Cyrene stretched her arms out and yawned exaggeratedly. Light filtered in through the window, and she peeked one eye open in protest. She was so tired. Every part of her body hurt. Sleep was her new best friend.

She yawned again, kicking her foot diagonally across her bed when she encountered a body. She squeaked and sharply sat up. She wasn’t in her bed, and she had woken up next to someone else.

Creator! How tired was I?

She glanced down at her figure and saw that she was still in the Eos dress she had worn to the party, but it was rumpled and a disaster after the hours of it being soaking wet and then her sleeping on it. She glanced over at the body with rumpled light brown hair—almost blond in the early morning light—a five o’clock shadow against a strong jawline, and the bare back of a very handsome and sleeping Dean Ellison.

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight, and she scooted a little further away from him. How did I end up in his bed? The last thing she remembered was Dean running his fingers through her hair on the couch. Not good. She had been so out of it that he had transferred her into his bedroom without her even waking up.

Then, her head snapped to the side as realization hit her. “What time is it?”

Dean’s head popped up, and he looked over at her with a crooked grin on his face. “Good morning,” he breathed.

Her heart melted a little bit more at those words. Creator, he is attractive and distracting, and I’m late!

“I’m late! I was supposed to be at the docks at dawn!”

Cyrene jumped out of bed and rushed for the door. Dean followed after her. He grabbed her hand before she reached the door.

“Let me go! I have somewhere to be. I’m late!”

“Do you really want to be seen running out of my bedchambers in the morning in the clothes you wore to the party?” he asked.

His hands slid down her arms, and she shivered.

No. No, I do not want that. She shook her head.

“Come on. Go this way.”

Dean shrugged on a shirt, and she couldn’t help but stare at the rippled muscles before they disappeared from view. She was not sad to see him put a shirt on. Definitely not. She was late…not thinking about how defined his chest was. Okay, she definitely was thinking about that.

Dean took her through a back passageway that led her through a much quieter section of the palace and dropped her off right at the corridor where her rooms were.

“Thank you,” she said.

She threw her arms around his neck without thinking about it, and he dipped his head down to kiss her. Her breath caught in the early morning. She was seriously reconsidering this leaving thing. She had woken up in his bed after all…and he was making it very hard to walk away.

“I have to go,” she said regretfully. “I’m late.”

“I start security procedures soon. I won’t be around as much,” he told her.

“I know you’ll find me,” she said with a smile before dashing to her room.

She changed as quickly as she could before practically flying down to the docks. Matilde, Vera, and Avoca were standing around a gondola, looking less than pleased, to say the least.

Cyrene was out of breath when she reached them. “My deepest apologies. I don’t know how I didn’t wake up. I’m never late,” she insisted.

“You weren’t in your room,” Avoca accused.

“Um…”

“And your face is bright red.”

“I just ran here!” Cyrene cried.

“What were you doing out all night? You were supposed to be sleeping!”

“I was. I just woke up.”

“No one knew where you were,” Avoca chided. “So, where were you?”

Cyrene looked to Matilde and Vera for backup, but they seemed perfectly fine with Avoca’s methods. “Dean’s, but—”

“Cyrene!”

“It wasn’t anything bad. I just slept!”

“If anyone had seen you though—”

“Well, no one saw me. Can we go now?” Cyrene asked.

“Yes,” Vera said. “I think that is a good idea.”

“Agreed,” Matilde said. “As long as you are here at the right time tomorrow morning, I don’t care who you’re sleeping with.”

Cyrene put her hands over her eyes and grumbled under her breath. Today was off to a bad start after waking up in Dean’s bedchamber.

The worst part was that, in her haste, she hadn’t had time to eat, and by the time they made it to the island to train, she was starving and knew today’s work would only increase her hunger. She placed her hand on her stomach as she took a seat next to Avoca in the sand. Today was going to be a long day. But when Matilde and Vera began to speak, she put all thoughts of her grumbling stomach out of her mind. This was why she was here in Eleysia after all.

