Ventus grinned at me as Ares and I came out of the woods, blood dripping from his fangs. The alligator’s smile made my stomach churn.

Ares scanned the bodies and asked, “Found anyone half alive?” 

“All dead,” the advanced human said with a shrug, wiping the red on his blade on a dead man’s clothes.

Lucas and the Guardian of Fire were missing. I didn’t care for the rest, but I liked the shifter. I looked up at the sky to see if I could spot him.

“Not even one?” Ares asked with disgust. “How am I going to find out if this was a random hit or an orchestrated assault?”

“Tyrone beheaded the last surrendered hooligan,” a Dragonian said.

Ares pinned his hard stare on the horned Dragonian. “Was that necessary, Tyrone?”

Tyrone kicked a dead Dragonian in rage. “They tore my leg!”

My gaze dipped down to a bloody gash on his left thigh. It didn’t seem to be serious and I wanted to laugh at his outburst. All the men sported cuts and bruises, but none of them paid much mind to their wounds.

Prince Darken had picked the toughest warriors. Judging from how the raiders died, over two-thirds of the fifty or so militants fell under the team’s swords before the guardians tore the rest apart.

Ares had taken his six elite warriors just to hunt down the First Witch.

I really needed to find out what Ares wanted with her.

“Next time, think with your head instead of your ass, Tyrone,” Ares said. “One more mistake, you’re out. You left me blind.”

“Noted, Ares,” Tyrone said. “My sincere apologies.”

I cocked my head and regarded the horned Dragonian. He had a temper, but my instinct told me that he was also a calculating type. I didn’t see the point of killing a useful captive, unless he didn’t want the prisoner to talk.

I half listened to the group throwing their wisdom together while they ransacked the dead raiders for clues.

“How did they know we were here?” 

“How could they get here so fast?” 

“They timed it perfectly. They waited until the guardians took off hunting.”

The guardians hadn’t detected anyone trailing them, and they had superb senses.

I didn’t offer my opinions to help them out. This lot raised all kinds of questions that they had no answers for, and no one had the guts to point out there might be a mole among them.

They finally gave up searching the dead. Idiots. This was a planned assassination. The mercenaries would have tied up all the loose ends before the attack.

The advanced human produced a syringe from a medical kit and injected Ares before tending to the others. I’d seen that kind of advanced medical tool on the black market. The serum helped prevent infection and sped up the healing process. The engineering race claimed the patent, but I bet they stole the remedy from the Angels.

As I studied each member of the group to see if I could determine which one was the rat, Tyrone’s hard stare fell on me. “Look at how she smirks. Maybe she brought them here.”

All heads turned to me. I shrugged as I picked up and folded my undergarments. Luckily, they weren’t bloody. I was the only one here who didn’t have blood and gore all over me. I hated being messy. 

“Do you have the capacity to tell a smirk from a sneer, horned one?” I asked. “And you still think your species is superior?” 

Not only did the horned one snarl, the other Dragonians growled as well. I smirked at them.

“Did you recognize any of the raiders, Freyja?” Ares asked softly, as if regretting he hadn’t asked me the question earlier. He’d been more concerned on whether or not I was hurt.

“Yes,” I said cheerfully.

“Who did you recognize?” Ares asked amiably.

“All of them,” I said.

“Who are they?” Ares demanded.

“My best friends,” I said.

Ventus roared with laughter, but Ares’ team glared at me, not sharing his fine sense of humor. “I wasn’t wrong about her,” the alligator concluded. “I liked Freyja at first sight. Earth, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t bored.”

“I can train her and mold her to be as hard as ice,” another guardian chimed in, breathing out frosty air. He had to be Glacies, Guardian of Ice. He gave me an once-over. “She has potential. Her tiny knees haven’t buckled since we took her.”

At least this one acknowledged that they’d abducted me.

Glacies stalked toward me.

“Touch me,” I warned him, “and you’ll know how hard I bite.”

Glacies bared his fangs, thicker frost puffing out. My nostrils flared in response at his threat. He tilted his huge head. Ice burns harder than fire, Witchling.

Ares sent me a look of disapproval. “I doubt anyone could get a proper answer out of her.”

Witchling? Mettalum, Guardian of Metal, stopped chewing a raider’s sword and snapped his head toward me.

I hissed, Don’t call me that!

