The dream began as it always did with the moment Luc realized his father was a coward.

“What are you doing?” barked Beelzebub at Asmoneus, his mate.

She whirled and hid Lucifer with her frame, not an easy feat given how gaunt she’d become—the once thickset woman now little more than skin and bones. “I’m doing nothing.”

“Will you compound the matter with lies? Have we fallen so low?” Beelzebub asked.

His mother sneered, her lip curled high over her teeth, pride hinting through the grime and despair coating her skin. “We are held prisoner because of our own naivety. We cannot fall any lower.”

“Remember our history lest we fall prey to the sins of our ancestors. Their lies and deceit led to—”

She interrupted. “Led to us being prisoners in our own dungeon.” She swept a hand and gestured to the stone block walls, dark and cold. The barred door through which they received sparse sustenance.

“Unlike our ancestors, we remained firm in our beliefs.”

“How can you not see it? We were cowards,” his mother spat. “Our ancestors are turning over in their graves, ashamed of our cowardice. We should have fought.”

Beelzebub folded his hands in his sleeves, a male who’d once appeared larger than life to a little boy. Now…Luc had nothing but disdain for the man who’d let his people down. And continued to betray them. “Violence is not the answer.”

“Neither is starving. Or allowing ourselves to be taken without protest.”

“By fighting, we are no better than the suzerain and her people.”

“People! They are not people. They are dragon mages, ousted from their world for crimes against their kind. Criminals! And you allowed them free rein.”

“They were banished like we were. Over time, I’d hoped they would adopt our ways.”

“Yet, instead, they chose to study the forbidden texts and then used them against us. We gave them the keys to our destruction.”

At the time, Luc didn’t completely understand what his mother meant. But he did later on. Understood that the dark magic they’d harbored was ultimately their death knell.

“Perhaps we should have destroyed the ancient books.”

“What we needed to do was fight,” his mother exclaimed, pacing the cell, the tattered length of her robe swaying with every step. “By fighting, maybe we would have had a chance! Perhaps our son could have had a future.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You’ve said enough and done even less.” Asmoneus held herself tall, her bearing regal despite the rags she wore. “You asked what I was doing. Giving my son, our son, my portion of food.”

“Asmo, you mustn’t. You’ll starve.” Father appeared stricken.

But his mother didn’t care. Luc had never seen her so angry. “What if I do starve? What of it? I am old, Bez. My time in this world is almost done. His, though…” She cast a fond look at Luc, a youngling who’d yet to see any stubble on his jaw. “He might still have a chance if he can escape.”

“Escape to where?” His father spread his hands. “There is nowhere to go on this plane where she won’t find him.”

“There are other worlds.”

“We both know the suzerain has drained the life from all the portals. There is no escape.”

His mother remained undaunted by Father’s excuses. “For now. The alignment of the original world approaches.”

“We are forbidden on that plane.”

“I care not what people long dead decreed,” his mother spat. “We are dying, Bez. How many of us are left?”

Too few at that point. They no longer had the numbers to fight even if they wanted to.

“Perhaps it is for the best.”

The scary part was that his father truly believed they deserved to die. Deserved to have the suzerain sweep in while they slept and imprison them all. Then slowly suck the life from each and every one of them until only a few were left.

She’d kept him and Father and Mother alive the longest. Voadicia needed the knowledge in his parents’ heads because, despite centuries of learning, she knew there were still secrets to be discovered. But eventually, hunger won out.

The day she’d come for Father, Mother had tried to intervene. She’d beat on the corpulent guards with her fists, to no avail, while Father did nothing.

Beelzebub held out his hands to be shackled and said, “I go in peace. Fare thee well, my mate. Fare thee well, my son. We shall meet again if the fates decree it.”

And then Father was gone, leaving Mother to sob and call him a fool. Leaving a young man to wonder how long before he was next.

It was a while… The suzerain was determined to stretch her last meals. But, eventually, they came for his mother.

She didn’t go quietly. She cursed and kicked and screamed. Despite having never transformed because of their laws, in a fit of desperation, she managed to let the beast out.

The horns on her forehead emerged, stubby and black. Her teeth turned razor-sharp. The mighty wings at her back unfurled as she attacked.

She took the guards by surprise, especially since she was the first of their kind to finally fight back. To say “no!” to fate.

Lucifer ran to aid his mother, his fists pummeling at the guards’ thick girth.

One of them, Maedoc, grabbed Luc then lifted him and held him in front of his mother, a knife at his neck. “Enough,” he said softly. “Don’t make me kill the boy.”

