Prince Damian Dragona leaned against the edge of a sturdy ash table in his private cabinet, watching as Raylea Louvet entered the well-appointed study, gazed upon the shelves full of books, and slowly made her way toward his post.

Her hair was like sun-drenched silk, flowing softly beyond her elegant, slender shoulders. Her dark, arresting eyes were like sparkling jewels, even as they were averted and cast to the side, and her simple dress, with its deep blue petticoat and midnight-black bodice, hugged her waist like a long-lost lover, clinging to each feminine curve in a desperate clutch, possessive fingers caressing virgin flesh…

Um…

Yes…

For a moment, Prince Damian forget his station…

Fortunately, and with indifference to his carnal dragon, Raylea’s anxiety brought it back, front and center: Every distinctive nuance in her body language reminded Prince Damian that the female’s thoughts were filled with hesitance, dread, and obvious discomfort—not passionate musings about the way her clothes melded to her body. In truth, the beautiful human, born in the commanlands’ village of Arns, despised the act of consuming dragons’ blood in order to stay healthy and youthful. It was a necessary evil as far as Raylea was concerned, and she only submitted to the vile feedings because her sister, Mina, insisted. Or at least that’s what she’d always contended.

Prince Damian knew better.

He knew Raylea’s secret...

The moment she finished consuming the primordial substance, Raylea would return to Arns, prick her finger, and slip droplets of her newly invigorated blood into her parents’ morning tea in an attempt to keep them strong and vital—it was something Soren and Margareta Louvet would have never agreed to, so Raylea did it surreptitiously.

She stopped several feet shy of the prince of Umbras and curtsied like a proper lady, and her fluid grace, her naked humility evoked a distant memory, one held by the original Prince Damian: the visage of a little girl standing in a Warlochian square, brave enough to approach her kingdom’s masters out of the desire to show them a doll. In so many ways, that little girl had never changed…

But in so many others, she had.

Raylea was a woman now: beautiful, strong, and smart. She had a musical laugh, a mild tongue, and the heart of a gentle dove.

And Damian had loved her deeply for three long decades.

“My prince.” She added the greeting to her curtsey.

“Raylea.” His voice was a bit too deep, too raw.

She shrugged an anxious shoulder. “Mina insists that I see you today, that I partake…that we… She says it has been too long.”

Ah, so she couldn’t even speak the words feed from your vein, Prince Damian considered. Nonetheless, he understood the deal, and he did not want to make the ritual any more taxing than it already was. Reaching into the side of his sash, he removed a thin, golden-handled dagger from a sheath and drew it across his wrist. Raylea gulped, her throat working in anxious undulations, but she managed to stay still…and silent. When she dropped to one knee and took his wrist in her hand, he wanted to curse like a mariner. He abhorred that nonsense, the way she kneeled before him like a peasant—but it was a show of etiquette, an act of reverence, a protocol that could not be overlooked. After all, he was the sovereign lord of Umbras, and she was a common maiden.

Custom abounded in the Realm.

Still, to Prince Damian Dragona—to the soul of Matthias Gentry—Raylea Louvet was nothing short of a goddess.

And as for her common origins?

He shared them.

As she sipped from his wrist and forced her throat to swallow a substance as foreign to a human as carrion was to a lamb, Damian glanced away. He stared at a portrait of a proud palfrey stallion on the cabinet wall: anything to avoid making Raylea more uncomfortable.

After several strained moments had passed, Raylea withdrew her soft, pliant lips from his arm and shuffled back sheepishly before slowly rising to her feet. She curtsied again. “Thank you, my prince.”

Damian called a thin blue stream of fire, blew it over his wrist to seal and repair the wound, and absently brushed an errant lock of Raylea’s hair behind her shoulder.

The female instantly stiffened.

She had a thin crimson smear along the corner of her mouth, and despite knowing better, he reached out to brush it away with the pad of his thumb.

She jerked back as if he had burned her, and her emotive brown eyes locked on his. “Milord,” she uttered in warning. “I…uh…thank you. I’ll take my leave.”