Mettalum lunged at me. I jumped back instinctively, my hand tugging off my glove. Ares lurched forward, unbelievably fast and cut in between the beast and me.

“Mettalum, what are you doing?” Ares warned. “The wolf girl isn’t a snack!”

“Calm down,” Mettalum said. “I just want to sniff at Freyja. Ventus said her scent is special.”

“There’s nothing special about me.” I glared at Mettalum. “I’m not here to be sniffed at.”

Were they going to expose me? What would Ares do to me if he knew the First Witch was right here? My wild gaze settled on Ventus. So, this is it? I’d have to battle my way out and drag down whomever I could with me. I would go for the ringleader first.

You’re fussing over nothing, Freyja! Ventus almost howled in my head. You’re like a bad kitten with all your tiny hair standing up and hissing, and back arching and claws ready to slash. What fun is there if we tell every secret? In addition, we want this game between you and the prince to keep going. I don’t like losing my bet. Actually, I don’t like losing at all.

A bad kitten. Mettalum nodded an agreement. Not a wolf.

What game? I demanded.

Ares’ intense gaze locked on me, and I kept my bored, careless mask in place.

I’ve got her scent. Definitely a witch, Glacies said. I don’t have metal to block my superior sense of smell.

Mettalum nudged Ares aside with his wing and inhaled deeply. Ares didn’t show his offense as he barked orders at his men about cleaning themselves before leaving.

I shoved at Mettalum’s snout with a gloved hand. “Get away from me.”

“If I were you I’d be very careful, Freyja,” Ares warned. “No one has ever pushed the guardians. They aren’t like your wolves. Mettalum once swallowed a man who committed a lesser offense.”

“You’ll vomit me out the instant you swallow me by mistake, won’t you, Metty?” I looked up and peered into his eyes through my thick lashes. “And you’ll apologize afterwards.”

Mettalum froze, pondering my question. I guessed that no one had ever asked him to apologize. He swaggered away and picked another blade to chew.

“Metty!” Ventus laughed so hard he had to rub his belly.

It was incredible that the guardians could smell a witch. I wondered if they could also detect the Angel blood in me. If they had, they hadn’t seemed bothered by it. All the same, a nagging uneasiness spread over me like a dark wind.

“Why do I have this feeling that it’s the beginning of a nightmare that won’t end?” Ares murmured. “Not until I find my witch.”

His? Not even in his dreams, I thought as Ares jogged toward the lake to join his men gathered on the bank, mopping off the blood—theirs and mostly their enemies—off their armor.

Their conversation floated toward me.

“Oh, they talk,” said Einarr, the advanced human. “They just don’t talk to you. Heard what they said? She smells better. She’s an advanced human.”

“Then why haven’t the guardians sniffed at you, Einarr?” sneered a Dragonian who had the deepest green skin. When it came to the topic of smell, a Dragonian was sensitive and easily offended. “Maybe they like the half-blood girl’s wolf side.”

“She isn’t a wolf,” someone said.

“Will you shut up?” Ares growled. “She’s a member of this team. When you talk about her, show some respect.”

He had cleaned up nicely. My gaze traveled from his formidably handsome face to his broad chest and down to his narrow hips and then his thick, muscular legs. Even his menace emitted sexiness.

I was surprised that I was looking forward to riding with him again. His male scent called me to him. I had a sudden desire to see if I could arouse him again and if his hard length would react in the same way it had.

As if sensing my inspection, Ares turned his head and met my gaze across the space littered with broken bodies, heat slowly rising in his tiger-like amber eyes.

Liquid heat exploded between my thighs.

I broke our eye contact as I caught the sound of flapping wings overhead.

Lucas leapt from the Guardian of Fire before Ignis touched down with a breath of fire and smoke. The shifter rolled on the ground and ended on a crouch, looking up at me with a grin.

I smiled at his blatant showing off. Even after a gruesome battle, he still looked fetching.

Something dark flashed through Ares’ eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would think he didn’t like me checking out his men.

“Report,” Ares growled at Lucas.

Lucas dropped his charm and turned to Ares. “The attackers were from a battleship. Ignis almost caught up with it, but then the ship was just gone.”

“Only Angels have battleships like that,” Einarr said. “But their ships park on the Fey territory. The Fey Empress and her consort aren’t interested in mortal affairs. They haven’t left the Twilight Realm for two decades now.”