“We’ll begin where we left off,” Matilde said. “But, this time, instead of Cyrene picking up the water and moving it by herself, we want you two to link and move it together.”

“Ideally,” Vera said, “all of your magic should be able to flow seamlessly, individually and together, so that when you’re linked, using your powers in tandem will be like breathing. I want you to each grasp your powers and then reach out for the other. Since one of you is Leif and the other is Doma, the magic will feel a little different, but that is perfectly normal. When you touch, you should actually be able to see what the other person is doing. Give it a try.”

Cyrene took a breath and pulled her magic to herself. It came to her so easily this time. She and Avoca reached for each other at the same time. It felt comforting like touching her hand.

She prodded Avoca’s magic, as if it were a separate entity from herself, but then, with a sigh, it seemed to wrap around her. They had done this before in their Bound ceremony, but Cyrene hadn’t known what it was at the time. And it felt amazing. So much more strength and power, and from Avoca’s end…control. Years of practiced control. It gave Cyrene a sense of calm and understanding. They were better as a team than she could ever be alone.

“I didn’t know this was possible,” Avoca breathed in surprise.

“Good,” Vera said. “Now, begin.”

With Avoca’s guidance, they moved on from droplets to moving buckets of water to feeling the wave of the ocean on the beach. It was so much easier with her, but when they weren’t linked, Cyrene still had trouble with the control. She knew that she shouldn’t use Avoca’s control as a crutch, but it was undeniably easier with her assistance.

Matilde stood up and paced at the tenth time when Cyrene couldn’t move water from one bucket to the next without being linked to Avoca. “There’s something else!” she cried.

“Kathrine, sit,” Vera said.

“Something is wrong. You can feel it, too. I know you can.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” Cyrene said.

“But something is holding you back. I can’t place my finger on it.”

Vera sighed. “Cyrene, when you were Bound to Avoca, how was the ceremony performed?”

Cyrene explained what had happened with everything, except the specifics between their visions.

“And Shira used powers to bind you at the end?” Vera confirmed.

“Yes,” Avoca and Cyrene said in unison.

“This might seem strange, but…you haven’t been Bound to anyone before this, have you?”

Cyrene opened her mouth to immediately contradict that statement, but then images of her Rose Garden test back in Byern came to her mind. “I…I’m not sure.”

Matilde’s head snapped to her. “What do you mean?”

She chewed on her lip and looked away. She knew it was ridiculous to hide Byern secrets from them, but the thought of telling them about what had occurred was horrifying. It made her stomach knot up and her body tense. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about this. She had given the Byern royalty her word that she would never speak about this.

“Are you all right?” Vera asked.

Avoca reached out and touched her head. “You’re all clammy.”

Cyrene took a deep breath and then forced the words out, “When you become an Affiliate, you go through a loyalty ceremony called the Rose Garden ceremony. It is similar to what happened with Avoca, but magic couldn’t have happened in Byern. It doesn’t exist in Byern.”

Matilde and Vera looked at each other in horror. There was a moment of stunned silence before everyone began speaking at once.

“How could you never mention this?” Avoca asked.

“What happened in the ceremony?” Vera asked.

“Those Dremylons! I can’t believe they would do this,” Matilde spat.

“Slow down!” Cyrene cried. “I didn’t realize how important this was. I had to declare my loyalty to Byern by drinking out of a vial. I had…visions, and at the end, they told me not to speak of it to anyone.”

“At the end, was any kind of magic used? Did you feel anything out of the ordinary? Anything at all?” Matilde pressed.

Cyrene thought back and realized it with a shock. “A jolt. I felt this electric pulse go through me. I didn’t know what it was at the time—”

“Gods,” Matilde murmured.

“What does that mean?” Avoca asked shakily.

“It means,” Vera said, “that Byern has been binding people to them…to the country and the land and the entire Dremylon line.”