He reached out to grasp her by the arm, and by all the gods and goddesses of summer, his entire body shuddered. He had waited so long just to touch her…

“Prince Damian.” She stared at his hand in stark disapproval.

“Raylea, we need to talk.”

She gulped. “About what?”

His tone was breathy and ragged. “About Umbras. About the Realm. About the history of dragons and brothers. About you. About me. About us. There is so much I need to tell you.”

Raylea’s tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip, and she shifted nervously back and forth on the tips of her toes. “Prince Damian, have a care.” She smiled wanly. “Words are like arrows, as you understand. Once released, they cannot be recalled.” She struggled to regain her composure. “I saw Mina earlier, briefly. My sister looks well. I also saw my nephews, your sons, talking from a distance in the gardens. They looked very intent on their conversation—is something going on? Is there trouble in Umbras?” It was a carefully crafted diversion, Raylea’s tactful way of redirecting the conversation: yes, asking a pertinent question, but also giving the prince a graceful bridge on which to cross to a new and safer subject.

Something less inappropriate.

Prince Damian didn’t know where to begin.

His own courage was waning.

What if she pushed him away?

As it stood, she was going to great lengths to remind him of the castle’s relationships, of Damian’s obligations to Mina—and Mina’s sons. She was trying to restore decorum. “I need you to hear me out, Raylea,” he said softly. Once again, his hands had a mind of their own, as they rose to her elegant jaw and tenderly cupped her cheeks.

A look of pure terror flashed through her eyes, and she spun on her heels to duck beneath his arm and scurry away. He caught her by the waist, pulled her back against him, and nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck, his strong arms locking around her like a vise. “Please, wait.”

She gasped. “Prince Damian! What are you doing? Release me at once.”

Fire and brimstone, he had screwed this up. What was he? An adolescent boy, besieged by his hormones, unable to keep his hands—and his body—to himself? “Forgive me,” he rasped in her ear, still holding on, lest he lose her forever. “Forgive me, Raylea, and just listen.” He didn’t give her time to object. “The young princes are indeed having a serious conversation because they’ve recently learned the truth: the fact that Prince Dante Dragona is their father; the fact that he intends to succeed King Demitri as supreme lord of the Realm; the fact that I am not only their uncle, but that my soul is not as it seems.”

As her knees buckled beneath her, he caught her in his arms, strolled across the agitated space, and set her gently down on an embroidered turquoise divan. He knelt in front of her and clutched her hands. “Raylea, I have wanted to tell you for thirty-one years, but it was Prince Dante’s call—there was so much at stake. The boys had to come of age. The prophecy had to be fulfilled. Prince Dante had to be capable of shifting.”

“Stop.”

Her fingers went to his mouth, and she pressed them hard against his lips. Then she reached for her forehead and massaged her temples, her eyes brimming with tears. “Back up.” Silence lingered like a ghost in the room before she finally continued to speak. “Prince Dante is Ari’s father? He sired Azor and Asher as well?” The look on her face, the shock and confusion—the astonishment and disbelief—was almost as stark as the expression of pain. She appeared deeply, deeply hurt.

“Yes,” Damian whispered gently.

She covered her mouth with her hand.

“Raylea…” He tugged her palm away, needing to see the whole of her features.

“And Mina knows this?” she asked, her voice tinged with rising anger. She sat back, threw both hands in the air, and gestured in an angry arc. “What am I saying? Of course, Mina knows this!” She looked like a startled doe, cornered and ready to run, and then her eyes locked on his, her pupils staring daggers straight through him. “How long have you known?”

Damian fixed his gaze on a single thread in the shoulder of her bodice, unable to withstand her piercing glare. “I’ve always known.”

Once again, silence rose like a specter from a shallow grave and simply hovered in the air all around them. It permeated the cabinet like a thick, inky fog. She bit down on her lower lip. “I see.”

“No,” he quickly argued. “You do not see. Not yet.”

Her angry glare turned molten. “Prince Dante intends to challenge the king?”

“Yes, he does.”

“How? When? And to what ends—for what purpose?”