“For them it doesn’t feel like two decades,” Ares said. “I was once inside the realm before the war. Time flows differently inside.”

My mother had been in Mysth. In her memories, the silver city shone forever. Red leaves never fell from the ancient trees that stretched to the sky. Magic pulsed deeply in the land and scented like the finest wine. Sunset lingered in the immortal realm longer than any other place on Earth.

Even the High Prince of All Angels had forgotten his own home in the sky, and had chosen to live with his Fey mate on Earth’s only magical realm.

Soon, I would see Mysth.

Ares glanced at me, and I instantly muted the light in my eyes.

“Liar,” I said in a singsong tone. “No mortals are welcomed in the Fey realm. The only exception was the Empress’ mortal courtiers.”

Ares sent me a contemptuous look. “There was a time when Commander North Darken and his war councils could go in and out of Mysth freely.” He looked at me from head to toe with the intent to insult. “You weren’t even born then, little wolf girl. So stop talking like you know everything. Though I need you to find the First Witch, you’ll also find my tolerance to ignorance and arrogance is not limitless.”

I didn’t take offense at his words. I was too giddy that I’d found more of his sore spots. Clever provocation would motivate him to reveal way more than begging could ever do. 

“And you were in the mighty Commander Darken’s company, I presume,” I huffed, irony in my every pitch. “So you got to roam freely in the immortal realm?”

His men guffawed. They had no fucking idea I already knew who they were. Ares gave them a warning stare. Clearly, he didn’t want them to reveal his identity to me.

I rolled my eyes and kept my expression snooty, which I knew was ridiculous since I had nothing to feel superior about, but this attitude would irk the Dragonian prince and get him to tell me what I wanted to know.

“Yes, I was in Commander Darken’s company,” Ares said.

“When you were a young man?” I asked.

Ventus chuckled in delight, but quickly masked it with a cough when Ares glared at him. 

I haven’t seen anyone getting under his skin like this after the war, Ventus said. Constantly goading him will only earn you a spanking.

I pretended not to hear the guardian.

“Do not measure a Dragonian’s age with your puny human standards,” Ares said, annoyed by my unapologetic ignorance. I was surprised and gleeful that I could always madden him. “We Dragonians can live up to five thousand years. How long do you humans live?”

He’d hit my sore spot. I only had two years left.

My face burned at his words and I felt my skin flush. Anger rose within me. Before I had a comeback, Einarr stepped up. He was warming up towards me now that he thought I was a half-advanced human.

“An advanced human’s lifespan is three hundred on average,” he said, intending to diffuse the tension between Ares and me, “but our reproduction is slow, unlike a regular human’s. They can reach one hundred if everything goes well for them. A sub-human has thirty-five years at most.”

“So you were in the great Commander Darken’s elite team and once trekked inside the immortal realm,” I said. “What now? The Fey Empress mended and enhanced the ward around her realm. No mortals can ever enter it again.”

I needed a confirmation. I needed more news on the immortals since nothing had come out of their walls after the war. A few generations from now, mortals might believe the Fey and Angels were myth.

“No mortals except the First Witch,” Ares drawled.

My heart skipped a beat. “The Oracle told you that?” I asked in a mocking tone.

He gave me a hard, puzzled look. He was really not used to people—especially a woman—giving him an attitude. But as long as he still needed me, he would have to put up with me.

“What if she did?” he asked.

“You drop the Oracle’s name as if she’s your new girlfriend,” I sneered. “Did she really receive you? Do you even know where she lives?”

In his anger, he took the bait. “I visited her in a skyscraper floating in the sky.” 

“The golden tower in Atlantis?” I asked.

When the Angel King had invaded Earth, he had taken it as his palace after he had slaughtered a third of the Dragonians, enslaved another third, and driven the rest out of Atlantis. The Dragonians had taken back their capital at the fall of my father’s Reaper army.

“This is beyond your understanding,” Ares said. “The Oracle called me from another place in another time. Only the worthy will receive a summons from Goddess Rhea and be able to enter her realm.”

“Worthy like you,” I said.

“Yes, like me,” he said.

I tilted my head. “They say only Fey are Rhea’s favorite.” 

“That’s their outrageous lie,” Ares spat. “They can believe they’re the chosen all they want. They aren’t superior to my race.”

The Dragonians shouted in agreement.

