Not a cycle later and the D’Sharr had me assigned as a warrior to her quarters. She told the rest of her crew that since her son was returning with a human crew, the rest of Dobromia was to be guarded closely.

While the D’Karr seemed excited about welcoming his son back with open arms, it seems his mate wasn’t as forgiving over the betrayal of Tredorphen.

This also gave me the opportunity to get close to Diana, who was assigned to wait on the D’Sharr in whatever way she saw fit. Since Diana was a researcher, this often meant excruciating studies on how to refine our dead soil for cultivation despite the immense heat from the two suns.

It was no coincidence that she was given an impossible task. Just another way for Sillevia to embarrass her mate’s mistress.

“We are having a Weredragon salute,” Sillevia said to the humans who seemed to infest her private quarters. She looked pointedly at the curvy brunette who stood by the odd technology brought in by her crew and then spun on her heel, heading deeper into the luxurious chamber.

“Do you know what that is?” I asked the brunette, spying the curious look on her face.

“Yes,” Diana said quietly, her eyes never looking toward the D’Sharr. “It’s where you all head out into some landing strip and blow smoke around each other for some reason.”

“In a blaze of glory,” I added with mock enthusiasm. “Mind the pun.”

“I don’t think it can be minded,” Diana laughed suddenly, turning to regard me. “So terrible.”

“Thanks for that; you’ve gone and bruised my ego,” I said, miming a hit to the chest with my fist.

“I didn’t think a bruised ego was possible with a Weredragon,” she said boldly.

“I don’t know, Diana,” came the slow, calculated reproof from a fellow human servant. The woman was blonde and much younger than Diana, with a flat chest and a trim figure. The girl batted her lashes toward the brunette scornfully and continued, “Is it possible with the king? Do dish.”

“He’s called a D’Karr,” Diana said through clenched teeth; her face flushing. “And no. It isn’t possible. He’s fantastically arrogant.”

The blonde giggled. “Then the two of you make quite a pair, I bet.”

“It’s for honor and glory, thanks very much,” I quipped absent-mindedly and then clarified, “The salute.”

“Here I thought you were all thieves,” Diana whispered with a low tone and then looked at me expectantly. She showed me her palms and explained, “’No honor amongst thieves’,’ and all? Ever heard that one before?”

I grunted. “That pluck of sage human wisdom? No, must have skipped over that one.”

“You know,” the girl began, running one hand through her locks and trailing her hair through her fingers and behind her shoulders. “We’ve been here for years now. I’m surprised there are still Weredragons who don’t like us. All we’ve done is try to help.”

I scoffed. “I suppose this is where I ask you if you’ve ever heard this great saying: ‘Another mouth to feed.'”

“Cute,” she said flatly, cocking her head to the side.

“Adorable,” I mocked. “You are that spoiled, aren’t you? That you really think you belong here.”

Diana stood from the metal table she had busied herself in and gave me an indignant look. She’d clearly been prepping to become D’Sharr since her look was entirely regal and almost terrifyingly angry.

“You don’t even know me,” she spat.

I shrugged. “I know you’re close to the D’Karr and that’s all I need to know.”

“What of it?”

“Wow,” I laughed, springing from off the wall. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

Just then the D’Sharr approached us, wearing a long white sash that sparkled and swished as she moved. With a refined raise of her arm, she spun to regard Diana, and the two had a silent standoff that I couldn’t help but be fascinated with.

Ever the picture of grace and elegance, Sillevia waited for Diana to bow to her, which she did ever so slightly. The brunette tilted her head with the respect due to our leader’s mate but kept her chin straight and her neck high, as confident and defiant as she could be without losing her head.

“Are you bringing your son, girl?” the white shifter queen asked, flicking her wings back with a sudden crack as they clipped together. The movement made Diana snap to attention with a surprised blink. “How is your little dragonling?”