Damian fought to quiet his mind, to answer each question in order. “With the help of the generals and his sons, with the blessing of a prophecy. Sunday, at Asher’s birthday—”

“Stop!” she shouted again, this time clenching her hands into fists. “I don’t want to hear it, Prince Damian. I don’t care to know.” Despite her assertion, her curiosity was piqued beyond suppression—she squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “What…what did you mean by that comment: My soul is not as it seems? What the hell does that mean, my noble prince?”

Her body was visibly shaking, and Prince Damian cringed inside: My noble prince…such uncharacteristic satire…but then, they had lied to Raylea for decades.

All of them.

“Raylea.”

“No.” She drew her legs onto the divan and brought her knees up to her chest, uncaring that it wasn’t ladylike, and then she wrapped her arms around her knees as if to protect her core—her heart, her center, her very soul—from Damian’s presence. And then she gritted her teeth. “Just answer the question.”

The dragon sighed, feeling lost and ashamed. “My soul…Prince Damian’s soul…at the battle of Draco’s Cove, Prince Damian attacked your sister. She was already pregnant with Aurelio, and Damian intended to extract the fetus…by force. He assaulted her in the tent of Umbras, and he likely would have killed her, but Prince Dante arrived just in time. He drew his sword, and he murdered his brother. He slayed Prince Damian for Mina…for the Realm. He—”

Raylea Louvet screamed.

She jumped to her feet and danced on her toes, desperate to leap off the divan and flee. “No! No-no-no-no!” she warbled like a wild-woman, her eyes as wide as saucers. She stared at Damian like he was the Keeper of the Forgotten Realm himself, about to devour her soul. “You’re not dead! You’re alive! What the hell are you saying?” She pressed her palms to her ears.

Damian shot to his feet, grasped her hands in his fists, and pulled them away from her head. Desperate for Raylea to recognize his spirit’s voice, to hear the familiar lilt of her childhood friend, he strengthened his native brogue, the accent he had acquired as a child in Arns: “Raylea, it is I, Matthias—Matthias Gentry. You have known me all of your life. It is my soul that resides in this body, compliments of a warlock and a shade, compliments of Prince Dante Dragona doing what he must to protect your sister, to protect the Realm. And we did what we had to, all these years, to protect you as well. Please, Raylea…try to calm down. Try to see reason. Mina would have told you herself, but I insisted on being the one to do it.”

He grimaced, realizing the full breadth of his miscalculation. “I see that I was wrong. I see that I have hurt you. But can’t you see that I’m floundering here…drowning…dying before you?” He lowered his tone to a haunting inflection, stopping just short of lacing his words with compulsion. “I have been in love with you—and only you—since your sixteenth birthday, the day you became a woman in my eyes. I have watched Mina and Dante forge a strong, unbreakable bond and create a beautiful, loving family, whilst all the while, I sank into the shadows and raised another dragon’s sons. And all these years—all these long decades—I have watched you from afar, never taking a Blood Ahavi, never touching your sister, never seeking the solace of a stranger’s arms: dreaming only of the day that I could tell you the truth…that I could take you into my arms…that I could claim you as my own beloved mate. By all the gods, be angry if you must, but put the dagger of distrust away. You know me, Raylea. You have always known me, deep in your soul, and my heart is laid bare before you.”

Surprise.

Tenderness.

A glimmer of hope flashed through her eyes.

And then a slow, dark cloud of confusion and angst shrouded her features in waves.

It was as if her reasoning was shutting down, as if she were simply unable to hear, let alone comprehend, the naked truth right in front of her. “But…but Matthias is dead. He was murdered by King Demitri in the Great Hall of Castle Dragon, just before the war. I know this to be true. His father still grieves for his loss.”

Prince Damian wanted to throw back his head and howl.

He paced to the center of the cabinet, slammed his fist against the heavy table, and snarled in frustration, commanding his claws and his fangs to stay put. “Matthias was captured, brought to King Demitri, and executed by the same, that hideous afternoon when King Demitri slaughtered a host of bedraggled prisoners, including three Blood Ahavi. I was there, Raylea. I felt every mind-numbing bite, every unspeakable tear of the dragon’s claws. I felt my flesh flow down his serpent’s throat as he gorged like a madman, devoured like a demon—all to release his feral beast so that he might meet the Lycanian hordes on the shores of Dracos Cove.” He spun around in a serpentine motion, feeling more bestial than princely. “Only the story did not end there. His bite, his saliva, his feral feeding did not destroy Matthias’ body. King Demitri tendered the dragons’ kiss, without even knowing he was doing it, and Matthias—and I—came back to life as who I truly was—who I truly am: King Demitri’s bastard son.”