The prince, like all Dragonians, hated Fey. Yet, they’d coveted the immortals since the beginning. The engineering race had even gone far as to kidnap a few Fey for genetic experiments, with the hope that their mixed offspring could gain immortality and only to find that every Fey was magically warded at birth. No mortal could steal the immortals’ DNA.

“Is that why you’re seeking out the First Witch—to have her bring down the magic walls so you can invade Mysth?” I asked.

“More than that,” Ares said. His eyes sharpened, yet his cold face became unreadable.

I could sense his regret at having revealed too much to me. His political opponents wouldn’t get anything just by goading him, but then, in his eyes, I was an ignorant, barbaric wolf girl who didn’t understand much about civilization. In his eyes, I only had one purpose, and that was to use my animal instinct to find the First Witch.

Ventus chortled. How funny you and Ares interpreted things differently.

You can read minds now? I retorted.

I don’t need to read the minds to know, Witchling, said Ventus. All faces are open books to us. Nothing can escape our enhanced optical sensors. We see every tiny muscle twitch, every small flicker of the eye.

No words are truer, Ignis said.

I narrowed my eyes on the Dragonian prince. “What more do you want from the First Witch?”

“That’s none of your business, wolf girl,” he said. His eyes had darkened and it made him appear extremely menacing.

My heart jerked in alarm. I knew when I was being threatened. I already knew too much, and I knew he’d get rid of me as soon as I had served my purpose.

A luxury life for my wolves and me? My butt! However, it wouldn’t be as easy to eliminate me as he thought it would. He had no fucking idea who he was dealing with, but I knew who he was.

“Why do I even bother to explain war and politics to you?” Ares said. 

“Why don’t you ask your politicians and war mongers to locate the First Witch for you?” I said. “Why do you need to drag an uncivilized wolf girl around to find the old witch for you?”

For a second, the Dragonian prince was speechless since my logic was solid, then he waved a hand at me dismissively and turned to Lucas. “Where were we?” He shook his head, “Never mind. Let’s talk more in the safe house,” and gestured for his men to leave. 

“Where’s the safe house?” I asked.

Ares’ dark eyebrows creased together. Pure-blood Dragonians were hairless. They had no eyebrows, eyelids, or mustaches. They had no body hair anywhere, but their half-blood prince had thick brown hair, straight eyebrows, and long eyelashes that every woman envied.

“Nearby,” Ares said. “You have more to say, Freyja?”

“Yes, I do,” I said, “particularly when my safety is concerned. You can all go to the safe house, but I won’t go. If the assassins could find you in the wilderness, they already knew where your next nest is.”

“That makes sense,” Lucas said.

“We don’t fear the buggers,” Tyrone said. “All the better if more are waiting for us there. We’ll crush them, like we did here. This time we’ll take one alive for Ares.”

“The assassins don’t want you,” I said. “They want your leader.”

They wanted me as well, but I wouldn’t reveal that.

“How do you know that?” Ventus asked. He didn’t care for my sudden knowledge—he just liked me stirring up more shit.

“Even a child knows if you cut the head of the snake,” I said, my thumb, index finger, and pinkie all pointing at the prince, “the body dies.”

Ares sent me a dark, warning look. Evidently, he didn’t appreciate me calling him a snake, even if it was merely a metaphor.

“The mercenaries failed to kill you because they underestimated you,” I said. “Next time they won’t. They’ll increase their numbers. They might have already expected you to move to the nearby safe house. I bet they’ve already stationed their best archers on the roofs of the surrounding buildings.” I mimicked how an archer pulled the string taut and released it. “Whoosh,” I said, my two gloved fingers sailing in the air up toward Ares’ eyes.

“Very vivid,” Ventus said in approval.

Ares swatted at my fingers, and I retreated quickly.

“I correct myself,” I said. “Old-fashioned archery is out of favor. The assassins will most likely use energy guns they stole from the Angels.” I pointed at the bow Lucas carried. “Those mechanical bows your race makes can also be their weapon of choice. I’ve always wanted to learn how to shoot with that.”

“I can teach you, Freyja,” Lucas offered zealously.

I smiled brightly at the shifter.

A grim look settled on Ares’ face. “Enough of this,” he snarled.

“Why are we wasting time listening to a little girl who hangs with a pack of beasts?” Tyrone asked. “Ares, we should go to the safe house, sort this out, and head north to find the witch, as we’d originally planned.”

