For all their immense strength and protective instincts, each of my Blood had a vulnerable side. Mehen didn’t allow any weakness to show. In his mind, hopes and dreams and hurt feelings were only weaknesses that he refused to admit to anyone, certainly himself. He might be the biggest, oldest dragon in history, but he was still shaken at having a new Blood make an appearance. Even if he didn’t quite realize it himself.

As Daire had needed some reassurance when Guillaume first came to me, so did Mehen. Only he acted like a fucking jerk instead of letting me see that he needed some affection.

:I wasn’t a fucking jerk,: he retorted in my head, though he made no move to dislodge me or Daire from resting on his side.

Still purring, Daire had his head in my lap, pretending to be asleep, though every now and then his tail tapped the dragon’s hide playfully.

:So you didn’t threaten to eat two of my Blood?:

His side rose beneath us with his breathing. :I was joking: His side sank down, a gentle rocking motion that would quickly put me to sleep. :Mostly.:

Nevarre hopped closer, still in his raven form. Before he could give me an update, I said, :Thank your friends for us. They’ve been immensely helpful.:

:They’re the ones who’re grateful.: He replied. :Many of them would like to stay in the new trees you’ve grown, if you don’t mind.:

:It’s up to the trees, but I’d love to have any of the birds stay.:

He bobbed his head and leaped up into the air, sleek black wings lifting him off to check in with the birds. Many of them were roosting on the lower branches now, fat and sleepy, though some of the smaller birds still pecked at the ground in search of ants.

Rik shifted back to his human form, and the rest of my Blood quickly followed suit. Even Mehen, though now he had both Daire and I sitting on his very human form. He didn’t seem to mind and still didn’t push us off.

My former Blood naturally congregated near me, leaving the newest Blood on the fringe. On the surface, he didn’t seem to be bothered. He’d even say he preferred his solitude. But deeper, I sensed an aching loneliness in his bond. Especially when he looked at Daire.

“Everybody, this is Ezra Ursula Devana. Ezra, this is Mehen, formerly Leviathan, king of the depths. Rik and Daire, you know. Wu Tien Xin, Guillaume de Payne, and Nevarre Morrigan,” I added as he came striding back to join us.

“Isador,” Ezra drew my house name out slowly, looking at us one by one. “Are there any more of you hiding around invisible or flying around in the night sky?”

I smiled slightly. “Nope.”

“Seven.” He looked at me, shaking his head. “You think to stand against Skye with seven Blood. Don’t even get me started on Ceresa. I don’t know if you’re a damned fool or just stupid.”

Guillaume narrowed a hard look on the man. “Respect our queen’s honor, or I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget.”

Ezra humphed with disgust. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, sir knight, but honor isn’t worth shit as far as Skye is concerned. We won’t win any battles because we’re honorable.”

I stroked one hand lazily through Daire’s hair. I wasn’t upset by Ezra’s words. For the most part, they were true. I was a fool for hoping to defeat major houses like Skye and Ceresa with only seven Blood. We all knew it, and they’d already tried to convince me that I should call many more Blood, or even take a sib and her Blood.

I just didn’t want to.

“Peace, Guillaume,” I said softly. “I’m not offended.”

“You should be,” Ezra muttered. “We’re all going to die.”

“Maybe.” I started to stand, and immediately Rik lowered a hand and Daire and Mehen both scrambled to their feet to help me up. “Or maybe I’ve got a few plans in the works that you don’t know about.”

“I should hope the fuck so.” With another disgusted grunt, he turned and headed off into the woods.

Rik didn’t move a muscle, but his bond rumbled with alpha irritation. :I told you no wandering off into the forest alone.:

“Fuck off,” Ezra growled, not stopping. “Or send someone with me if you don’t trust me to fetch the bag I stashed about a mile back in case she was already dead.”

Rik narrowed a hard look on Daire. “Go with him and keep him in line.”

Pouting, Daire trudged after his childhood friend. “I told you I didn’t want to let him in.”

Ezra hollered back over his shoulder, “I’ll be ready for dinner when we get back!”

“What a delightful personality,” Mehen drawled as he turned to the other Blood, shaking his head.

Guillaume slapped him on the back as we started toward the guest house to get some clothes. “Yeah, he makes you look about as friendly as a smiling crocodile.”

Mehen flashed his teeth in a vicious grin. “Well, at least I’m fucking smiling.”

“So…” I drew the word out, not really sure what to say. It’d been a long time since Ezra and I had been alone, walking in the woods.

He didn’t say anything, but slowed his step so I could walk beside him. He didn’t make conversation easy. He never had.

