Chapter 3

"I thoughtgrass didn't grow here." Gazing down at the threads of green stuck to my black boots, I squeezed Graham's hand. "Didn't you say that?"

"Further north, where I'm from, it doesn't," he said. "Maybe a few patches of green in the summer, but not like this."

"Interesting." I turned his way and gave a smile. "In respect to Earth, this is Greenland, right?"

"Aye, it is." Trailing his thumb over the back of mine, he pointed to the left with his other hand. "If you travel that way by dragon for a little more than half a day, you'll wind up in what we call Canada."

For whatever reason, that got me a little bit giddy. "And that's what you call the Open Lands, right?"

"You're catching on, mo stoirín." He smiled back, then let out a soft laugh. "Why is this so exciting for you?"

Because I had spent almost one hundred percent of my life in a small Minnesota town. "Why was it so exciting for you when you first came to Earth?"

"Because I was getting out of this gods' forsaken shit show."

That was fair, and I didn't want to invalidate his feelings. But I wasn't sure what to say. He was here again. He didn't want to be, and he was, for me, and for Warren, and for Ezra. There had been no arguing with him about it. He decided he was coming, and I was grateful for that.

I couldn't say I was grateful for the way this was affecting him, though.

So instead, I changed the topic. "Does everyone have a dragon here?"

"It's easier to ask how many dragons have people," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, if the Open Lands are only a day's flight, and you had a dragon, I'm just wondering why you came to Earth instead."

"Only a day's flight from here. Not from where I'm from. And that's counting on good weather." Approaching a small bridge to the courtyard Laila had instructed us to meet her at, Graham glanced over his shoulder to do a headcount. I did the same. And sure enough, everyone was here. Warren and Ezra were walking hand-in-hand, Jake was just behind them, and Connor and Naomi took the flank. "But to answer that question, things just weren't as simple back then."

"Because Iliantha now has trade deals with the Open Lands. And because of Laila and Jeremy, and the US government. Right?"

"That has helped with the famine here, sure," Graham said. "But no, I mean the old king. The one who ruled the Open Lands when I left. Alre was his name. A real prick. He didn't allow immigration. If you rode a dragon in, it would get shot down."

My stomach bubbled, and I held his hand a bit tighter. "Damn."

"Avery, though, she's a good queen. She allows people into her land. That's what Laila said, at least."

"How much longer?" Jake called behind us.

"I can hear the others now," Warren said with a glance over his shoulder. "Shouldn't be much further."

"Graham?" he asked.

"Aye, Warren's right." Graham turned back to Jake. "We're getting close."

"Good, because it feels like a lot longer than ten minutes."

Jake's presence didn't help.

That wasn't to say that I was unhappy with his return. He was my brother. I loved him. I'd missed him. I had mourned him.

I could say that was what made it so hard. That I mourned him for a decade, and he was never really gone. But that wasn't true.

The truth was that I didn't like him.

I was almost thirty years old. Mentally, Jake was still a teenager. He sure thought he was smarter than me, though.

For the decade or so that I had been an adult, I had been self-sufficient. Not in Jake's eyes. To Jake, I was a pathetic little girl dependent on her boyfriends. One of whom he blamed for his disappearance.

We all felt the resentment. He stared at Warren like he was shit on the bottom of his shoe. He didn't look at me much differently. Same went for Ezra.

He didn't like me being in a relationship, let alone with them. Throw polyamory into the mix, and he was all but gagging at dinner each night.

When he wasn't gagging, he was silent. Like he was now. Just along for the ride, ignoring those of us he didn't like with each step.

"You think he's ever going to stop doing that?" Graham asked, lowering his voice.

"Treating Warren like garbage?" I asked. "No, but it's getting old."

"I've tried to talk to him, but he's not having it." His voice was a whisper now. Undoubtedly, Ezra and Warren could still hear us, but if Graham thought this was too sensitive for the two of them to hear, he would've switched over to telepathy. "He acts like he had no fault in what happened. And I can sympathize with everything, but I was there too. I know Warren fucked up, but none of it would've happened to begin with, if not for Jake."

"Honestly?" Beyond the pine trees ahead, a cluster of people came into view. The group we were meeting, I assumed. It felt like we were approaching a bonfire, the strength of their energy pulsing with a life and heat of its own "As angry as I was at Warren when we first found out, now that I know the whole story, and now that Jake's okay, I don't really blame him at all. Like you said, he fucked up, but Jake's the one who tried to make a deal with the devil."

"And almost got us killed in the process," Graham said. "Now playing the victim? Yeah, it's annoying."

"Especially when you remember that we all almost died saving his ass."

"Aye, it's obnoxious." A deep breath. "But he's young."

While that was true, it felt like we were making excuses for him. Even back then, when all three of us were teenagers, Graham and I knew it was a bad idea. Graham and I had tried to convince him not to do it. But he was a little bit older. He was the one we looked to for guidance. He was the one we let be the alpha of our pack.

And it ruined all our lives. He may have been my big brother once, and I deferred to him then, but I wouldn't make that mistake again. The way I saw it, he was my little brother now. I had over a decade more life experience than he did.

