The Surgere were certainly a sight to behold, Isla thought to herself as she stood on the front porch and looked out at the sea of tents before her. They’d arrived last night, three nights after her crew had gotten to the dragon realm.

It was funny that she thought of them as ‘her crew’. This group of people she’d never even met last week. Well, her life as she knew it was over, she supposed as she watched a few guard dragons fly a distant perimeter of the camp. Three dragon shifters sparred in their human forms, swords clanking and sparking in the morning light.

She supposed she wasn’t that bummed about her old life being a thing of the past. It hadn’t been much of a life. She never stayed anyplace long enough to forge any real connections.

And in the past few days, she’d already made some strong links. She glanced behind her at Mel and Lucy in the kitchen, going through the dance of feeding and clothing their children.

The strongest link was with Idris though, she couldn’t deny that. Didn’t want to. She thought of their last few days together. Learning about the dragon realm. Watching him learn to fly. To soar. Learning how to battle in the sky. All the conversations about battle strategy they all labored through.

And then she thought of their nights together. Insatiable, vulnerable, passionate. Isla leaned on a porch column and watched the dragons swoop through the sky. She knew Idris was up there, she could see the glint and sparkle of him, but the beauty of his scales was that he was almost invisible in the sky. It made him a formidable opponent.

She watched him. And had to admit the truth to herself. She’d never had sex like this. Never felt this way about somebody in the meantime. He was such an interesting mixture of attributes. As a lover and as a man. Patient and demanding. Passionate and stoic. Tender and rough. She never quite knew what to expect from him. Except for respect. Deep respect. She could expect that at every turn.

And that’s what made him the king. The true king. It wasn’t just genetics. It was his respect for the lives and decisions of others. She watched the dragons touch down across the field. Idris and Amos and O. The three of them shifted back to their human forms, sliding on the pants they’d stashed.

Her eyes were riveted to Idris as he moved through the group of people that basically swarmed him. Curious members of the Surgere, wanting nothing more than to see their new king. The one who would help free them from Dalyer.

The group parted naturally for him as he moved through the crowd. Shaking hands, talking with people. Hearing their stories.

It took a long time for him to move the few hundred feet back toward the house. Almost a half an hour. By the time he got to the porch, bounded up the stairs to her, his brow was furrowed, pulled tight.

“What is it?” she asked, kissing him. He melted into the kiss. Giving her that smoky flavor that she couldn’t get enough of. She feared she was becoming addicted to it.

“I’ll tell you inside. I want to talk to Solar,” he responded. He was getting better and better at freely giving her information, although he still bent heavily toward silence. Isla didn’t care. She liked him that way. All quiet and dignified.

They walked together into the dining room, which had become a kind of military home base. There, Donovan and Solar were leaning over a large map, pointing and gesturing.

Solar looked up as they walked in and Isla got just the tiniest shiver of appreciation down her spine. She was devoted to Idris and everything. But damn. Solar was hot. All scarred up and jacked and those eyes like damn. Solar nodded in acknowledgement of her, but his eyes went straight to Idris. The two men were polite. But they were definitely still circling one another. Sniffing the other one out.

Isla got the impression that Solar wasn’t sold on handing over the resistance to some guy who’d been a dragon for, like, a minute.

“We were talking strategy for dealing with the first line of Dalyer’s troops,” Solar said, his midnight blue eyes unwavering.

Idris walked over, took a place beside Donovan and leaned over the map. “Hmm.” His brow furrowed. “So you think that Dalyer is going to be pretty single minded, huh?”

“How do you figure?” Solar asked, his brow furrowing as well.

“Well,” Idris said, scratching at his stubble in the exact way his father currently was. “If I’m reading this diagram right, you think he’s going to try and draw most of our soldiers off over here. And then he’s going to come in here. Gunning for me.”

“It makes sense,” said a quiet voice behind Isla.

A pretty, soft-looking woman stepped silently into the room. She had a subtle beauty, her long hair like a wave of chocolate, and eyes the color of a good fog.

But Solar’s reaction to her wasn’t subtle at all. His eyes were on her like magnets. His body was tense, wired, until she crossed the room to stand under his arm. He turned his head into her hair. Took a pretty conspicuous smell of her. Isla’s eyes dropped to the woman’s middle and saw her round with a child. Solar’s hand immediately landed there.

“This is my wife, Zara,” he said with no shortage of pride. “This is Idris. And his mate, Isla.”

“Hello,” Zara said softly.

Idris caught Isla’s eyes. “Mate,” he mouthed to her and they both grinned. They were still getting used to living around a bunch of dragons who said stuff like that. She was glad to have him, somebody who thought a lot of this stuff was as crazy as she did. Even if he was technically one of them.

“What were you saying when you came in, Zara?” Isla asked.

“Oh. I was saying that Dalyer will be very determined to kill you, Idris.” Her eyes went foggy with some memory. “Pride is extremely important to him. The idea of someone being more fit to be king than him will have wounded it. He’ll want to wipe you from living memory if he can.”

“Can he?” Idris asked outright.

Solar understood the question for what it was. “He’s a vicious fighter. Brutal. Nothing to lose. He fights like life means nothing to him and it makes him strong. I haven’t seen you battle yet, Idris. But make no mistake. Dalyer will fight to the death for this one.”

