“I have found a nest of dragon hunters. What are your orders?” I read the note and squinted at it. Dragon hunters?

With a flick of my hand, the paper disappeared, incinerated in an instant. We had use of the human gadgets that came our way at times, but we didn’t need cell phone towers and Wi-Fi to communicate. We used pieces of paper because they could be destroyed instantly, couldn’t be retrieved later, and weren’t as vulnerable to interception as so-called digital communications were. Sometimes the old ways were better.

I considered the words and decided that it was a matter my father would want to know about, though I scoffed at it. Dragon hunters? Even if they were really the fabled female hellions from our past, their blood would be so diluted by now that they probably didn’t even know what they were.

I pulled out the earphones in my ears and hid them in my clothes. My father hated human gadgets, which was another reason we didn’t use them. He’d really hate it if he knew I wasn’t listening to our music, but old honky-tonk country from the era the humans called the 1980s. It was one of the many things I kept hidden from my father. I liked a broad range of music, but I always tended to wander back to the Americans and their twangy songs about drinking and heartbreak. Something about it appealed to me.

I ducked through the doorway of my room and walked through the sandstone walls of the castles, headed for my father’s day chambers. He wouldn’t be in the throne room, that was only used on special occasions. I soon arrived at the room and pushed through a herd of men standing around and murmuring unhappily. They sounded like a bunch of old chickens, clucking over a new hen’s first egg, that were afraid of being turned into dinner.

“Malcolm, have you received the news?” My father, a few inches taller than me, had black hair rather than my blond, but I knew exactly where my eyes came from. Cold as steel, his gray eyes saw me before I’d even managed to get three feet into the door.

“What news is that, Father?” I asked, stepping up to the wide writing desk where my father sat, every inch the king in his domain.

From his hard jaw to his cold eyes and strong hands, my father was the king. One day, I’d be the one to take his place, but that would be centuries from now. My father was only 336, after all, still a young dragon.

“This rumor about dragon hunters. Did you know about this little enclave in the New World?” My father was a lot like Mary, both refused to see America as a land as old as ours. My father’s reasons were different from Mary’s though. He considered the magical world of the original inhabitants of that land to be younger because they weren’t “discovered” until Europeans came to intrude on them. Hence, the new world.

“I’ve only just had a note about it, Father. What are your wishes?” I studied him, wondering how he’d deal with this threat.

“Kill them all.” My father stared directly into my eyes as he spoke, leaving little room for argument. “Their blood is impure by now, so there should be no fight left in them. Kill every last one of them, before they accidentally breed a real hunter.”

My father wasn’t always a ruthless man, but when it came to threats to our way of life, to our people, he could be the most dangerous being on earth. I tilted my head in acknowledgment of his words and made to leave. Father stopped me, however.

“Every one of them, Malcolm. Even their whelps.” His eyes drilled into me again and I felt it, almost like a blow.

“Yes, Father.” He said it like he hadn’t just ordered me to kill living, breathing humans. I’d have more blood on my hands just for him.

I was a soldier, the head of his security force, blood did not frighten me, but I sometimes wondered if there would ever come a time when all of that blood would haunt me. It wasn’t so bad when it was the nasty little trolls that liked to set fire to the houses on the outskirts of our town, but humans had a pitiful death scream that sometimes made my gut twist. Even when that scream was only a sigh of breath, it still sounded like a scream to me.

This wasn’t going to be a fun little raid that ended with drinking and sex, it was going to be one that ended with me staring into flames until the screams stopped playing in my head.

I saw my brothers and only sister waiting on me as I left the room, their gear already in bags on their backs. I wanted Mary to stay home, she didn’t need to have this on her heart, but I saw the set of her jaw and knew she’d argue.

“I want to go too, Mal,” she started in right away. “You can’t turn me away. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“That might be so, Mary,” I started wearily, this wasn’t a new argument. “But you are Father’s only daughter, and that means you should be here, preparing to be married off to some king far away.”

“I’m not that kind of girl, Mal. You know that.” She met my eyes steadily and I knew she was right. She was as tough and useful as our brothers. I could use her level-headed observation skills on this task.

“Fine. You stay with me, though.” I glared at her until I saw her cave and back down a little.

We were all dressed in the black leather uniform of the security team, so we went out to the flight pad to begin our journey. One by one we all shifted, matching black dragons with red markings. Mary was the largest, oddly enough, a feat I think she accomplished through sheer will, just to show us up. She was even larger than Tristan, the only member of our team not one of my siblings.

He wasn’t as tall as my two brothers, but he dwarfed Mary. He was as handsome as the rest of us, but that wasn’t why I’d chosen him. He was good at what he did, blond hair and blue eyes be damned. Henry was the second son, only a couple of months younger than me. Irish twins, I suppose. He had Father’s black hair and our mother’s green eyes. Aleric, the youngest of us all, was the odd one out, with blond hair and the blue eyes of our paternal grandfather. Otherwise, he was the spitting image of our father too.

We’d all shifted to our dragon forms—Tristan black with green tints, rather than our black and red—and took flight. We flew in a v-pattern until we were close. My brother Aleric acted as navigator by flying in the midpoint of the v, leading us all. He was the youngest at twenty-nine, but his navigational skills were inherent. He could find the most remote place in the world just by glancing at a map and taking off. He must have been given directions before we left.