Now, the others were only a few dozen strides ahead. It looked like the same group from earlier, minus a few people. Laila, Jeremy, Iliantha, and Luci were familiar. The others, about half a dozen people, I didn't recognize.

As we got closer, I called, "Are we still waiting for anyone?"

"Nope," Laila said. "Everyone else was just here for the vote. It's all on us from here."

"Hurry up so we can make the introductions," Jeremy said. "The dragons will be here any minute."

"We're gonna ride dragons?!" Pure childish glee shrieked from my mouth as I practically skipped toward them. Which may or may not have been a bit pathetic, but who wouldn't get excited about riding a dragon? "Please tell me we're going to ride some dragons."

"God, I love you," Laila said, laughing. "Yeah, we're riding dragons."

I didn't even attempt to hide my girlish squeal, nor my excited clap. Ezra appreciated it, joining in on the laugh and resting a hand on the small of my back. Even Luci and Jeremy chuckled, while Graham and Iliantha shook their heads and smiled

But the woman who stood closest to them clenched her jaw.

She was pretty, pale face decorated in tattoos that reminded me of Laila's. Curling vines spiraling down her neck, speckled with flowers of pink and white and purple. Her features were soft, much like every woman I had confronted on this world. Little button nose, heart-shaped face, small lips, pointy ears, and round cheeks, all framed by lilac hair. Despite her dainty appearance, there was a certain harshness to her violet eyes that I couldn't quite decipher.

Suffice it to say, she didn't seem so thrilled with my childish excitement.

"You all know us," Jeremy said, gesturing to the group before waving to the woman, "but I don't think you've met?—"

"Amara?" Graham said behind me.

His eyes were wide, full of joy. A smile I hadn't seen in months worked its way up his cheeks. The bag he'd held in his hand was on the grass now, clearly forgotten in his newfound joy.

The woman stepped closer, squinting, before making the exact same face that he did. "Graham fucking Wynson."

Laughing, teary-eyed, he bolted past me to her. She met him halfway. They embraced one another in the tightest hug. Hoisting her off the ground, he spun her in a circle. She howled with laughter.

And a little fire ignited in my belly.

I was the last person with the right to feel jealous, which I reminded myself of as they kissed one another's cheeks. If they knew each other from childhood, I was happy for Graham. For the longest time, Jake and I were his only friends. He probably went the last fifteen years thinking he would never see this woman again, and now they were reunited.

But that hug was lasting a while, and that fire burned brighter.

Laila must have seen the flames inside me herself, because she cleared her throat. "You guys know each other?"

Setting her down, smiling, Graham nodded. Still, he touched her face, holding her cheek in his hand. She did the same to him.

"Aye, we did," Graham said.

"Look at ye," she said in a thick accent. It was harsher than I ever remembered Graham's being, closer to Irish than his barely there Scottish. She smacked him in the chest. "Talking like a human."

Graham smacked her on the shoulder, laughing along. "Talking like an American."

"Ah, much better." Amara planted both hands on her hips. "Ye made it."

"I did." He gestured at her outfit, which was the first time I noticed she was wearing armor. In my defense, it didn't look much like armor. It took squinting to realize that the black fabric pants and sweatshirt twinkled obsidian in the sun, like the Elvan ore all over this realm. "Looks like you made it where you wanted to be too."

"Colonel of the northern army." She lifted her chin with pride. "Impressed, laddie?"

"Impressed, but not surprised. I always knew you'd get where you wanted to go."

"Honestly, I'd hoped you wouldn't," Amara said. "Then you would've had to stay here with me."

"And if I had, I wouldn't have met them." Graham turned our way, excitedly stretching out his hand for mine. I took it and let him pull me closer. "Amara, this is Rain. She and her brother took me in when I first got to Earth. We've been best friends ever since. A year or so ago, we became more than that."

I extended a hand. With a tight-lipped smile, she shook it. And with a hell of a lot of force. Her handshake reminded me of Warren's, strong and domineering.

"It's nice to meet you," I said.

"Mmm,"

"Oh, and this is her brother, Jake," Graham said, gesturing to him. Her smile was more natural when she shook Jake's hand. "He's practically my brother, too. Their family was far kinder to me than they had to be, and I can't imagine my life without them now.

"And this is Warren and Ezra." Graham gestured to the two of them next. "They're like family to me now too, but differently." He laughed. "They're Rain's other partners."

Brows raising, she glanced between them, then me. She let out an odd sound as she gave me a once over. "Wouldn't have guessed that."

I did my best to keep my expression neutral, but that was rude. Unless I had a big green monster sitting on my shoulder.

But no, upon reviewing the interaction in my mind, it still felt rude.

Tracing her tongue along her teeth, Laila looked at Amara, and then at me, and then back at Amara. "How do you guys know each other again?"

"Oh, we were neighbors," Graham said. "You came to Dinora when we were, what? Three or four?"

"Aye, something like that," Amara said. "Best friends all through our younger years. Until ye ran off, anyway."

"But it all worked out, didn't it?" Graham smiled a mile wide. "Here we are again."

Here we were, indeed.