The way Diana looked at her seemed suddenly fierce. There was nothing pious or polite about either one of them anymore. I'd seen Weredragons fight other creatures and races amongst the neighboring planets. I'd been in provings, and watched shifters rip each other's throats out and bleed to the death. I'd seen them rage fire on one another.

But nothing I'd seen had ever been as ferocious as two mothers squaring off over their children.

“I wouldn’t know,” Diana said regally. “He was taken from me and stuck in some nursery for Athena to watch over.”

“Safe with her own son,” Sillevia responded with a ‘Tsk.’ “Both feeding off of our supplies like leeches.”

“That’s Boradrith’s son you’re speaking of,” Diana spat back.

Sillevia’s eyes went wide, incensed. She didn’t give the brunette permission to speak and would have been within her rights to fight her, but instead, she smiled. A thin-lipped, satisfied smile. “A bastard ‘ling that would be good enough to be served as food for the rest of us, should it come to that. And if you think for a moment that your bastard son would come before my true Weredragon children, you’re mistaken.”

I heard the others snicker at the comment and looked around the room with mild surprise. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or throw up. I frowned uncomfortably and took my usual spot leaning up against the wall. Somehow, it felt like I had just been demoted from great warrior to gossip keeper.

Diana swallowed hard and stepped back from the D’Sharr, breathing heavily as Sillevia continued, “Don’t believe me?” the white dragoness laughed. “Ask him yourself. It’s harsh, I know. But believe me, he'll tire of you, Diana. It's what he does.”

The girl knew well enough to bite her tongue, but something in her expression made me wince back a laugh; an expression was strewn across her face that said: 'But maybe he won't.'

Just then the women began hurrying to the center of the room, all dressed and ready to attend the Weredragon salute down at the spaceport. The D’Sharr stood before me with a knowing smile, and she began to lead the group out of her quarters, and we began our ascent out of the inverted spire to the ground above.

Diana mocked the facial movements of Sillevia behind her back as we exited the chambers and I snickered out a laugh before ushering her toward the door.

I stayed at the back of the group as we made our way toward the spaceport on the burning soil above our underground city. Luckily, Diana seemed to trail her way over to me, and we held back from the rest of the group.

“You think she bothers me, but she doesn’t,” she said to me privately.

“Uh huh,” I dismissed. “Then why are you whispering?” The girl’s expression went from prideful to sheer surprise at my comment. “Look,” I began exhaustedly, “you do understand you are seen as somewhat of a threat here, don't you?”

“Why?” she asked proudly, once again running her hand back through her hair.

“Because you have an influence on the D’Karr. Because you're getting information half of us probably don't know.”

“So, if I were, say, planning a big-bad alliance with the Earth, that would be a bad thing?” she cooed.

“I don't know,” I set my jaw. “As close as you've gotten to the king, we still don't seem to have any coordinates on how to get to your ‘Earth.'”

“So?” she shrugged.

“So, you know he's killed dragons and humans for the very same thing, right?”

Another sigh. “I really don't feel like arguing with you about this. I don't even know who you are.”

“I'm the warden,” I said tersely.

“Right,” she snorted. “You're just the babysitter come here to check up on all the girls to make sure we're not screwing any of you. Sorry,” She raised her hands in correction. “Screwing anyone important, I should say.”

“Hey, I’m happy to be left out of the mix, but it isn’t exactly my call.”

The curvaceous brunette shrugged, and I watched the way her thick hips swayed from side to side as she walked, feeling a throbbing welling up in me suddenly. I swallowed a thick circle down my throat, and my eyes darted back up to hers.

We said nothing more to one another as we continued to the spaceport. Sure enough, there was a large ship docking in the distance. It was red and white, with great wings and very human stylings.

The D’Karr was already shuttling his finest warriors toward the ship.

The spaceport was all gray metal and square buildings that the humans had helped reinforce using local materials. All of our stolen ships were splayed out before all who entered in a row of winged soldiers.

There were tall spires that shot up around the spaceport: a call to pilots to know where to enter and where was safe to land. They also provided adequate shade from the burning suns.

