The dark tunnel opened into a wide, round room lined with torches.

And full of Blood Moon Priestesses.

I spotted Selene and went straight to her. “Where are they?” I demanded, snarling at the sight of her. Time had been good to her, but then it would be. I was certain she hadn’t aged a day in appearance in at least two centuries.

How dare she stand there, looking calm and peaceful without a hair out of place, while holding two women hostage in her godforsaken cave?

“You cannot see them?” she asked. Her voice rang out loud and clear over the entrance of my team, who entered the room behind me. I got the sense she was laughing at me, as the Priestesses tended to do to anyone who did not share their powers.

As though I had no powers of my own.

“If you’ve placed a spell on them, you know I cannot.” I glanced around, ensuring every one of the witches was covered by at least one dragon. “Bring them out, reveal them, whatever you need to do.”

“You know I cannot let her go,” Selene murmured. “You know it is impossible. She is one of us.”

“Like hell!” Tamhas bellowed. “She is my mate, not one of your Priestesses.”

“Your mate?” For once, Selene appeared surprised. As though there was something she wasn’t clever enough to foresee.

“Yes. His mate. You were not aware?”

“We hardly had time to discuss such matters,” she informed me. “You interrupted us before I could inquire after her personal life.”

“Where is she?” Tamhas demanded.

I sensed his desire to lunge for the Priestess, to hurt her if need be, and I hoped he could gather his wits in time to avoid such foolishness. We might well have been dragons and powerful in our own right, but Selene was by far the most talented and powerful Priestess in generations.

I doubted her powers had subsided over the decades. If anything, they’d strengthened.

“How dare you enter our home and demand anything from us?” I recognized Iris. She hadn’t changed much, always looking to start a fight.

I recognized all of them, in fact—including Hecate, whose eyes I remembered not to look into. She would certainly be of a mind to silence or freeze all of us.

“This does not need to devolve into a fight,” I reminded everyone around me. “We have not come here to attack you. We’ve merely come to retrieve Keira and Emelie.”

“You cannot have either of them,” Selene announced. How she could make such a statement while hardly batting an eyelash was far beyond me.

“Do you truly wish for things to come to a head between us?” I asked. “After what you’ve done to our clan?”

She blinked. For once, something threw her off-balance. “What are you referring to? You are the reason we were forced deeper than ever into hiding. We’ve had to protect ourselves all these years, because of you.”

It was my turn to blink. “What do you mean?”

We stared at each other for a long, tense moment, sizing up the other’s intentions. If there was one thing I remembered clearest about Selene, it was her sense of fairness. She would not make up untruths simply to legitimize the grudge against our clan.

My shoulders fell, my body relaxing. “It seems we have more than a few topics to discuss. What is the purpose of this? I’m willing to stand down and promise no shifting against your coven so long as you at least bring Keira and Emelie to us. We will work everything else out, I’m certain. We’re both civilized and reasonable.”

She pursed her lips in thought, and I knew what she was doing to me. She could read energies, impressions. I merely needed her to see and understand the motivation behind my words. I meant her no harm.

We only wanted what was ours. Even if that meant Emelie, too.

She held up both hands—I tensed, fearing she was about to cast a spell to harm us. Instead, it was a signal to her coven, as all of them backed down from the fighting stances they’d taken when we entered.

“You cannot mean this,” Iris hissed.

“I wish to hear them out,” Selene announced.

The tension in the room ebbed away as all of us relaxed, even if not all of us wanted to or felt it a wise decision.

When she nodded, the torchlight went brighter—and at the same time, Keira appeared along the wall to my left. She’d been standing there all along, blocked by a spell which had rendered her invisible to us. I should have known.

Tamhas ran to her, enfolding her in a tight embrace which she returned.

Beside them stood a girl with longish dark hair, whose petite frame seemed overwhelmed by the oversized sweater and baggy pants she wore. Both forearms were loaded with bracelets, including the one which Keira had found in the woods.

I had the immediate impression that she wished to hide herself. It made sense in relation to what Tamhas had already told me about her.

Our eyes met.

My dragon roared in recognition of something it had never seen before. My human consciousness rejected the notion out of hand, declaring it impossible.

The dragon knew better.

It was the dragon who moved my feet in her direction, who led me to take her hands in mine. “Emelie?” I asked, staring into her tear-filled gray eyes.

“Yes.”

“I am Alan. Are you well? Have they harmed you in any way?”

“You ought to know better than to ask such a question,” Selene called out, easily able to hear me.

I ignored her in favor of focusing on Emelie. “Are you well?”

“Extremely confused, but nobody has hurt me.” She looked over my shoulder, to Tamhas and Keira. The two of them were still lost in each other and would be for at least another few minutes. “What’s happening here? I wish somebody would tell me.”

“You don’t know?”

“I know she’s a witch,” she whispered, nodding to Keira. “I know she’s one of them.”

“A Priestess,” I murmured. “Though, in essence, there is not much of a difference.”

“What’s happening here?” Her eyes searched mine, her forehead creasing in a worried frown—then, she withdrew her hands from mine. “Wait. I forgot.”

“Forgot what?” I took a step closer to her, which she responded to by stepping further away from me.

“She wouldn’t tell me who you are. She didn’t get the chance. But I know there’s something weird about you, too, because you have something to do with them.”

“You have no reason to fear us.” I nearly said me, but stopped myself in time.

“I’ll make that decision for myself.” She folded her arms, tucking her hands underneath.

My heart sank. I merely wanted her to trust me. The last thing I wanted was to harm her.

“Well?” Selene asked. “If there is so much for us to discuss, we had better get to it. I believe more than enough years have passed.”

The clan looked to me for guidance. The coven looked to me for explanation.

My dragon wanted nothing but Emelie. She was our mate, now and always.

That would have to wait.

So would the confusion that I felt at the strength of my emotions.

“Is there somewhere we can sit?” I asked.

I should have known a massive table would appear, long enough for all of us to have a seat at each of the many chairs which appeared along with it. It had been a long time since we’d been in the presence of the coven.

“Sit by me,” I advised Emelie.

I had to. Because if I didn’t my dragon wouldn’t have given me a moment’s peace. Id’ not have been able to participate in the conversation because everything would be drowned out by his roars.

My dragon wanted her with us at all times, and not merely to ensure her safety.

She looked skeptical but took a chair to my right nonetheless. Tamhas sat to my left, with Keira beside him.

Anyone with eyes could see how it pained Keira that her lifelong friend no longer trusted her. That pain reflected itself in Emelie’s eyes.

Selene sat opposite me, her coven seated to either side.

Iris’s eyes blazed with furious light as she sat by Selene’s right hand, and that fury was directed at me. As though I needed something else with which to concern myself.

“All right,” Selene said, bringing the room to silence as only she could. “Let us begin.”