“Antonio, this is not a request!” Amira Capirelli said, her voice taking on that particular hint of high-pitched annoyance Antonio had come to know over his thirty-two years upon this Earth.

“And I do not answer to threats,” he said idly, strolling through the lavish dining room and stopping on the balcony that overlooked their palace grounds.

Nestled in the mountains of Tuscany, the Capirelli House sat as a nestled jewel among endless beauty. The greenery of the woods around and below, combined with the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean that Antonio could spy in the distance made for a home as perfect as one could wish for.

And yet he felt nothing but stuck in it as of late.

“Antonio, please, see reason,” Amira sighed, coming to stand next to him, before quieting for a moment.

The two dragons stood there in silence for long moments, almost matching pairs of gray eyes scanning the scenery. Antonio had always thought it was a particularly ‘dragon’ thing to do – he’d never known a dragon to not revel in a chance to lord over what was rightfully his. Even if it occasionally gave him more grief than felt entirely necessary.

“Reason is not something you have gone to lengths to teach me, mother,” he said, breaking the pleasant spell of silence. “And furthermore, not everything has to be by your design.”

The small huff of irritation that rose from Amira, along with a puff of smoke, was enough to tell him that his mother was reluctantly willing to stop arguing with him. The fact that he’d have to go to such lengths to have a say in his own wedding day, though, was beyond ridiculous.

“As you say, young prince,” Amira finally conceded, turning her back on the view and walking back inside.

Antonio shook his head with a roll of his eyes, then flicked his gaze upward to the skies.

“Papa, you leave and she becomes even more stubborn than she was before,” he murmured, words meant only for himself and his passed father, the Dragon King of Italy.

“What are you muttering about, mio caro?” Amira called.

“Simply exchanging words with the spirits,” he answered with a grin forming on his lips as he turned and joined his mother in the dining room.

He took a seat at the long table, settling in at the head, a spot that had grown increasingly more familiar to him over the last five years. And soon, it would have to feel like the very extension of himself, as he would no longer be just the Dragon Prince, but King. There was only one small detail to take care of. The matter of his queen.

It was then that the doors were flung open by two servants, barely in time to allow Rossella Simonetti a dignified entrance, instead of the door-banging siege she usually unleashed when entering anywhere.

“Rossella,” Amira called, standing from her seat and waiting for the young dragoness to come to her.

The two exchanged quick pecks on the cheek, nothing but formality, though the looks they shared carried genuine warmth and appreciation for one another. And why would they not – Rossella was perhaps the only woman Antonio had known who could match his mother for her stubbornness.

It wasn’t, perhaps, his favorite quality about his soon-to-be wife.

“Amore mio, it has been too long!” Rossella exclaimed, flying from Amira straight to Antonio.

Her arms crushed around his neck and they shared an embrace, before Rossella coyly pulled back, her bright blue eyes shining with appreciation. She was a beautiful woman by anyone’s standard. Long chestnut hair, high cheekbones that seemed as if carved from the very mountains themselves, a lithe but strong build, and her dragon had the most enchanting underlay of cobalt blue in the scales.

Only adding to her attractiveness, at least from a political standpoint, was the fact that her family was nearly ancient, powerful, rich and thoroughly purebred dragons. Something that was becoming increasingly rarer those days.

“We saw one another this morning,” Antonio offered in comment as Rossella settled in a seat at the dining table with the help of a servant.

She wore a gown that emphasized the blue in her eyes, a long, silken number adorned with jewels certainly taken from her personal hoard. By the way Amira was eyeing the young woman over, she had certainly impressed.

“It felt as if too long,” Rossella commented idly, motioning for the servants to pour her wine.

Perhaps it did, Antonio surmised, but he could not help but not feel it where he thought he should. Duty beyond heart, he reminded himself, returning his attention to the dinner that was being served for them now.

Once a week, they would meet for dinner, often with Rossella’s parents in tow and high-ranking officers from the Capirelli family of dragons in attendance as well. Today was one of the rare occasions where only four seats were set, and even more curiously, only three of them filled at a table that could easily seat twenty.

“Did you discuss what we talked about, amore mio?” Rossella asked, glancing from him to his mother and back again.

“If you mean the wish to move the date of your sacred union out a week, then yes, it has been discussed, my child,” Amira said, sounding more than a bit terse.

The matron of the family did not take well to having her will argued with. It was something Antonio had learned long ago. Yet what kind of a king would he be if he could not even keep his own mother in check when necessary?

“The arrangements will be made then,” Rossella nodded.