“King Demitri’s bastard son!” Raylea blurted, her face turning a sickly shade of green. “How…what…when? Matthias’ mother died in childbirth.”

Prince Damian nodded enthusiastically. “’Tis true, and the story is too long, too convoluted to tell in its entirety here and now. But suffice to say: Matthias’ mother—my mother—Penelope Fairfax was a Sklavos Ahavi who spent a fateful weekend with the king of Dragons Realm. Unconvinced of her origins and her sacred blood, he let her go, but she was already pregnant when she married my father.”

He angled his jaw to command her gaze, and his voice nearly trembled with conviction. “’Tis the gods’ honest truth, Raylea, and I swear on the grave of that female, the woman who died bringing me into this world, that I was also in the tent of Umbras that terrible day at Dracos Cove, that I tried to save your sister, and that Prince Damian wiped the floor with my carcass—he shredded my flesh like mere parchment until there was nothing left of me to salvage. And I swear on the grief of my father, Callum, that when Prince Dante found me—broken, ruined, and bloodied—he did the only thing he could, the only thing a true, wise, immortal dragon would: He acted to appease the king and protect the Realm. He made a singular, irrevocable, and impossible choice. He preserved Prince Damian’s body for Castle Umbras by replacing its host with my soul…with the soul of Matthias Gentry. And we were all sworn to secrecy until Dante came of age.” He scrubbed his face with his hands and sighed wearily, reaching for something—anything—more he might use to convince her. “Raylea—my sweet, beautiful friend—when you were seven years old, you fell into a riverbed, just beyond the bend of Arrow’s Creek, and you cut your foot on a jagged rock. You concealed the wound from your mother because you didn’t want Margareta to know you had spent the morning searching for butterflies instead of doing your chores, and the wound became infected. You almost died from fever.”

Raylea floundered, her eyes darting this way and that, as if searching for a plausible explanation, some way to reconcile the story Prince Damian had just shared with her. “I…I… My parents could have told you that story during one of their many visits.”

Prince Damian nodded, and then he grew quiet, searching for something else. “When you made that doll for your sister, you asked me to go into town and trade your only two silk ribbons for the buttons you used for her eyes. You never told your parents that you sold your ribbons, because they had given them to you as a gift. No one knew this secret but Matthias.”

Raylea blanched.

“I have all Matthias’ memories, Raylea—all my memories. I have all the knowledge, skills, and learning of Callum’s son and Demitri’s progeny. I am both beings in every way but one. Go back in your mind to that afternoon in the Warlochian square, the day you met Prince Damian Dragona—the day you looked into his cold, dead eyes—and consider the soulless dragon who placed a curved stiletto to your throat. Then tell me the dragon you have known all these years is the same soul. Tell me you did not feel the difference. Tell me you haven’t always known the truth in your heart. Tell me, and I will leave you be.”

Raylea blinked several times as if coming out of a trance, and then her eyes opened wide with wonder, a telltale glimmer of undeniable truth. She stared absently around the cabinet, looking suddenly awake, yet lost. “Matthias…” She tasted the word on her tongue. “Then…then Mina will go to live with Prince Dante in Warlochia, and what will become of Cassidy and Dario?” She furrowed her brows in consternation. “What will become of you and my nephews?”

It was all so overwhelming—too overwhelming—far too much to take in at once, and Prince Damian felt like he had failed. By all the Spirit Keepers, he should have let Mina do this.

He had been so blunt…and selfish.

He had been so stupid…and inept.

He had been so wrong about her feelings…

For him.

And then, before he could answer her string of queries, she posed another, far more intimate question, and her voice warbled softly. “Then you will finally be given a Sklavos Ahavi of your own?” She averted her eyes, glancing at the floor. “You are free to have sons for the Realm.”

