Prologue

Magnus

I wasn't a kind person by any stretch of the imagination, but when blood magic suddenly ripped me from the fae realm to the human world, what little decency I had left tore from my soul in a fiery blaze of agony that would never extinguish.

It's been three months since that night. Three months of hell, trying to understand not only what had happened to get me here, but also to adjust to a world so different I was tempted to burn it all to ash.

Humans were nothing but trouble. Fragile little creatures who mistakenly believed they were the superior race. Something had to be done about them.

I growled in protest.

That was the dragon half of me talking, and we did not see eye to eye. But ever since he'd gained the upper hand, his opinion mattered the most. Moments like this, where I could tell the difference between the man and the dragon, were becoming far and few between. I bristled at that idea. This feeling of not being in control was a new experience and I hated it.

I wanted my life back and it pissed me off.

But then again, everything seemed to piss me off lately. Especially this modern world that made it extremely difficult for me to hide my dragon. Another thing to scoff at. Who the hell thought hiding was a good idea?

My newfound brother, who assumed he was better than me when we were more similar than either of us wanted to admit, that's who. Half of my anger came from dealing with him.

We were supposedly born as three. Triplets. All dragons. One was gone. Lost to the past. The other might as well have been dead for as useful as he was. And then there was me. The unwanted bastard left behind by his own mother.

However, the true rage came from the man I called Uncle, and my current inability to exact revenge on him for everything he'd done to me my entire life.

That one left a relentless ache that would never go away.

It wasn't until I was thrust into this world, and his spell ripped away, that I truly understood the extent of his depravity. The magic he'd wielded against me was far more sinister than I'd known. When I thought about the things I'd done for him without full autonomy...

The blood. The carnage. The pain. I'd caused them all. In his name and my own. Bile rose in my throat. Maybe I would have chosen that path anyways. There was never any doubt the dragon had taken some pleasure. But now we'd never know.

All I had left were the cries of the dead to keep me company at night…

I shook my head and forced those memories away. If the screams kept me awake, it was only the burning need for revenge that kept me half sane. However, until I figured out how to get my dragon and human halves balanced, there would be no doing anything .

I couldn't keep going on like this, either.

Every time the dragon went on a rage, he wanted blood. And it threatened my sanity and every living soul around me.

The only cure I could see would be to exact my revenge. But first, I needed to find a way back home. The portal I'd come through wasn't going to let me go back. I had to find another way. But this world lacked in the kind of powerful magic I was accustomed to.

The dragon could pull what he needed for everyday life from the rich earth beneath our feet, but the kind of power it would take to return to the fae realm had eluded me.

Until now.