Mother stilled. Her black lips peeled back to bare her teeth as she hissed, “Don’t you dare hurt him.”

“If you want to save him, then you will come with us quietly.”

“Why? So you can kill him tomorrow or the next day?” She sneered, a mighty expression full of disdain. “Perhaps it would be best if you killed him now rather than allow Voadicia to suck him dry.”

“You would really stand by and watch as he bleeds?” The tip of the knife pricked, and yet Luc wasn’t afraid. Death was but a new beginning.

“Don’t hurt him.” Mother shrank back into herself, naked and dirty, her body thin, every bony nuance showing through the skin.

“What will you give us if we shield your son from harm?”

“Anything.”

“Anything?” Maedoc leaned forward and whispered something to her. She blanched but nodded. Maedoc demanded, “Swear by the magic.”

Luc hadn’t understood at the time; only later did he realize the bargain she’d made.

She hugged him one last time and whispered words that he barely understood through his grief. But later, replayed.

Mother placed her arms behind her back as they tethered her in chains. She held his gaze and said, “You must be brave, Lucifer. Remember what I said.”

He remembered. How could he forget?

“You are the last of our branch. You are descended from the original Shining One. The only remaining heir to the King of Fierce Countenance. It is up to you to carry on the family name. But not the new traditions. Not this perversion of who we’ve become.” His mother whispered the words his father would have called treason. “I call upon you to avenge our people. To throw off the shackles that bind us. To spill the blood of our enemies and regain control of our world.”

What world?

Once his mother had left, it was just him. For years. Because Voadicia forgot he existed, or perhaps his jailors had lied. It didn’t matter. Luc survived alone in that cell for a long time. Subsisting on the water that eked out from a crack in the foundation. By feasting on the flesh of the rodents that had escaped the fate of everything else.

In solitude, he exercised to become strong. Practiced the magic his mother had taught him in secret. Sometimes, even exchanging that knowledge for outside treats when his captors made their rare visits.

He’d fully expected to die in that cell, failing to keep the promise he’d made to his mother. The magic keeping him bound within those walls was stronger than one demon alone could fight.

The failure burned bitter like the acid the rodents spat when he stepped on their tails before wringing their necks. What also burned was the fact that he owed his freedom to Maedoc and Eogan. The pair who’d kept him alive, had also set him free in the end.

When the door swung open, at first, he’d thought it a jest. A trick, surely.

Yet when they didn’t return, Luc stepped out of his cell. A prison he’d lived in since not long after his conception. He might have rejoiced, except what was there to celebrate?

The mighty castle loomed dark and silent around him. Dusty. Empty. A ghost of what it once was.

He exited the citadel, his step jaunty and excited, only to stagger to a stop as he stared.

The world his mother had described loomed dead all around. The trees but barren husks. The ground dusty. Not a speck of color to be seen. The lushness of their world killed by the dragons that had siphoned every ounce of life from the land.

Luc had never had the chance to see true living color. He’d had to rely on pictures in books. On the vivid recollections of the old ones—who became the first victims to feed Voadicia and her insatiable hunger.

Father was right. There is nothing for me here.

Maedoc and Eogan had freed him to rule over a wasteland. All that remained was the bitter taste and smell of defeat.

But it didn’t have to be the end. Luc didn’t have to be his father and go meekly to his fate. He wanted to be like his mother and fight.

With that goal in mind, despite his inexperience, he followed the tracks of the ones who’d set him free. Followed them to an ancient portal created by those who’d lived in Hell before his people. Large stone arches engraved and tingling with ancient magic. Doorways to other dimensions.

He wasn’t sure he could activate the doorway. It probably involved some intricate ceremony or fancy words.

I can’t escape.

The defeatism in that sentiment froze him. Would he truly walk away without trying? Let doubt guide his hand?

All his life, he’d waited for a chance, an opportunity to do something. That chance had arrived.

If the dragons could use the portals, then surely he could, as well.

Placing his hand on the stone dais, the cool flow of magic surprised him. He’d not done anything to activate it, and yet the portal reacted, coming alive and powering up.

He snatched his hand away and stared.

The archway turned dark then lightened to become a misty gray. The doorway to a new future. The catch? Once he stepped through…there was no guarantee he could return.

I should wait. Explore. Find supplies. Books. All things that would take time. He stared at the oddly opaque surface of the portal. A doorway out of here.

What if he delayed and the door shut? What if the alignment of the worlds changed? What if he missed his chance?