Prince Damian closed his eyes. “I cannot.” He felt his jaw tighten like a clamp, closing in on his sharpening teeth, and he struggled to release the tension. “I will not.” He allowed the words to linger for the space of several heartbeats. “I have only ever loved one woman.” He opened his eyes, and his shoulders sagged in defeat.

And then, to his utter surprise, the corners of her perfect, beautiful mouth turned up in the semblance of a grin, although the mirth didn’t quite reach her eyes. “If you are Matthias Gentry, then you were once engaged to my sister, Mina.” She looked away and sighed. “And you both loved each other as children, as youths. How is that so different?”

Prince Damian nodded. “I would never deny the truth of those words, or the strength of my connection to Mina.” He caught her elusive gaze and held it—commanded it—like his life depended upon the connection. “But, sweet Raylea, if you only knew.”

She bit her bottom lip and spoke in a voice so faint, he had to use his dragon’s supernatural hearing to decipher the syllables. “If I only knew what?”

“The difference,” he said, without preamble. “The difference between a young boy’s crush and the fire that burns within an immortal dragon’s soul. The difference between the pride of obligation and a passion that gnaws at the gut as an unquenchable hunger. The difference between wanting a future with a childhood friend from Arns and desiring a goddess so deeply—so desperately—that you can scarcely breathe in her presence. That it hurts you to even look upon her.”

Raylea folded her hands in her lap and studied her crisscrossed fingers. “I thought I was crazy,” she whispered guiltily. Her dark brown eyes grew russet: paling, softening, illuminating with affection. “I thought I was the most sinful woman in all the territories, and the most undeserving sister…” She chuckled softly, and her eyes filled with tears. “I thought the gods were punishing me. That maybe I was meant to die in Syrileus Cain’s cabin, and I had somehow offended the deities, tampered with their will.”

Prince Damian crossed the room in three long strides, knelt once again before Raylea, and just like before, took her hands in his. Only this time, he kissed the backs of her knuckles, one at a time. “Are you saying what I think? What I hope…what I’ve prayed for?”

She nodded slowly, drawing a shallow breath. “The day after Ari was born, I traveled to Castle Umbras to meet my firstborn nephew, and you met me in the foyer. Do you remember?”

He smiled broadly, relishing the memory. “I do.”

“You laughed at something I said”—she waved her hand in a wistful gesture—“I don’t remember what it was, but that brogue, the way you gesticulated with your hands, the way you tilted your head…just so…while contemplating a question, the way you softly furrowed your brow when measuring your words, I thought to myself, Blessed Mother of Mercy, if I closed my eyes, I would be standing here with Matthias Gentry. And then my heart curled inward and calcified to stone because I also knew something else in that moment—something I recognized clearly, but could never speak aloud.”

Prince Damian held his breath, his heart thundering in his immortal chest.

“I knew that I had fallen in love with the prince of Umbras—my sister’s consort—and that it wasn’t a passing fancy. I knew that I would love only one man until the day I died, and I could never…ever…have him.”

Prince Damian felt the rush of his blood sweep through his veins like a river: wild, urgent, and rising with fever. It pulsed, it teemed with power, and it swelled to overflowing. “You have me, Raylea. You have always had me.”

Her stunning eyes misted with tears.

“Can you ever forgive me?” he whispered. “For keeping so much from you?”

“I don’t know,” she snorted, and then she added playfully, “It may not be easy.” A cheeky smile crept along the corners of her sweet mouth, and Prince Damian’s heart leaped in his chest. “Great Lords, can you Dragonas pull off a deception,” she added.

He chuckled softly. “Well, there is that…but if we get beyond it, will you have me, Raylea?”

She shrugged, pressed her forefinger to her lips, and teased him just a bit further, perhaps to punish him, perhaps to drive him mad with desire. “I don’t know. Your blood is positively ghastly. I can’t believe I’ve been forced to drink it all these years.”

As if the sun had just set on his shoulders and imbued him with warm, glowing light, he chuckled without restraint. “Then it’s a good thing I am going to make you immortal, so you will no longer have to drink it.”

