Eliaz Griswold stared through the small window of his humble stone cottage in the Shadow Woods of Umbras, pondering the unfortunate fate of his father and the insidious choice of Prince Dante Dragona: why the dragon had slain Eliaz’s father to protect his secret, yet allowed the warlock Aguilon Jomei to live.

He slammed his fist down on a rickety wooden table and took a long drink of ale.

No, Prince Dante hadn’t just allowed Aguilon to live; he had taken him into his inner circle, elevated him to high mage of Warlochia, and funded each and every clandestine activity of the Warlock’s Council on Supreme Magic and Mystical Practices as if Aguilon was the prince’s favorite pet. To Eliaz’s best guess, the calculating monarch had removed Aguilon’s memories of the fateful event, that night in the tent of Umbras—he had to have removed them, hadn’t he?—but Aguilon kissed the prince’s arse just the same, that was, when he wasn’t strutting around the Realm in his opulent robes and his mystical regalia, preening like a peacock displaying its plumes. Eliaz couldn’t help but wonder if the high mage of Warlochia might not lose some of that annoying swagger if he knew the unedited truth—if he realized he’d been used.

He spun around on the rickety bench and stared at an inconspicuous shelf full of jugs: the first contained a liberal supply of ale; the second, a season’s storage of fine, powdered grain; the third, the soul of a wicked prince; and the fourth, well, it contained thirty-one years’ worth of coppers, each one earned by the toil of Eliaz’s hands and the implacable determination to one day buy a witch.

Or a warlock as the case may be.

Prince Dante may have murdered Elzeron Griswold, Eliaz’s beloved sire, but he had not murdered Elzeron’s legacy or the power of his shadow, the dark, cryptic mysticism that now flowed in Eliaz’s veins. Eliaz was powerful enough to implant that wicked bottled soul into another nubile body if necessary—all he needed was a warlock to resurrect it.

He licked his taut, thin lips, lapping up a dribble of ale from the corner of his mouth. Kristof Nocturne was also a member of the Warlock’s Council on Supreme Magic; he was a wizard of untold power, albeit less than Aguilon possessed, and he could be bought for a price, a heavy purse of coppers or the delicacy of a little boy, as long as the lad was beautiful.

Eliaz did not have access to the latter, but he certainly had three decades’ worth of the former, and he had no doubts, whatsoever, that if and when the time came, Kristof could perform the necromancy Eliaz required.

Ah, but then Eliaz must consider his options carefully as there were so many potential ways to play his hand: With help, he could overpower the body of Prince Damian—the sentient which now contained the soul of Matthias Gentry—and put Damian’s soul back where it belonged. He could choose a weaker and less challenging victim, perhaps Thomas the squire, now regent of Castle Warlochia and Prince Dante’s right hand, thus, placing the enemy in Prince Dante’s camp. Or he could sell the valuable commodity to a powerful player across the restless sea, King Thaon of Lycania or Craon, son of Plagues, the general of Thieves.

Eliaz would only get one opportunity to maximize his play.

He rose from the table and paced the earthen floor, recalling his father’s last missive: Elzeron’s premortem confession about all he had seen and done, about the significance of the contents in that plain stoneware jug. Then he ambled across the cottage, ran his finger along the earthen lid, and thanked the Keeper of the Forgotten Realm that Prince Dante’s Warlochian soldiers had delivered Elzeron’s satchel along with his lifeless body to his only surviving kin.

And why wouldn’t the soldiers have delivered the seemingly worthless, tattered bag?

Not even Prince Dante could have conceived of what the satchel contained—they had no cause to inspect it. Yea, but Eliaz had done more than check its contents; he had read every desperate word on the parchment, taken great care to conceal and preserve the jar, and bided his time for thirty-one-years to make good use of its inhabitant.

Prince Damian Dragona’s soul.

Eliaz bent to the jar and kissed the lid.

“Soon, my evil prince. The nights grow darker, the fog grows thicker, the dragon’s moon casts a haunting double shadow across the land—a portent of secrets and whispers and treachery. Something is afoot in the Realm.” He clenched his hands into fists, bemoaning his unwanted fate; for surely, if he had possessed a choice, Eliaz would have chosen a gentler path. He would have liked to have bred many sons, gained wealth and status in Umbras, passed on his legacy of shadowmancing to future generations.

But alas, it was not meant to be…

From the tender age of eleven summers, Eliaz had only one purpose: to exact revenge on the Prince of Warlochia in whatever way he could.

* * *

King Demitri Dragona came awake with a start.

He’d had the cursed dream again.

The one where he is bending over his middle son, Damian, about to tender the dragons’ kiss. Then Damian’s appearance becomes that of Prince Dario, Dante and Cassidy’s son. Just as quickly, Damian becomes a full-grown dragon, nearly 150 years old, and he is walking through the gardens of Castle Dragon when a band of warlocks and shades surround him. Before the king can intervene, they impale Prince Damian with a lance, remove his heart from his chest, and hang it from an octagonal turret atop the castle. The king falls to his knees—he was too slow to get there…

Hell’s fire and damnation!

Why wouldn’t the infernal dream let him be?

He’d had it for at least three decades, and Damian was always fine.

In fact, his middle son was prospering in the Castle of Umbras, and unlike his brother Dante, he already had three sons!

“Milord?” A faint, shy feminine voice, the mewling of a Blood Ahavi, brought the dragon king back to his senses, back to his lucid awareness. “Are you all right, my liege? Do the night-terrors still plague you?”

Now this just made Demitri angry.

Who was this low-born slave to question the king of Dragons Realm, to remind him of his weakness, and to fall asleep in his bed?

As he gazed into her seeking, pale gray eyes, a wicked thought consumed him: It was such a curious, scintillating sensation, to couple with an Ahavi while feeding, to release his savage beast whilst struggling to maintain control. For, in truth, if he took too much of her essence, her delectable blood, or her intoxicating heat—if he ravaged her too eagerly as he reanimated his dragon’s fire—her skin would cool to frost, her blood would harden to ice, and her tantalizing, feminine curves would calcify as stone.

There was no coming back from such a state, which made it a dangerous game.

Not to mention, King Demitri had to slake his masculine needs before the female perished beneath him—he had to pull back in time to regenerate her mortal body with his dragon’s healing blue fire.

The king rarely took too much.

He had been feeding for nearly three hundred years…

But tonight was different.

He had suffered the damnable dream.

His dragon was restless; the shadowed moon was calling to his savage; and the female beside him had…overstepped.

Rolling atop the Ahavi, he grasped her hair in his fists, thrust his body into hers, and slowly released his fangs as he began to rock his hips. As the Ahavi wrapped her arms around him, eager to accept his carnal lust, he pierced her carotid artery and began to feed in earnest.

This night, he would play the game.