Damianos Drákon lived in a castle. Of course, he did. Knud’s contact had called it an estate when he’d sent her the address, but Ola pretty much spoke for them all when she said, “Estate my ass. Hell if this ain’t a straight up castle.”

Eos who’d spent most of his life in a cave up until a few months ago, goggled up at the fifty-foot high ceilings. The foyer they stood in stretched up three floors, showcasing landings with ivory columns, and what Fensa suspected might be pure gold railing. Art had never been Fensa’s thing, but the paintings peeping out from the arched alcoves surrounding the room screamed “long ago.” As her eyes rose to join her son’s on the beautiful ceiling mural, she had to wonder if Michelangelo had received a secret commission he hadn’t told anybody about back in the day.

“Have you ever ssssseen anything so wondroussss?” Eos asked beside her.

“I mean, yeah,” Ola answered. “But it usually comes with museum security. I can’t believe this is Drákon’s crib! I always figured he lived inside a black crystal mountain, or in some underground cavern, or some really evil-looking place.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Greenwolf.”

The distinct smell of smoke hit Fensa’s nose even before she looked up to see Damianos Drákon descending the stairs. She’d only heard stories about him. Bad stories, told to her by Rafes in another attempt to extract information she didn’t have.

And her first sight of him was kind of a surprise. She’d been expecting a slinky supervillain. Bowiesque, tall, and skinny. Maybe holding a cat or something.

But this man was strikingly handsome, with a face so symmetrical, it made her recall Xenon’s perfect beauty before he lost his eye.

The comparisons stopped there, however. This dragon was even taller than Xenon, but instead of one red glowing eye, his were brown. Completely standard, save for the hard glint in them as he approached. He also wore a suit, crisp and tailored. The kind of classic design that could have passed for current in any decade from the 1930s to now. No not classic. That was the wrong word. Timeless, rather. He struck her as timeless.

Damianos stopped in front of them and silently took them in. Fensa. Eos. And finally Ola.

To her shock, he blinked when his dark eyes reached her twin. Another difference between him and Xenon. Nor did she clock anything but a round tongue and straight, blunt teeth inside his mouth as he asked in a smooth, faintly accented voice, “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, daughters of Drakkon murderers?”

“We prefer the term ‘slayers’ if you gotta,” Ola answered. Her default zero fucks tone on full display. “But if you want to go there, sure, why not?”

Fensa swallowed, the urge to run already stronger than she’d thought it would be. But she couldn’t run. Instead, she put on her best facsimile of a brave voice and answered, “I’m here because I need your help. I’m looking for one of your kind. A dragon named Xenon.”

“Who, may I ask, is Xenon?” he demanded.

Oh shit…dragons don’t bother with names, she suddenly recalled. “Xenon. The Second Prince of Drakkon. Brother of the King. Son of She Who Did Birth Two Princes…wait, no, I think it was just Queen of Drakkon.”

“Ah,” Damianos Drákon said. “I had forgotten his name. How…odd…that you should know it. May I ask how?”

“He was…” again she had to swallow before meeting his intimidating stare.

He’d killed so many. Including her father’s villagers. It was like showing up at the bogeyman’s door…and asking for his help. “He is my mate. We were split up because he feared for my life. But now we’re once again in the same time. And I want to find him. I need to find him. I’ll even deal with you to find him.”

Damianos Drákon studied her for so long, it felt like he might never answer. But he finally said, “I’m afraid I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of this Xenon, as you call him. Or any idea what should prevent me from killing both daughters of my father’s murderer right here where they stand.”

Fensa took a step back, grabbing Eos by the arm. But before she could call out to him and Ola to run, her son said. “He issss lying. Hissss flame burnsss as falsssse as his words.”

“How do you know this?” Damianos demanded, his head snapping to regard the boy down his long egalitarian nose.

“So you know where he is?” Fensa asked Damianos before her son could answer. “Please, tell me!”

But Damianos continued to regard Eos with a suspicious light in his brown eyes. “Who are you? And how are you able to see my flame?”

“I am Eossss. Golden Ssson of the Great Blue Sssserpent King and the Great Wolf Mother,” Eos answered as if they were still in their prehistoric village and not in a dragon’s grand castle. “Where issss my father?”

Damianos was quiet for a very long time. To Fensa, it looked like a number of calculations were being made in his head. Until… “Colby,” he suddenly called out.

A man in an old-timey butler suit appeared in the foyer as if conjured from thin air. “Sir?”

“You may give the Drakkon Murderer’s daughter escort to our guest. Provided her son and sister stay behind with me.”

The protests came immediately from either side of Fensa. But she quieted her sister and son with a loud, “Hold on!”

Fensa pinned Damianos with her fiercest stare. “If I go to Xenon, do you give your word you won’t hurt Ola or my son?”

Damianos flinched as Ola said, “Like you could really trust the word of a dragon.”

“In fact, I can,” Fensa answered her sister, without looking away from Damianos. “Eos can see his flame. If he says he won’t hurt you, Eos can tell us whether he’s lying or not. So what will it be Damianos? Are you going to give us your word or not?”

He flinched a second time.

And Fensa cast her eyes downward to say, “If I knew your title, I’d call you by that instead.”

He started, but nonetheless answered, “I am Damianos Drákon. Anos to the business associates who count me amongst their friends. But my official title is King. I have served as King of Drakkon ever since your…”

He openly sneered before coming up with the word, “Xenon was deposed for betraying his kind in the war with the lupin. For that reason, his crown is now mine. And my home is now his prison.”

Now it was Fensa’s turn to flinch. She so badly wanted to ask what had happened. What Xenon had done to be deposed of his crown. She knew it had to have something, if not everything, to do with the vow he’d made her.

He’d somehow managed to fix her entire life, while in turn, she’d completely ruined his.

But in the end, she didn’t ask, because this drakkon, didn’t care about vows. Or love. She could tell. He was everything her fathers despised, and she doubted explaining Xenon’s motivations would change his opinion in any way.

Close. Xenon was so close. Both her wolf and her human could feel it.

“Do I have your word, Dragon King?” she asked Damianos again, bringing the subject back around to him not killing her sister or son.

“You are in no position to ask this of me. You are nobody to me, save the daughter of Drakkon murderers.”

Fensa pulled herself up to her full height, even though at six-feet-tall, he still had nearly a foot on her. “I am Fensa Greenwolf. The Great Wolf Mother. Mate of Xenon, the Great Serpent King. Mother of Eos, the Golden Dragon Son. And I’m asking for your word. Will you give it to me or not?”

Damianos’ expression didn’t change. But his eyes strayed back to Eos. As if drawn by magnets. “You are really drakkon born, boy?”

Eos opened his mouth, but in a moment of cunning beyond his years, replied, “If you give Great Wolf Mother good answer, I will sssssshhhhhow you thisssss true.”

“You still have your Drakkon accent. How can this be?”

“Doessss sssshhhhe have your word?”

Damianos glanced over at Fensa, as if just now remembering she was there.

“Yes, she has my word. Colby, give her escort please.”

And with that, Colby stepped up to the stairs. “Right this way, Ms. Greenwolf.”

Fensa was in such a rush, she didn’t ask any other questions. Just sprang forward to follow the older man upstairs.

However, Damianos’ cold voice followed her. “Have your see of him. But I will give the grace of a warning, Great Wolf Mother. He is quite mad.”