Every nerve in Gunner’s body was on high alert as his alpha charged over to the table. Draven looked like he was going to strangle his sister and not let go until her wild red curls went limp.

Thankfully, he stopped in front of the table, took a deep breath and looked down at the bottle of Whiskey instead.

“Grab me a glass, will you Gunner?” he whispered.

Gunner jumped up and happily got his alpha a glass. He was more than intrigued by Aleida and if the dragons came out swinging, he was afraid to know which side he would be on.

The two siblings sat at the table, eying each other as Gunner, Jax, Axel, and Zane stood close by, listening in.

“You can call off your sheep,” Aleida said, grinning at the boys. “Or are you afraid you can’t handle your little sister?”

“My ‘little sister’ tried to kill me the last time I saw her,” Draven said, staring her down. “So, my friends can stay right where they are.”

“Are we still holding old grudges?” she asked, raising her red eyebrow. “That was over three hundred years ago.”

Three hundred years ago?!? She’s that old? Gunner couldn’t believe that this breathtaking girl was much older than his ancient date who was currently sleeping in the back of his pickup truck.

“Funny how it’s hard to forget when your own flesh and blood tries to kill you,” Draven said before downing his drink.

Aleida’s bright eyes dropped to the table. “I was wrong Dravenous. I’m… I’m sorry.”

Draven took a deep breath as he leaned back, eying his sister with a curious look. Without a word he grabbed the bottle of Whiskey and refilled his glass.

“Why are you here?” he asked, narrowing his eyes on her. “First Jarin, now you.”

Her eyes darted up to his as she stared at him in shock. “Jarin was here? When?”

“He came with a cryptic message and left before I could see him,” Draven said. Gunner listened closely. Their dragon shifter brother Jarin had muttered something about bringing the earth back into the shadows of time right before he dislocated the jaw of Zane’s Kodiak bear. “Do you know what that was about?”

Aleida’s eyes flickered over to Gunner, making his body tense.

“Our brothers—”

“Half-brothers,” Draven corrected.

“Half-brothers,” Aleida repeated, “are planning to scorch the earth and start over.”

Gunner snorted out a laugh. Scorch the earth? It was time to take that bottle of alcohol away from her.

But she wasn’t laughing, and neither was Draven.

“They long for the good old days,” she explained as Draven listened closely. “It’s too hard to rule with technology. There’s no need for them and they know it. They’re becoming obsolete. They want to bring the world back into the stone age. They miss the blood and battles. Swords and spears are more fun for psychotic dragon shifters than RPGs and unmanned drones.”

Draven was watching her skeptically. “And how the hell are they going to do that?”

“One country at a time,” Aleida said. “They have it all planned out. They’ll destroy the power sources, light the world’s oil reserves on fire, and Jarin will destroy all the satellites in orbit. It will be chaos.”

Jax laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “That would take decades.”

“Nine months,” Aleida said, her eyes darting to the lion shifter. The amusement disappeared from Jax’s face when he heard the seriousness in her voice. “You haven’t seen how fast these guys can move. They can wipe out a power reactor that’s powering a whole state with a sneeze and be onto the next one before your TV shuts off.”

“Are they all…” The words disappeared from Draven’s mouth like he was afraid to utter them. “Mated?”

Gunner was watching Aleida closely and saw her muscles tense. “Yes.”

“Shit,” Draven cursed as he leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his eyes as Aleida shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

When a dragon shifter finds their mate, their core ignites making them powerful beyond belief. All dragon shifters have a superpower hiding within that only comes out once they bond with their one true mate. Draven had been alive for centuries, but he still hadn’t found a mate. It was too bad because a superpower could really have come in handy right about now.

“Their powers?” Draven asked, looking like he really didn’t want to hear it.

Aleida told him anyway. “Jarin still has the speed of light,” she explained. “And Valerius is still an ice dragon.” They already knew that, but his two remaining brothers were still a mystery. “Berinon is a size shifter. He can make himself as large as the tallest trees.”

“And Terrowin?” Draven asked, his eyes full of dread. Gunner knew that his oldest brother Terrowin was the one to really worry about.

“Terrowin seems to have the gift of invincibility,” she said. “His scales and skin are as hard as his heart.”

“That’s pretty damn hard,” Draven said, shaking his head.

“You have no idea,” she said, turning even paler than she already was. She leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper as if she didn’t want the words to escape the room. “It’s worse than you can imagine. All four have locked their mates in cells.”

Draven’s face dropped. A shifter had to be mad to deliberately harm their mates.

“Why?” Draven asked, looking horrified.

“They don’t want to lose their powers,” Aleida explained. “So they’ve locked their women away forever.”

