwan Doyle was indeed…
“And I?” Erwan took a breath. “I am the White Dragon.”
He shifted.
Gregor had seen dragons shift thousands of times. He’d witnessed every color, every size, every variation that three centuries of life among dragons could offer. But he had never,neverseen anything like this.
The dragon that stood before them was pure white, luminous, as if lit from within by a fire that burned hotter and cleaner than any Gregor had ever encountered. He was enormous—larger than Cladhaire, larger than any dragon in the camp—and the power that radiated from him was staggering, a wave of magical energy that washed over the assembled crowd and left every single person gasping.
“He truly is the White Dragon,” Gregor heard himself whisper. “I never thought I’d see one in my lifetime.”
This was no symbol. This was a living, breathing white dragon, standing in the middle of the Dragon Council camp witha wolf at his side, and the implications were so vast that Gregor’s tactical mind ground to a complete halt.
He turned to Andrew, who was staring at the White Dragon with his mouth hanging open. “Get King Fergal,” Gregor said, his voice sharp enough to cut through the young man’s stupor. “Now.”
As Andrew scrambled away, Gregor turned back to the scene before him. The White Dragon and the wolf stood side by side, magnificent and impossible, and around them, the Dragon Council was erupting into chaos.
Gregor positioned himself between the newcomers and the crowd, one hand on his sidearm, his body angled to provide maximum coverage. He didn’t know these men. He didn’t know their intentions, their allegiances, or whether their claims would hold up under scrutiny. But he knew this: a white dragon had appeared, a wolf stood at his side, and the prophecy that Gregor had studied for decades was unfolding before his eyes.
He also knew that somewhere in this camp, the men who had murdered his king were watching, and whatever plans they’d made for this Council had just been blown apart by a dragon made of light. And most importantly, he knew that Fergal needed to see this. Because Fergal, with his law degree and his sharp mind and his fierce, stubborn belief in justice, was about to become the most important ally these two strangers could have.
He allowed himself a few beats to marvel at the impossible creature before him. Then the commander mask slid back into place, and Gregor went to work.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Duff lay flat and waited in a depression thirty meters from a tripwire he’d strung between two trees.
The Swedish wilderness was vast and brutal, a landscape of frozen tundra covered by the first snowfall and a silence so deep it pressed against his eardrums. He’d been here for three days in a cabin nearby, where he’d set up camp. When he’d woken up that morning, there had been a cream-colored envelope taped to his door. Whoever had delivered it had managed to evade the traps Duff had set.
He pushed down the deep, disturbing unease that thought triggered.
The Council has ended. Erwan Doyle is gone, but his wolf mate will be traveling by himself. We will force him in your direction. Be ready.
He was ready. Duff had laid his traps along the most likely escape routes, using terrain analysis and something else. Something he’d always called instinct but that felt differenthere, in the shadow of the Council, where the air hummed with magical energy. He’d stood in the forest selecting trap locations, and instead of calculating probabilities, he’d felt…a pull. A directional certainty that went beyond analysis. Not predicting where the wolf would run butsensingit. Maybe even willing it.
It was the Bás gift. It had to be. But here in the Swedish wilderness, surrounded by ancient landscape and with so many dragons nearby, the gift was louder than it had ever been. Stronger. As if the proximity to all that power was amplifying whatever lived inside him.
He pushed the thought aside and finalized the traps, then waited.
Night had fallen when he felt them—dragons were nearby. He hurried outside and sensed them before he saw them, three dragons moving fast and purposeful overhead, driving something through the forest below them. Then he felt something else. Another presence. That had to be the wolf, though Duff hadn’t expected to be able to sense him. Yet the pull in his chest was warm and insistent, like a compass needle swinging toward true north. The wolf was coming, and he was running hard, running scared, being herded toward Duff.
Just like the anonymous source had promised—three dragons driving prey toward the hunter’s trap like beaters flushing a grouse. Dragons sending a wolf shifter straight into the arms of a dragon slayer.
Why? What in the name of Saint Patrick and all the saints was going on?
But he’d have to wonder about that later. The dragons pushed the wolf south and west, away from open ground and into the dense forest where Duff’s tripwires waited. A massive gray wolf burst through the undergrowth, moving at full sprint, and Duff felt that strange pull intensify—not just tracking now but guiding, nudging, a subtle pressure emanating fromsomewhere behind his sternum that saidthis way, come this way, a little farther. The wolf veered left, exactly where Duff needed him to go, and hit the tripwire at full speed.
The trap yanked him upward, suspending him from a birch branch by one hind leg. The wolf snarled and thrashed, powerful jaws snapping at the air, his body swinging in furious arcs. Duff wasn’t stupid. There was no way in hell he could fight a wolf that size one-on-one and come out alive. No, he’d bide his time and let the animal wear himself down.