“How are our queens back home?”

“Worried as fuck, thanks to Keisha Skye. As soon as I slipped out of her territory safely, I called our consiliarius and let her know we were both out of House Skye’s control, though I wasn’t sure where you were yet. My link to you was pretty fucking faint. She promised to let our mothers know.”

I winced. I’d left Skye’s court at least a year ago. Not once had I thought to call home and let Mom know. Or to let her know that I’d found my own queen, and was now Blood to House Isador. She’d be thrilled. “If someone from Skye’s court came to find us, I’m glad it was you. Thanks for letting Mom know I’m all right.”

“The shit is going to hit the fan on both sides of the pond. Keisha Skye lost her leverage. Our queen’s pissed that threats were made. It’s gonna get ugly.”

“And Shara’s in the middle of it.”

Ezra made a low sound, softer than his normal grunt of disgust. Almost a hum. I hid a grin. He already had a soft spot for Shara, and no shit, who wouldn’t?

“When you came after us, did you know she’d call you to be Blood?”

“Fuck, no. But as I got closer, I felt her more than you, and the urgency kept hammering through me like Rik was using my skull for an anvil.”

He’d come after me, not to be Blood, and he’d called me family.

Guilt churned in my stomach. I had pretty much turned my back on him when I came to Skye… and I hadn’t ever treated him like family either. Even after he’d fed me.

Fostering young Aima with other houses was a carryover tradition from the medieval period. It was supposed to assure that political alliances were upheld, but also to keep the blood and power fresh. If a house only ever fed on their own bloodlines, the magic got stale over time, or so the general thinking went. Some scholarly types even theorized that was why queens didn’t conceive very often any longer. The magic was too thin, the bloodlines too tired, weakened over the generations ages ago.

But no one ever really acknowledged that you could have a seriously difficult time in a new court as a foster. Primarily, finding someone willing to feed you the first couple of times in order to give you the queen’s blood that made you part of her court. When I first moved to New York City, I’d never expected to be an important member of Skye’s court. My home court wasn’t extremely powerful, though old and respected, and my mother only one of our queen’s minor sibs. But I had displayed enough promise and worked hard enough at political etiquette, that our queen had made arrangements for me to join Ezra in House Skye.

She hadn’t wanted me to be alone. Looking back, I wondered why Ezra had been sent. Alone. How difficult a time he must have had.

It’d shocked the hell out of me when no one cared whether I fed or not. Here I was in this new politically powerful court, eager to learn, ready to please, and not one single fucking person would even think about offering throat. Maybe new fosters weren’t looked upon with suspicion at other courts, but in House Skye, no one trusted anyone else. Relationships were slow to develop. Without Rik…

Guilt twisted harder in my gut. Because once I had Rik, I’d never spared a second thought for Ezra. I’d never made sure he was well-fed, or had a place of safety if he’d needed it.

“Um—”

“Don’t,” Ezra bit off the word. “The past is the past.”

“But—”

“Do you ever fucking listen to a word anyone says to you?”

“Nope,” I said lightly, though my eyes burned. “You should know me better than that.” In fact, other than Rik, Ezra probably knew me better than anyone, which made my betrayal all the worse.

“It wasn’t a fucking betrayal, you imbecile,” he retorted gruffly as he bent down under a fallen log and dragged out a rucksack. “You did nothing wrong.”

“The fuck I did nothing wrong. I did everything wrong.” He stared up at the moon, avoiding my gaze. But he listened, and so I was going to have my say. “You took care of me when I came to Skye, and then I fucking forgot you the first chance I had.”

He shrugged, still not meeting my gaze. “You had a great opportunity. I would have gotten the fuck out too if I could.”

“Then I should have taken you with us.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, right. Big and tough would have loved dragging my obstinate, grumpy ass around. I never faulted you for seeking out a promising young alpha to be your protector. Though the chances of any alpha surviving long in that court were nil.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my chest aching. “I fucked up.”

“Don’t be sorry on my account. You were smart. You did what you needed in order to survive. I could have been smarter. I could have been nicer to people. I could have tried to make friends. But that’s not my style.”

“Why did our queen send you to House Skye in the first place?” He started walking back toward the nest without answering, faster than we’d come out this way. I hurried to catch up. “Ezra?”

He jerked to a halt. “To get me away from you.”

I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d pulled a shotgun out of the rucksack and blasted me with a full barrel right in the stomach. “What?”

“Our queen called our mothers together and decided it’d be best if I fostered sooner, rather than later, to give you time to develop on your own, without my influence.”

