Chapter 1

Kit

Splinters fly everywhere. Massive talons and red scales tear violently through the small shelter protecting us from the mountain's blizzard. One of my mates grabs me, tossing me clear of the onslaught as the roof and walls, our safety, all explode in a shower of broken branches and scattered pine needles.

I land in a pile of snow. The freezing particles sting my face, and the chilling wind immediately assaults my skin and my sensitive scales. I'm not human anymore, but my dragon nature is not a shield—it's a magnifying glass that amplifies each sensation a hundred fold.

I scramble to my feet, my boots sinking into the snow. My forearm comes up to protect my face against the howling wind.

Tavias, Cyril, and Hauck form a protective circle around me, their swords out and magic crackling over their skin. Ahead of them, Quinton shoves someone forward at sword point.

The dragon who'd crashed into our shelter lets out a roar and raises its wings. Or tries to. As my senses finally adjust to the harsh elements and my mind starts to process the scene, I realize that the dragon's scales aren't truly red. At least they didn't used to be.

"He's hurt," I shout over the wind. He is screaming, struggling to move as blood pours from his wounds. One of his wings is clearly broken. The other is torn. He hadn't attacked us, he'd fallen from the sky. I rush toward him. "We need to help him."

"Don't touch him!" A chorus of voices rings out at once.

They are too many to belong to my males alone. I turn.

Quinton is hauling Leesandra forward, a sword at her throat. She is pale except for her flaming hair and pink, cold-bitten skin. Three of the four dragons in Lee's pack trail on either side of Quinton. They are weaponless, their hands raised into the air. Two of the brothers watch Quinton's every breath, their scales quivering each time Lee's breath brings her throat closer to Quinton's blade. But the third, the pack leader who I think is named Darren, stumbles toward me, his palms shoving the air in a desperate halting motion.

"Don't go near Sethis!" Darren shouts at me over the wind. "He's hurt. Badly. He'll attack."

I hesitate.

"See, even the prisoners have more sense than you do," Cyril says into my ear. He has gotten a cloak from somewhere and now lays it over my shoulders.

Turning away from the injured dragon for the moment, I focus on the other unfolding disaster—that of my mate trying to kill my friend. Cyril curls a hand around my hip and presses me back against his hard body. I'm not sure if he's protecting me from Lee's pack or from myself.

"Quinton," I shout, pulling the hood up to cover my face before the others can get a look at the scales now climbing my temples or the newly elongated points of my ears. "That's Lee. Let her go."

Quinton keeps his blade in place and twists Lee to face Darren. "Why are you here?"

"We mean no ill will." Darren still has his hands up, his palms placating. "We…" the tips of his scales color in shame, but he raises his face into the howling wind. "We've come to seek aid."

"What manner of aid?" Quinton demands. Lee shivers with cold but he gives her no quarter.

"We were attacked." Darren must shout to be heard above the wind. "Sethis was too greatly injured to stay in the air. We... we had nowhere else to go."

"I told Lee she'd be welcome here," I say quickly, wriggling out of Cyril's hold. Through the newly forged mating bond, I can feel my mates vibrating with an instinct to protect. An instinct that's bordering on homicidal. No, not bordering. We are far beyond borders. Darren and the others are a threat to my secret, and that has my mates a hair's breadth from violence. "I told her how to find our camp."

"And she's found it," says Quinton. "Mission accomplished. Now she dies."

"No, she doesn't." I stalk toward where Quinton holds Lee. Her eyes are wide above her freckles, her fear a coppery tang coating my tongue. "Lee is my friend, Quinton. And this pack helped us in the last trial. Take a bloody breath and think beyond the overprotective male thing."

Quinton's lip rises in a snarl.

I cross my arms.

My mates remember. I know they do. They just don't care right now. Not with the rawness of the mating bond.

"No one is eviscerating anyone," I say with all the authority I can muster. "Or beheading them. Or anything of the sort. Seriously. Quinton. Let Lee go."

I walk even closer to them.

"Kit," Cyril shouts. "Stop. You know?—"

I do know. Another few steps and even Lee's human eyes will see who I truly am now. But what's the alternative? If we turn Lee's pack away, they are going to die. I don't want to lose them. Not Lee, and not her males either.

I hold my hands out toward Lee. "Hello."

Lee's freckled face shifts toward me, relief flashing over her features. Then she sees it. Her gaze widens, a choked scream escaping her lips. Right.

I step back but let the wind whip the hood from my face.

"You…" Lee's words catch in her throat. She leans away from me. Toward Quinton. The one who has a blade at her neck.

I freeze, my scales pressing tightly against my skin as if trying to disappear. I… Well, I hadn't expected that. Hurt prickles my chest. I run my fingers over the tops of my pointed ears, the ones that I thought were beautiful. Maybe I was wrong about that. Wrong about the reception I'd get.

"It's still me," I tell Lee.