Ares seemed to be considering that option.

North wasn’t the direction I had in mind. If I wanted Ares to take me seriously and listen to me, I’d have to play the ace card now. I looked him straight in the eyes, my face hard. “You should listen to me if you want to find the First Witch, Prince Ares Darken, heir to Dragonian Commander North Darken and the future ruler of Atlantis.”

Dead silence. The only sound was the wind traveling above the lake, the honeysuckle bushes, and the corpses. Earthy scent mixed with sweet blossom and blood drifted in my direction.

“How did you know?” Ares asked softly, his eyes flashing a lethal threat I hadn’t seen before. “I never told you who I am, and you’re far away from any Dragonian settlement.”

Any wrong answer, and he would snap my neck without hesitation.

“Call it my animal instinct,” I said.

“Bullshit,” he said, reaching for my throat.

“Ares,” Ventus warned, and the Dragonian prince halted.

“Who sent you?” Ares asked. “Give me a reason why I should spare you and your wolves.” 

I regarded him coldly. “You sent me. You dragged me with you. As for my pack, they’ve migrated to a place you can’t find and won’t go.” I turned my iciness to a diabolic smile. “Kill me if you want, but if I die, you’ll never find the witch.”

“Ares,” Ventus said, “threatening Freyja would never work.”

“We don’t need her,” Tyrone muttered. “We can find the First Witch on our own. Discard this mouthy wolf girl. All she’s done is jerk us around.”

“What else have you held back, Freyja?” Ares asked.

I raised my hands, palms toward him. “All I have is here.”

“If you want to be a valuable member of my team,” he said, “you need to earn it like everyone else.”

If I wanted to be in his team? I almost told him to check his head, but that wouldn’t do me good. Besides, he wouldn’t let me go until I’d done what he wanted of me. Right now, I needed him to take me east to Mysth instead of north.

“Who thinks he’s a better heir than a half-blood prince?” I asked.

The Dragonian warriors snarled at me in unison, but Ares stopped them with a look. He didn’t get mad at facts, which was a necessary trait for a strong leader.

“Not all Dragonian hearts are with their hybrid prince,” Ares said.

Also a fact.

“You’re the best breed, Your Highness!” said the Dragonian who had a puppy name—Boomer. Now that they knew I knew who Ares was, they started calling him Highness.

“You probably already know that I have two pure blood half-brothers,” Ares said. “Which one wants to get rid of me?”

“That you’ll have to figure it out for yourself, Your Highness,” I said. “Or maybe they both want to remove you. Why the hell not?”

He narrowed his eyes.

“They’ve taken out the battleship—our top secret weapon—to come after you,” Einarr said, “and risked breaking the peace treaty with the Fey.”

Einarr didn’t talk much, but when he did, Ares listened.

The half-blood prince probably felt closer to his human side than to his Dragonian heritage. No matter, he would for sure meet resistance to rule either humans or Dragonians.

“We don’t want the elite Angel army coming out of the immortal realm to pick a fight with us,” Einarr added.

A hard, cold fury blazed in the prince’s eyes.

“How did they get past your father?” asked Lucas.

“The pure-blood princes have privileges you can’t even imagine,” said Tyrone. “And their supporters are many.”

“This is the best opportunity for them to eliminate you when you aren’t with your great army,” Ventus said with a keen interest. If I didn’t know how loyal he was to Ares, I would think he was looking forward to throwing more shit at Ares.

“You can’t trust the beast girl, Your Highness,” Tyrone cut in.

“It’s for me to decide whom to trust,” Ares said. “Don’t call her beast girl ever again. She has a name. So far, Freyja has been cooperating. You’ll treat her with respect. And while she’s with me, she’s under my protection.”

Huh. Just like that, I found favor in the prince, after I’d proved being useful.

The prince gestured for us to depart and his men swiftly moved toward their rides.

Ares mounted Ventus. While I looked up, pondering the best way to climb up to the alligator’s back, he grabbed my arms and hauled me up.

Hadn’t he just told his minions to respect me?

He placed me behind him. Well then, at least I wouldn’t be annoyed or distracted by his cock poking me in my back if he was aroused again.

Ares whistled, and Ventus rocketed to the sky.

“I hope you’re worth the trouble,” the half-blood turned to look at my cloak-covered face. “And I pray the First Witch is the opposite of you.”