Her eyes grew wide, and she shivered. And then a shadow crossed her features, dimming her expression, and as quickly as the sun had risen, all traces of humor were eclipsed. “I can never give you a son, Matthias. I am not a Sklavos Ahavi.”

He stiffened, raised his chin in a defiant, noble cast, and spoke to the humble female as her sovereign prince. “As the ruling lord of the Court of Umbras, I require your obedience in these three matters—they are commands, not requests—and you may not refuse me.”

Caught off guard, she visibly shuddered.

“First, don’t ever speak my human name again. We have broken every rule imaginable this day, and we are most certainly playing with fire. I am Prince Damian Dragona, lord of Castle Umbras, and I have integrated both personas. I will be Prince Damian for the rest of my life, and that is how you must always address me…come to know me…as all of who I am. And second, don’t ever mention having children again: the fact that you are not Ahavi. I have four nephews: Dario, Ari, Azor, and Asher…” He sighed then, realizing there was still more he needed to tell her, but he could do it later—he would do it later. “And they are more than enough to assuage my heart. I have no desire to procreate for the Realm, and I would trade a thousand sons for what I desire most in all the world…you, Raylea Louvet.”

She gasped, and her breathlessness was punctuated with a shiver. “That was only two, milord.”

He raised his brows and chuckled.

“The third command,” she prodded tentatively.

He smiled like the ancient predator he had become, allowing his father’s power, Prince Damian’s prowess, and Matthias’ passion to merge into one. “Ah, yes, the third command.” His eyes swept over her graceful form in unapologetic appreciation as he worshiped the slope of her graceful neck, the rise of her full, tantalizing breasts, and the curve of her feminine hips. And then he flicked his wrist toward the cabinet door, and the latch that secured the panel fell shut. He breathed a wisp of fire above her head, and three iron sconces, affixed to the wall, alighted with dancing flames. The curtains fell shut, shrouding the windows, and he emitted a low, feral growl.

“Remove your bodice,” he snarled.

She started, placing a palm over her heart. “That is not an ethical command, my prince.”

The harder she breathed, the deeper her chest rose and fell, until the dragon’s fangs slid down from the roof of his mouth. “No,” he purred, feeling primitive and wild, “it is not. And yet, it remains my command.” He rose like the tide ascending from the restless sea, and stalked toward Raylea with such feline grace that she shuddered and took a cautious step back. “Your prince has spoken,” he murmured deviously. She reached for the top clasp of her bodice, grasped it with a trembling hand, and fumbled awkwardly with the hook, even as Prince Damian pulled the leather thong from his golden, wheat-colored hair and shook out his mane to curtain her innocence.

He dipped his head to her throat, inhaled the scent of her blood, and grazed her jugular with the points of his canines.

He groaned, and she arched her back.

He drew her closer, folding her beneath him.

And then he dipped his head lower and drew a line with his tongue, from the base of her throat to the swell of her breasts, tracing each sensuous mound with the tip of his tongue. Releasing his claws, he began to sever the offending buttons—the stubborn, unyielding clasps of Raylea’s bodice—one by one, slowly moving downward. “Mine,” he growled as the first three clasps fell away.

She tunneled her hand in his hair, and he groaned like the bestial creature he was.

“Mine,” he repeated, lapping at her flesh as the fourth fallen clasp exposed a soft, rosy nipple.

He traced and laved and suckled, drawing her deep into the warm, smoky cavern of his mouth until the peak drew taut, her fingers curled in his hair, and her thigh rose to his waist to embrace him. “Mine!” He roared the word one final time, the sound reverberating against her chest in triumph, and then he swept her into his arms, carried her once more to the waiting divan, and laid her out like a feast at Summer Solstice, beneath him.

As his body blanketed hers…

Raylea.

Raylea.

Raylea!

His at last…

He absently offered a prayer of homage to the gods: an utterance of gratitude to King Demitri for giving his dragon life; an expression of appreciation for Thomas the squire because he’d recognized the conversion for what it was; and an eternal promise of devotion to Prince Dante Dragona for having the foresight to make this moment possible.

And then he worshipped at the only temple that had ever mattered…

The shrine of the glorious goddess before him.