I saw Aleric begin to shrink as he flew to a place that was familiar to me. This was the area the wolf had run to a few days before. The place that had drawn me, but I hadn’t come back yet to explore what might have caught my attention. I’d been far too busy to come back. Was that what it was, some intuition that had picked up the scent of a huntress?

We all followed his lead and reduced our size. We could shift down to smaller sizes, and larger, but we all had a maximum size and it always amused me that Mary was larger than all of us. Female dragons were usually smaller, more delicately boned than us men. Mary showed us all up.

Aleric flew down to a tall pine tree and we all found a branch to settle on. We were no bigger than crows now, though still in dragon form. Any human eyes that saw us would merely see a flock of birds. A murder, I think it’s called, a group of crows. Apt considering what we were there to do.

I saw a home through the trees but didn’t sense anything immediately, so flew to another tree further up the mountain. I paused as the others joined me on an outcrop of rock. I couldn’t make out much through the trees, but something was buzzing in my head, the further up the mountain I flew. I had an excellent memory and knew this was the mountain with the house on it.

I took flight once more, my long tail trailing out behind me. I followed the buzzing as it grew inside of my ears, an odd sensation of joy but irritation making my eyes roll. What was this? I had felt something the last time, but nothing quite like this. I kept flying in that direction, wondering if this was a built-in warning system. We were hunting dragon hunters, perhaps this was an ancient, inherent sense coming to life.

Whatever it was, it was about to drive me to distraction. I had to stop as we came near the house, the buzzing was just too much. I looked at the others and saw there were only curious stares. Why had I stopped again? Their silent question hung in the air.

I hissed a sound that translated to “wait” to them. I put my dragon hands on my head, knowing it wouldn’t help. What was this noise? I was on the verge of screaming as the buzzing continued to get more powerful, but then it stopped, just as I heard the others around me hiss all at once.

I looked up, relieved that it was over, confused as to what had happened, but curious. Why had they all given off a warning hiss?

I saw a woman coming from the house, small and human, but just the sight of her made my blood surge in my veins. I could smell her, even from this distance, and knew what that smell meant. Sweet, alluring, and intoxicating. This was my mate.

She walked out of the house, off the porch, and into the trees close to where we perched. The others were shifting on their perches, tracking her movements. She’d caught their attention for some reason. I knew why she’d caught mine, she was my mate. I knew it as well as I knew what hunger felt like.

She was ill, her body growing weak without me near her, but she wasn’t beyond saving yet. It was an attribute of the mating phenomenon when our mates were not shifters, the weaker human would die if they did not find their mate. We shifters, protected by our strength, would only weaken after we’d physically mated if we were ever separated. I’d always wondered if I’d find my mate.

It didn’t always happen. Sometimes shifters gave up and married, especially if they felt like they were in love. Being mated was far different to mere love. It was a bond that was almost physical, though invisible, and went far deeper than love. Mates were for life, and she was mine.

I felt desire surge through my body, followed by anger when a wolf launched itself from the woods and onto the woman, knocking her over. The woman screamed and fell to her knees before the wolf knocked her to the ground by pouncing on her back. I flew down, like an arrow loosed from a bow, and pushed the wolf away.

Chaos took over from there, I heard snarls as my team flew down from the trees, shouts from the frightened woman, and a few loud curses as two more wolves came from the trees to defend their pack mate. I squared off with the one that had attacked the woman, letting my size increase until the wolf knew it was beaten and cowered on the ground.

I stared him down, my anger urging me to tear his throat out, but I knew we needed answers. Smoke billowed from the tip of my nose and the wolf whimpered, knowing he could be blasted into infinity in a moment.

“Why are you attacking this human?” I demanded once I’d shifted into my human form. My team did the same, the three wolves now all low to the ground in submission.

I glanced over to see the woman on the ground, her eyes round and huge in her face. She was safe for now, and by the look on her face, too stunned to move. Besides, I knew where she lived if she ran off. I could tell her strength was coming back already, my presence gave her the gift of healing, but she was still too weak to run far.

I turned back to the wolf, my eyebrow crooked at him. “Well? Why are you attacking humans? You know it is forbidden. They can turn, and that endangers us all. Not all humans are capable of keeping our world hidden.”

“We need mates that can breed, Mal! The number of women in our pack is dwindling.” He’d shifted to answer me, but he shut up when one of his pack nipped his leg. “It’s no use, George. It’s happening all over the shifter world, keeping it secret isn’t an option anymore. There are fewer women, and even fewer that can breed successfully.”

“More of this. Right, team, you know what to do with them. At least this one here.” I pointed at the one that had attacked the woman. “As for the other two, technically we did not see them commit a crime, but it will be up to Father to decide what to do with them. They were planning to help him and Father is the ultimate decider in our world.”

I gave the wolf a pointed look and I knew he understood when his shoulders sagged. His clan might have a leader, but my father ruled above even that leader. The wolf would pay the price for breaking our ultimate law and he knew it.

That’s when he shifted and pounced at her again, his claws going out to swipe at her leg.