Bewildered, I searched the craggy lines of his face. “But we were best friends. We got into some trouble, yeah, but nothing bad enough to get you sent away. Why would they do that?”

He jerked his head toward me, eyes blazing. “Because I fucking loved you, Daire. I was getting obsessed with you, and an obsessed Ursula without his queen to help control his urges is not a good thing. They were afraid I’d maul you accidentally if we didn’t get some distance.”

I didn’t know what to say. It’d been so long ago. We’d been young. Friends. Roaming the mountains and woods, skipping out of the nest when we weren’t supposed to like wild hooligans. I’d been fifteen, maybe sixteen, when Ezra left. He would have been eighteen or twenty—I couldn’t remember our age difference exactly. For Aima, we’d been babies.

I hadn’t gone to foster with House Skye for another ten years.

He’d endured ten years alone in New York City in a nest of vipers.

I still remember how glad I’d been to see a familiar face when he’d come to pick me up at the airport. He’d made sure I got settled, though he hadn’t offered to feed me right away. Nothing had seemed forced or strange between us, though we’d both changed and matured over the years.

I’d gone to him after months. Upset. Alone. In fucking tears because no one had fed me the entire time I’d been in New York City.

Aima could go a long time without blood, if they weren’t depleting their power by actually using it. I certainly wasn’t Blood, then, and had no power of my own to give anyone. But for sibs, feeding was a way to network and make connections. Plus, we simply liked to feed. It felt good. Damned good. I wasn’t going to die without it, but I was fucking sick of being the low sib on the totem pole.

I’d whined that no one liked me. I wished I’d stayed at home. And he’d put his arm around my shoulders, pulled me in against him, and offered throat without another word. And yeah, as Aima tend to do when they feed, we’d fucked too. It’d been good, too. Good enough I stayed with him several days, sharing blood and his bed.

He’d never once said anything about loving me or being glad I’d come to him. Nothing.

That wasn’t Ezra’s style.

Then I’d traipsed out into Skye’s sibs and sought another, and another. I had to build my network, prove my worth, gain their confidence. It’d still been tough going. Though I carried a bit of Skye blood then, Ezra sure hadn’t made it easy on himself. While he never begrudged me feeding elsewhere, he refused to make friends. Other sibs saw me having an association with him, and it only made them more wary of me. When I stumbled, literally, into Alrik Skye and his bed, I’d never looked back. Not once.

I turned away again now, unable to bear the emotion blazing in his eyes. “Fuck, man. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Why should I? We had a good time. You moved on. If you’d wanted to stay, you would have stayed.”

“But I didn’t know!”

“Do you think I would’ve wanted you to stay out of guilt? Because you owed me? Fuck that shit. You knew where I was and if you’d wanted me, you would have come to me. Then you left, and I started paying more and more attention to what was going on with Skye herself. It didn’t make sense to let a young alpha with Rik’s promise out of her sight. Not with her obsession. I watched. I waited until I had proof. And then I hightailed it straight to you.”

Ezra wasn’t much for grand displays of affection, but I grabbed a handful of his beard and pulled his head low, tucking myself up under his chin. “How can I ever repay you?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He growled, but he didn’t pull away. “I don’t want your pity thanks. Just feed me a bit until I figure out how this court’s going to work. I’m fully prepared to hightail it to the badlands if Rik decides to bash my head in because I won’t follow his bullshit rules.”

I snickered, nuzzling deeper into his throat. I’d forgotten how hairy he was, and how much I liked it. His chest was covered with a thick mat, his hair and beard wild and shaggy. He’d always been more bear than man, even before Shara revealed his power. “You won’t have to worry about getting fed here. Shara’s different.”

He rubbed his nose into my hair and breathed deeply, pulling my scent into his body. I remembered him doing that before, but hadn’t realized why. Now I knew and it fucking shredded my heart like a cheese grater. “Do the Blood feed each other mainly?”

“No, hardly ever. We feed from her.”

“All of us?” He didn’t say it out loud, but I knew exactly what he was thinking. Even me? The new (low) guy? The one nobody will like?

“All of us. Nearly every night too. Though she’ll about drain you dry in exchange. Her power is fucking incredible.”

He huffed out a breath. “Yeah, I got that. With that bite of hers…”

He hesitated, too polite to come right out and ask. It made me laugh again, shaking my head. Because when it didn’t matter, he was polite. But when he ought to be polite… He was crude and blunt as hell. “Yeah, she fucks us too, usually several at once so we can keep her fed.”

“Huh.”

I raised my head, meeting his gaze with a wicked smirk. “Suddenly eager to get back to the nest then?”

“Lead the way, you little shit.”