Isla’s stomach felt like she’d just swallowed a bag of ice. God. That was pretty much the last thing she’d wanted to hear. She wanted them to say that Dalyer was getting older, less scary than he used to be. Not that much of an opponent. Not that Idris was in danger.

She cleared her throat. Trying to get the taste of fear out of her throat. “Idris, you said that you wanted to talk to Solar about something?”

“Right.” His eyes went dim. “I’ve been talking with your Surgere. Hearing their stories. All of them have been touched by Dalyer in some way or another. Everybody knows someone who has been murdered or enslaved by him.”

Solar nodded. “His ambition and cruelty know no bounds.”

Idris wiped a hand over his face, thought about the question he wanted to ask. “Is it like that across the realm? Has everyone been affected this way?”

“Yes,” Donovan was the one who answered the question. “Idris, this man has destroyed entire towns. Murdered. Pillaged. Taken any woman he wanted for his own.”

“In fact, he tried to take Lucy,” Zara said.

Isla felt her stomach drop away. “What?”

“Yes,” Zara nodded, her face serious. “He kidnapped her from the dragon realm to mate with her because O told him that she’d give him powerful offspring.”

“It was a trick,” Solar said, rubbing at his eyes in a rare show of fatigue. They’d traveled hundreds of miles across the realm to assemble alongside Idris. “O had seen that Amos would love Lucy. He hoped it would be enough to strip Dalyer of his best and truest body guard. Another way to make him a bit more defenseless. Any little bit counts.”

Isla was reminded that Solar and Amos had grown up together. As the leader of the revolution against the king and the king’s first bodyguard, they’d had to separate for a while. But she remembered their hug last night. Like long-lost brothers.

“I was one of his wives as well,” Zara said, a brief look of disgust coming over her face. “I was too young to mate with him, but not too young for him to have tortured me in a way. To chain me to his side.” She looked up at Idris. “Make no mistake, Idris. The man you’re destined to fight deserves to be slain.”

Idris was solemn, serious, reserved. Only Isla could have guessed that he had a churning mass of thoughts underneath his calm exterior. And she was only beginning to learn that.

“Show me how to fight him,” Idris said to Solar.

The men held one another’s eyes for a second. Both of them calculating, measuring the other one.

“Gladly,” Solar said, holding out his hand. “But I won’t go easy on you, Idris.”

“Yeah,” Idris said, taking Solar’s hand. “I’m counting on it.”

 

***

 

Felice winced as she watched one of her sons grip the other by the neck and send him flying through the air. The dragons battled high in the sky. They’d decided that the best way to teach Idris the finer points of aerial battle was to all beat the shit out of him 400 feet in the air.

“This is painful to watch,” Isla said from beside Felice, one eye peeking out from between her fingers.

“Probably more painful to experience,” Felice replied, attempting to remain stoic as she watched Solar slash his tail through the air, Idris barely rolling out of the way in time.

“No doubt,” Isla agreed. “This can’t be easy for you to see, as a mother.”

Felice turned to look at the girl. She’d kept the jury out on Isla for a few days. Not intentionally, it’s just who she was. Felice was someone who needed a little time to make up her mind about people. Especially ones who were currently burrowing themselves firmly into her son’s heart. And there was no question in Felice’s mind that that’s what was happening. Idris was falling hard for this girl. No. Strike that. He’d already fallen. Probably well before they’d even all come to the dragon realm.

“You know, part of me is still riding high on the joy of seeing them all in the same realm,” Felice replied at length. She watched as Donovan swan dove through the air to make sure that O was alright. He’d fallen about fifty feet. His wing was still healing and he was pushing it right now. But he’d wanted to help Idris train.

“God,” Isla said. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like, to let them go.” She cocked her head to one side, let her hair tumble over her shoulder. “Although, I definitely know what it’s like to kiss your old life, a good life, goodbye. And just have to get used to the new.”

“Sure,” Felice said. “You just had to do it not four days ago.”

Isla looked at Felice in confusion. Then understanding broke across her face. “Oh. No. That’s not what I mean. Shit. That was a major upgrade. That terrible shell of a life for this one? Best trade I ever made. Anonymity and a strip club for this gorgeous house and Idris? Can’t beat that.”

Felice smiled at that. Maybe Idris was burrowing himself into Isla’s heart as well.

“I meant when I had to flee from my old life in New York.”

“Ah,” Felice said, understanding, her eyes falling to the bruises on Isla’s neck that had started fading away. “You had a good life before you witnessed the murder.”

Isla shrugged. “Good enough. And then the next day, I had nothing. Not even my name.”

Isla ran her hand through her hair. “You know, I thought it was the perfect life, actually. Good car, nice apartment, hot boyfriend, always something to do or see in New York. But now I realize that it wasn’t worth much.” Isla’s eyes tracked Idris through the sky.

“My boy is showing you that.”

Isla looked over at Felice. “Yeah. He is. But you are, too.”

Felice cocked her head to one side.

“The way you and Donovan look at one another,” Isla clarified. “There’s a lot worth fighting for in that.”