The look Amira gave him left Antonio with no doubt that his mother had expected more joy out of the woman at having her wish fulfilled. It was, after all, how he had served it – that Rossella wished for the wedding to be postponed, so she could have everything set up perfectly. It seemed like a reasonable white lie, considering that he could certainly not reveal the actual cause of his request.

The first course was served and conversation drifted in the usual boring patterns. Flower arrangements. Guest list. How to make sure no dragons broke out in a fight and tore the palace to shreds (it had been known to happen, even the largest and grandest of banquet halls couldn’t accommodate warring dragons). Once again, Antonio found himself barely paying attention, his eyes more focused on the slowly darkening skies outside than the chatter of two women around him.

“The fourth seat,” he finally said, cutting through what conversation was being had by Amira and Rossella. “Who is it set for and why have they stood us up?”

“It is for your brother,” Amira responded, sipping at her wine. “He sent word he would possibly make it home by tonight from his little… excursion.”

The sound of distaste was so palpable in her tone. She’d never thought much about the upstart nation of the United States of America, despite Giovanni, Antonio’s brother, having gotten his higher education there.

Antonio stilled immediately, his back going rigid.

“Giovanni? Are you certain? I had not heard a word of this.”

“He does not need to tell you of every little step he makes, Antonio,” Rossella laughed. “You are his older brother, not the keeper of his time.”

“On this, we can agree,” Amira nodded.

Could it be… but why did he not send word?

His gut roiled and it became markedly clear to him that he’d been feeling antsy and out of place for most of the day, being antagonistic at best, and outright impossible at worst. His fire had been close to the surface since dawn, and he had not stopped to wonder why, writing it off as simple irritation at having to deal with so much that hardly concerned him.

Now, however, he had to wonder if there was a more serious reason to it all underneath.

Could it be that she was getting closer?

He kicked the chair back and left his dinner untouched as he paced back onto the balcony, followed by the questioning gazes of his bride-to-be and queen mother. He breathed in deeply, listening intently to the familiar sounds of the night air.

“Antonio, you are being very rude,” Amira called.

He did not listen. All he could hear was the soft humming of helicopter blades growing nearer by the moment, and the way his gut tightened along with it. His body felt like it was being consumed by heat and the dragon roared within him, a low, guttural growl emanating from between clenched teeth.

He had not seen her yet, but the firedragon knew. She was here. Any moment now, his jewel would walk back into his life and turn it all upside down again.

And he couldn’t wait.

“What’s that?” Rossella asked, rising from her seat as well, as the sound of the helicopter was heard clearly now.

“It must be Giovanni,” Amira noted, clearly annoyed that the young dragons were breaking sacred dinner customs of sitting down and holding a pleasant conversation of small-talk regardless of what was going on around them.

As far as she was concerned, the villa could come down around them in blocks of granite and lumps of timber, and no one should pay any heed to it before dessert was finished.

Rossella sidled up to Antonio as his eyes stared transfixed at the sleek, black helicopter that was touching down on the landing pad in the west gardens. He felt like he had perhaps forgotten to breathe, watching the familiar shapes of his brother and two lesser Capirelli family members pile out of the chopper and waiting for what he hoped, and perhaps feared, would happen next.

His grip tightened around the marble banister, his knuckles white, the moment that Julie was helped out of the chopper. Even from this distance, he could spot a small child in her arms. The way his heart pounded and his tongue immediately flooded with the taste of the woman he had not seen for almost two years told him without question that what he had hoped and feared had come true.

She was here. And so was his child.

“Who is that with Giovanni?” Rossella asked curiously, tugging at his shirt and looking up at him.

He glanced at her but even in his muddled state, he could see the suspicion in her eyes. There was plenty of cause for it, but Rossella could have no clue just how much.

Perhaps there is still an explanation… Perhaps I am wrong… Perhaps my dragon is wrong.

There wasn’t, he wasn’t, and his dragon certainly wasn’t, but rationality could only get a man so far.

“Antonio?!” Rossella called as Antonio pulled away from her, breaking into a sprint within the first few steps.

He practically flew out of the dining room, having to exert far too much energy to keep his hissing and snarling dragon from breaking loose. His heart pounded in his chest as he took the stairs by threes, pounding down the steps and heading toward the door he knew they would enter through.

He was only steps away from it when the door was flung open and Julie came to a halt, surrounded by the faint light of the torches outside, casting a ghostly, ethereal glow about her. When their gazes met, Antonio’s world stood still.

His mate was back.