Then I die here. Alone. Last of my kind. Perhaps that was for the best.

That was a thought Father would have. He aspired to being more like his mother. Shoulders back. Show no fear.

Inhaling deeply, he took a last look at his world.

His dead world.

He wouldn’t dishonor his mother and his ancestors by staying here to die, too.

It’s up to me now to rebuild what was lost.

It wasn’t fear that coursed through his veins as he took the needed steps through the portal, but anticipation.

Finally, he was doing something other than merely surviving.

He was—

Dying!

Lucifer choked as he emerged through the portal into a new land and breathed fresh air for the first time.

The sweetness brought tears to his eyes. The purity dropped him to his knees with weakness. He bowed his head as he finally understood exactly what had been taken from him.

Everything.

Standing on the parapet of the crumbling castle that his ancestors had once owned, he surveyed the land he’d come to. Lush. Green. Alive…

Mine. The dragons had taken everything in his world. It seemed only fair that he return the favor.

Soon, you will know my name. You will fear it.

My name is Lucifer, the last of the Shining Ones. And this world is about to become mine.

Mine.

Mine.

The word chanted itself over and over and—

Someone replied!

“Considering we barely know each other, declaring I’m yours seems a bit premature, but what the heck. You can be mine, too.”

His eyes shot open as his vivid dream—a replay of the past—shattered, and he beheld the woman atop him.

A woman in his room. “How did you escape your cell?” he barked. Because he’d locked the dragon with the yellow curls away himself. Then asked Alfred to find a chain so that he might also tether the bars to prevent her escape should she know how to use the magic box with the symbols on it.

Her lips curved. “Alfred let me out.”

The traitor.

“And you came to kill me?” he snarled.

“Not exactly. Is this your way of saying I am squishing you?” She looked chagrinned and bit her lower lip. She adjusted her weight, in that she lifted herself from his body and went to move away.

But he liked her weight atop him.

His hands shot out from under the blankets and tethered themselves to her waist. “Where are you going?”

“You said I was killing you. I didn’t mean to crush you. Then again, you’d think I’d know by now that I’m not exactly dainty. But you were thrashing in your sleep, and I was worried you were having some kind of a fit, which is why I hopped on top—”

“You’re not heavy.”

The simple truth halted her flood of words and brought a bright smile to her face. It also brought a massive erection. Surely, the blanket would hide its presence.

“I’m glad you’re awake.” She squirmed atop him, exacerbating his turgid state. “I wanted to thank you for taking care of me during my little mishap in the bar.”

“You destroyed the place.” He’d found it rather fascinating that such a beautiful woman could mete out violence while smiling.

“Yeah.” Her cheeks pinked. “I am sorry about that. I don’t hold my alcohol very well.”

“Then why drink?”

“I don’t. Usually. My bestie played a prank.”

“Her prank burned down a tavern, caused injury, and resulted in me failing in my mission to acquire coitus.” Although, he failed to mention that, other than the lack of sex, he’d rather enjoyed the other parts.

“About that… You really shouldn’t go around having sex with strangers.”

“I knew her name.” Kind of. Beth. Or was it Meth? She’d said something along those lines.

“Which reminds me, we were never properly introduced. I’m Elspeth, but the king calls me Elsie.” She sat up straighter on him, applying pressure to his groin as she held out a hand.

He sucked in a breath. Had she done it on purpose? “I don’t care about your name.”

“Is it because you don’t want to have sex with me?” Her smile faded for a moment. “That’s okay. I have a reputation, so it’s probably for the best.”

“A reputation for what?”

“Being a little rough.”

“And the problem with that is?”

The brilliance of her smile returned, blinding him. “I wish more men had your attitude and were tough like you.” She bounced, and this time, he did groan. “Oh, dear. Did that hurt?”

Was it possible to hurt in a good way? Obviously, the answer was yes, given he’d like her to bounce some more. But he needed to look past the enjoyment to her true purpose.

Don’t forget what she is.

“Why are you here?” Other than for the obvious: torture.

“Well, I couldn’t exactly leave without saying thank you.”

“Who said you could leave? Return to your cell at once. You are supposed to be my prisoner.”

“Return to that icky stable?” Her nose wrinkled. “But your bed is so much more comfortable. Can’t you hold me prisoner here?”

She flopped beside him. Then wormed under the covers.

“This behavior is unseemly.” Even he knew that.

“Is this because you haven’t introduced yourself yet? Because I keep waiting for you to say, ‘hi, my name is…’” she prompted.