Marina Livingstone was the first to emerge from the ship; she had been the leader of the spaceship Vulcana before it crash-landed. She had stolen the D’Karr's son, our fiercest warrior and the leader of our planetary excavations for food.

The rumor went that the pair had seduced one another, and she'd abandoned the rest of the humans, including her own sister, and fled with Tredorphen to the Earth, leaving us to die.

The more I thought about it, the more furious I became.

Why were we having a hero's return for him again?

Marina's freckles beamed as she stepped into a slice of sunshine under the hot suns that circled above us. Her blonde hair hung down her back; her heart-shaped face looked strategic and cold as her eyes moved over the great crowd that gathered.

Several of her security personnel emerged from the ship, all lugging mysterious equipment from within the ship's hull and being sure to show us all their massive laser weapons holstered almost unbelievably at their sides. They were ready for us this time, or so they thought.

I bit my tongue from within my mouth, and the fire I had readied from within my throat had died down. The crowd of Weredragons remained deathly silent as we awaited the D'nebu'a, Tredorphen's arrival.

"I can't believe you came," I said quietly as Aurlauc, Tredorphen's cousin stood beside me.

"It's family," he said numbly.

Aurlauc stretched his large gray wings, and I watched the black scales that scattered across his body shimmer under the light. He had long, raven braided hair that hung down past his waist. He had been with Tredorphen during the human slaughter, though didn’t participate. The two had not spoken since, or so I'd heard.

"Athena didn't come?" I asked of the human captain's sister, one whom Aurlauc had spent years in love with before she ran off with a formerly banished shifter.

"No," the usually jovial shifter said, tilting his head stubbornly through the crowd. "But he did."

Vaikrand: Athena's mate. She'd been resistant to the Weredragons once her sister fled, refusing to play nice and being locked in the tower. She'd met the yellow shifter after she escaped our tower prison. He sold her out to come back into the D’Karr's good graces. Yet, she forgave him.

Human women were strange creatures.

"There's not going to be a fight, is there?" I asked, and Aurlauc laughed, shaking his head.

"No," he said slowly, watching Vaikrand carefully. "But I don't forget that he orchestrated Tredorphen’s return. Tredorphen had him banished many, many full cycles prior."

I nodded slowly. "Sounds like a trap to me," I said blithely, raising my brows to him. My bringing his suspicious undertones out into the open caused him to laugh and he nodded along with me.

"Doesn't it just," he said.

"Do you think this welcome is a farce?"

He shrugged. "I'm not privy to those conversations, anymore."

"Don't feel bad," I smirked. "I'd rather be left out of the fray, myself. Besides, who knows if he even came back with them? For all we're aware, they could pull out a big gun and blow us all away right now."

The gray shifter ran his hand through his thick sideburns and gave me a humorously horrified look before turning back to the crowd. "Happy thoughts."

I followed his sightline and watched as Tredorphen finally emerged, eliciting a thunderous roar from the hundreds of shifters that had come out to see his return.

There was an undeniable vibration that hollowed through the ground beneath us, as though we had all connected too fully with our joy so that the ground itself couldn't take it.

I, along with dozens of other Weredragons, cried out in a fury of heat and fire that cascaded into the sky and caused a great orange glow to hover over us like an electric fog.

Aurlauc didn't roar. He didn't even clap. He just watched with careful eyes as Tredorphen, the rose shifter, stood before his people on a raised platform jutting out of the human's ship. Aurlauc used to be so young, full of life and wit and humor, from what I remembered anyway. Now there was something broken in his spirit: something stony.

Tredorphen watched us with dark eyes as his neck craned across the crowd. At first, I thought he might have turned on us: that he had forgotten our code and culture.

Just as my mind drifted elsewhere, I watched as the rose shifter flew into the air and bared his wings to us. He spread them wide and let out a painful cry: one a Weredragon could only summon from the pit of his belly when he had returned to his soul—returned home.