Gunner knew that the mates of dragon shifters also gained power once they bonded to their true loves. The power of the dragon’s core extended to them as well, making them immortal. They could still be killed by physical harm, but they stopped aging the second they bonded and would never die from natural causes. If a dragon shifter’s mate did die by accident, the dragon’s core would extinguish and they would lose all of their powers.

Draven watched her for a long while before he opened his mouth again. “So, why are you here, Aleida?”

Gunner leaned in closely to hear the answer. He had been asking her that but she had refused to tell him.

“I came looking for it,” she said.

Draven laughed. “You can’t be serious.”

“Your mother was serious when she prophesied it,” Aleida said.

“My mother was dying when she prophesied it,” Draven corrected as he shook his head. “The feverish words of a dying old woman.”

“What other option do we have, Dravenous?” Aleida asked.

Gunner couldn’t help himself. “Prophesied what?”

Draven took another drink as Aleida turned to him. “Caliburnus,” she said. “Place it in the hands of the one true Dragon King and he will be unstoppable.”

“Caliburnus?” Axel said, tilting his head. “The heavy metal band? I love those guys!”

“Not the heavy metal band,” Draven said as he stared at the empty glass in his hand. “Remember when I told you guys that my father was King Artorius, or better known as King Arthur?”

Gunner nodded. Draven’s family was so old that his father became the legend of King Arthur in literature.

“Well,” Draven continued. “Caliburnus is better known as Excalibur.”

Axel, Jax, and Zane burst out laughing, but Gunner didn’t. He could see that Aleida was not joking about this.

“The sword?” Jax said, barely able to contain himself. “You have a magical sword?”

Axel was crying with laughter. “What’s in that Whiskey?” he asked as he wiped his wet eyes. “Magical fairy dust?”

Aleida squeezed the glass in her hand and threw it onto the floor, shattering it in pieces. The laughter stopped and the fists came up as she sprang to her feet.

“It’s not funny!” she shouted. “It won’t be funny when these people are tearing each other apart in the streets over the last can of food! You’re the firstborn son of King Artorius, for God’s sake, and you’re hiding here with these sheep!”

Gunner’s heart broke to see her so upset. He wanted to take her in his arms and make all of her pain go away.

“What can I do?” Draven shouted, pulling his hair in frustration. “Almost five hundred years and I’m still not mated. I don’t have their kind of power!”

Aleida’s breathing slowed as she watched her brother. “That is why we must find it.”

Draven let out a breath and shook his head. “Fairy tales,” he whispered.

She opened her arms, showing her palms. “Do we have any other choice?”

“Yeah,” Draven muttered. “We do.”

He grabbed the bottle of Whiskey and headed for the door. “I need some fresh air. Aleida, you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.” He stopped and turned before stepping outside. “As long as you don’t try to kill me again.”

She glanced at Gunner with soft eyes before following her brother to the door. Gunner didn’t want to let her out of his sight. Not for fear of what she would do, but he was worried she would leave and he would never see her again.

Axel bumped his shoulder into Gunner’s chest as he walked by. “Hey,” the polar bear shifter whispered. “Did you get laid on your date?”

Just the horrifying thought of that made Gunner shudder. “No.”

Axel was grinning widely. “I got laid on mine.”

“We know,” Zane said with a roll of his eyes. “You told us.”

“Ten times already,” Jax added.

“Well, here’s an eleventh,” Axel said with a smirk on his face. “I. Got. Fucked.”

Aleida chuckled as she arrived at the door, turning to look at Axel. She had heard every word. “Good to see the true Dragon King has surrounded himself with the brightest and smartest of people,” she said sarcastically.

Axel nodded his head. “Thank you,” he answered, smiling proudly. “That’s the first sane thing you’ve said since you’ve arrived.”

She just laughed as she stepped outside. “You’re such an idiot,” Gunner muttered to him as he hurried after her.

“An idiot that got laid on his date,” Axel shouted after him.

Her pale skin and bright hair looked even more beautiful in the soft light of the moon, and Gunner had to summon up all the courage he had just to speak to her.

“Aleida,” he called out. She turned and he nearly took a step back as his chest tightened.

“Yes?” she asked when he just stood there staring.

“I’ll help you.”

She smiled. “This game is for dragons. I don’t want your little pussycat to get burned.”

Gunner grinned at her playful tone. “How’s your wing?”

“That little scratch?” she asked with a slow smile. “You’re going to need more than a nibble to fight off a mated dragon.”

“Whatever you need me for, I’m here,” he said. And he meant it. If she was going to be in danger, he wanted to be by her side.

She looked like she was about to make another playful comment but then stopped when she saw the seriousness on his face. “Thanks, Gunner. I might just take you up on that.”

Gunner grinned as she walked away.

I hope you do.