“I thought only people with magic could be Bound,” Avoca said quickly.

“So did I,” Matilde said. “But it explains so much. These are just done to Affiliates and High Order?”

“Yes,” Cyrene confirmed.

“Somehow, the Dremylons have figured out how to get around the laws of magical nature, and in binding people to the country and the line, they are forcing these people to work in Byern’s interests. It starts with the conditioning and is solidified with the Bound ceremony.”

Cyrene swallowed. “No. That can’t be it. I’m here. I went against the wishes of the Dremylons and Byern. I used my powers and escaped. I’m here!” She didn’t want to believe that to be the truth. It would mean so much more of her life was a lie.

“Have you felt drawn to go back home? A need to return? An unnatural need for either of the Dremylon boys?” Vera asked clinically.

Cyrene looked down and swallowed. “Um…yes. But it’s been diminishing since I started using my powers.”

Matilde and Vera looked at each other and seemed to come to a resigned conclusion.

“Sit,” Matilde ordered. “We’ll tell you a story.”

“Once upon a time,” Vera said with a sad smile, “we were much like you. Young and ambitious. We traveled all the way from Eleysia to Byern to join the Doma. Matilde’s powers manifested when she was extremely young, and mine showed up just before I turned seventeen.”

“We passed the ritual like your Presenting and were temporarily placed with a Doma because we had shown…exceptional skills,” Matilde continued. “We were shipped out of Byern and went deep into the frozen tundra in the Haevan Mountains. We had never been in cold before. It was devastating.”

Vera cleared her throat. “Details, sister. We were to be trained with a select group of Doma and Leifs. It was tough work. Harder than we’d ever thought possible, and at the end of it…we were Bound.”

Avoca leaned forward with her mouth agape. “You’re not saying…”

Vera smiled. “I think Avoca knows of what we speak. We were part of an ancient group called The Society. Some called us Dragon Bound.”

Cyrene’s mouth dropped. “Dragons?”

“Yes,” Matilde confirmed. “Dragons have exceptionally long life spans. Longer even than most Leifs. And, after the fall of the Doma, our dragons were not welcome anymore in Emporia. They fled our world, but as long as they live…so do we, which is how we have survived these last two thousand years.”

“Why didn’t you leave with them?” Avoca asked.

“The curse,” Vera said.

“Curse?” Cyrene asked.

Vera nodded. “Magic has been contained within Emporia for all these years. In an attempt to rid the world of our kind, we were trapped at the end of the War of the Light, so Viktor Dremylon and his army could hunt us down and kill us. Rid the world of magic. There were so few Doma left, and where the most magical blood still existed—Byern—any potential Doma were killed before they could reach safety.”

Cyrene shook her head in horror. “How am I alive?”

“We have to assume, the strength of your powers,” Matilde said. “And your determination to get away. I cannot think your desire for adventure is a coincidence.”

“So, as you see”—Vera revealed her wrist, and Matilde stretched hers out as well. As with Cyrene and Avoca, they had shimmery gold tattoos that appeared bright as they ran their fingers over them—“our bond has diminished with distance and time from our Bound mate, but it is still there. It is entirely possible that the connection you feel to Byern and anything in Byern is drawing from your strength as it tries to pull you back.”

“That’s…horrible. And I did it unwillingly.”

“No,” Matilde corrected. “No one can be Bound unwillingly. You might have done it without knowledge of the consequences, but it had to be done willingly.”

How naive she had been to think that all she could ever want in life was to be an Affiliate, to be tied to her homeland. She certainly hadn’t been able to grasp the full realm of what that ceremony meant at the time, and now, somehow, she was Bound for life.

“Can I…remove it?” Cyrene asked hopefully.

Matilde and Vera sighed and exchanged worried glances.

“I’m afraid that is outside our area of expertise,” Vera said. “If there’s a way to break a binding, we haven’t found one.”

Matilde gave her a long level look. “And, believe us…we’ve tried.”