She swallows.

Darren turns to face me slowly. His back straightens as he takes me in, his eyes meeting mine for a long heartbeat. Then, with no warning, Darren drops to one knee in the snow.

"My queen." He says, his voice ringing strong and clear as his head bows, one palm pressing flat into the cold earth.

I jerk. "What?"

"My queen." Darren's pack brother, Rand, a beautiful male with long chestnut hair and dark eyes, drops to one knee in the snow. Only a heartbeat passes before the third dragon does the same.

"My queen."

What in the ever loving stars? "You aren't… I'm not." I don't know where to start with this. "I'm not anyone's queen."

There is a hand on my shoulder as Cyril comes to stand beside me. Hauck comes up on the other side. Tavias stays where he is, positioned between me and Sethis, but I feel his approval trickling through our bond. "Technically, you are," Cyril murmurs into my ear. "You are the only dame alive. You are a queen by definition."

"That's not how definitions work. I'm as much a dragon queen as you are a human princess."

Darren's lips press together. Despite still being down on one knee with his head bowed, I can tell he is fighting a laugh. Bloody dragons and their bloody hearing. Not their, I correct myself with a swallowed groan, our.

"How about you all stand and we talk about all this like intelligent beings?" I say.

No one moves. Likely because Quinton still has his sword out and is holding onto Lee.

"Oh for star's sake, Quinton."

"They are easier to kill kneeling." He says. He's serious. He is bloody serious.

"You aren't killing my friend or her pack."

He raises a brow.

I twist toward my pack males. Anger, primal and ancient rises inside me, spilling into my veins. I've had enough death. Enough playing to the tune the priests have set for us. With my memories newly woken, I can feel the burn of my mother's sacrifice scorching my soul. She gave up everything to give me a chance. To give the dragons a chance. And we aren't going to start this day by doing the priests' bidding for them.

"You will not kill them." The words come from my throat, but they are filled with an immortal's strength. Above us, thunder cracks amidst the rumbling hail and lightning crashes over the gray sky. "We came to the trials to hold the throne. To protect Massa'eve and the human lands. Killing allies is not how we get there."

Tavias walks to me. Magic crackles over his scales and skin, just as—I realize with a shock—it does over mine.

"We will not kill allies, wildcat," he says. Unlike my shouting, his voice is calm and confident. A general on a battlefield. "If they truly are allies. If their words and salutes aren't a deception." He turns toward Darren. "How about it, Darren of Gwayn? Will you swear to your intentions?"

"I will," Darren says without hesitation. Or surprise.

Tavias walks to him, extending his sword toward Darren's throat.

Darren does not flinch. Instead, he runs his palm over the edge of the sharp blade, and lets his blood drip onto the wet snow. "I swear by blood that I mean no harm to you, your pack or your mate, Prince Tavias," Darren says.

Tavias nods and withdraws his sword.

"Wait." Darren says. "I wasn't done." He turns toward me, and pumps his cut hand until a thin trickle of blood streams to the snow. His chin rises and a trickle of magic stirs around his palm. "From horizon's edge to world's end," he intones, "by my breath and my bone, I am yours to command."

A whisp, like a tendril of living fog, rises from Darren's spilt blood and trickles through the air. It brushes over me with the softness of a butterfly wing, yet I feel it settle deep in my bones.

Cyril inhales sharply and Tavias jerks his gaze back to Darren, his brows rising. Even Quinton steps back, dropping his sword.

Hauck looks as confused as I am.

"Those are ancient words," Cyril says. "And ancient magic."

"My family is of an ancient line," Darren replies to Cyril before addressing me again. "That is a dragon's fealty oath, my queen," he explains. "Once made, it cannot be broken."

Oh stars. "You… You really shouldn't have done that," I stammer. "I'm not whoever you think I am—I can't be, because I don't even know who I am. I didn't even know I was a dragon until today." I'm rambling. I know I am.

"But, I do know who you are," says Darren. He seems a great deal more confident in this whole mess than I am. "From distant lands, mortal strays," he says, reciting the prophecy the dragons have held to for so long.

"With locks of white and air that plays.

Thus rises one that's strong and true, who'll conjure life her soul imbued.

Her spirit fierce, her power vast, her fate entwined with dragons' past.

Their numbers scarce, their hopes forlorn, for generations hatchlings mourn.

Until the dragons forge a bond, a unity that grows beyond.

With only her shall dragons find, a future thriving and entwined."

As Darren finishes, his two brothers kneel beside him and draw their palms over Tavias's blade. They give the same oath Darren had. My mind spins. Before I can find words however, there is a sound behind me. A mix of a pained roar and whimper.

Sethis's dragon is stretching his head toward me, his nostrils puffing warm air that turns to steam in the chill.

My queen. A voice that I know belongs to the injured dragon sounds in my mind, before the dragon's strength gives out and his head drops back to the snow. My… queen.