“My name is none of your business.”

“Do you prefer me to use None when addressing you? Or Business?”

“Are you for real?”

“I get asked that a lot, which is weird because I don’t think I look fake. Do I feel fake?” Under the covers, she grabbed his hand and tugged it over to rest just above her breast.

If he slid it down just a little, he could cup it. What would she say if he removed her shirt and kissed it? And…

What am I thinking? She’s a dragon.

His cock didn’t care. He throbbed. Every inch of him ached. Even his gums.

What was wrong with him?

Or maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was her. She must be poisoning him somehow with irrational logic and desire.

Now to figure out why he liked it. He leaned toward her. She didn’t recoil.

“Why are you really here?”

“I thought I was here to say goodbye, but now I realize that perhaps I should just stick around on account of the view being quite nice.” She stared at his face as she wound herself around him.

He preferred her on top. So he put her there, grabbing her around the waist and tugging her back where she belonged.

“Stay.” A command and plea in one.

“It would be rude for me to run off.” She gave a grind of her hips against his, a sensual and sexual thing.

“Manners are important.” Their eyes locked as their lower bodies moved. Subtle pressure. A tingling enjoyment.

She dipped lower, her lips barely brushing his. Stealing his breath.

Stealing my soul!

Get away! Luc rolled out of the bed and stood alongside it, confronting her.

“You tried to kill me!”

On hands and knees, she pursed her lips. “I resent that. You are perfectly intact. No broken bones. Obviously conscious, as well.”

“Only because I saw through your plan.”

“My plan to cock-block myself.” For a moment, her lips turned down then, as if jolted, they slammed up into a smile. “Good thing I’ve got a fresh pack of batteries at home.”

He didn’t know what batteries did, or what cock-blocking had to do with it, but he did know one thing.

“Your gown. It’s quite splendid.”

“Thank you.” She peeked down at her dress. “Custom-made because I don’t have a common figure.”

“I could use a good tailor.”

“I’ll dig up his number.”

As he opened his mouth to say thank you, he realized what she’d done.

She’d lowered his defenses with her pleasant demeanor. She’d removed his common sense with her physical body. Her womanly attire with its shockingly short hem seemed much more attractive to him than those in the form-fitting tights they mockingly called pants.

“Stop what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” She blinked long lashes at him.

He almost reached out to tug her close. He flattened his lips instead. “It won’t work. I know what you are. What you plan.” He stood tall as he confronted her.

“I guess I’m not very subtle about it. I just can’t hide my fascination with you. And it’s unseemly. A male obviously prefers to chase the woman. Not vice versa. But it’s your fault for being so intriguing. Did you know you’re in my dreams?”

She dreamt of him? Almost, she caught him in her spell. He shook it off. “You can’t confuse me with your words.”

“I don’t suppose you can translate them for me? Because even I get lost. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m trying to sabotage the ending.”

The statement made little sense. “What ending?”

“The happy one.”

“Happiness is but a myth.” That might have been spoken with a touch of cynicism.

“Happiness is sometimes hard to find; however, it does exist.”

“Not for me.” The words slipped out. He clamped his lips tight.

“You still have a chance. To be happy.”

“You’re right. I almost did. Last night, until you interrupted.”

He noticed her eyes glow, turning almost milky, as she growled, “That was necessary for a happy ending.”

“So you claim, and yet I am the one left unsatisfied.” A bold claim, and yet something about her frankness called him to speak openly.

“I’d satisfy.”

He kept his hands over his erection in hopes that she wouldn’t notice. “You wish to bed me?”

“More than you can imagine. However, I should warn you. I’ve been known to get a little rough when enthusiastic.”

His nostrils flared. “You’ve touched others?” For some reason, the very idea offended him.

“I’m not as innocent as I look.”

She didn’t look innocent at all. The dress she wore molded to her upper body, outlining her womanly shape. She had left the bed to stand in front of him, close enough that the fabric of her skirt touched his sleep bottoms. A few inches taller than her meant his dropped gaze was perfectly aligned with hers.

Her lips a mere breath away.

I could kiss her. He shouldn’t. What of his revenge? His promise?

She’s the enemy.

She was touching. Igniting him. His passion flared, and when she pulled away, he almost roared in loss. Almost yelled at her to return. He wasn’t done.

His eyes blazed as he huffed hotly.

Elspeth stroked fingers down his face. “Holy smoking brisket barbecued with sauce, you have horns!”