We left the camp hastily after we had a quick meal. Ares wanted the guardians to fly us straight toward Mysth without taking too many breaks. However, his plan wasn’t realistic. Ignis and Glacies hadn’t fully recovered from the wounds they had sustained in the fight against the Angels.

When a host of snowy mountains were far behind us, we flew across the war zone. The humans and centaurs had halted fire temporarily. They couldn’t spot us at the height we were flying at.

Ares didn’t talk much, though his arm was around my waist. He hadn’t mentioned a word about his witch. Actually, he’d been trying to avoid the topic, but I knew she was still between us, constantly between us.

Whenever Caen looked at me, his eyes were full of enmity, and I offered him a sharp smile each time. I needed to watch out for that one, he was the type who would stab me in the back.

After we passed the war zone, Ares’ expression darkened. He hadn’t had this kind of gloomy mood before we’d fucked. He was probably regretting screwing me. He must have thought that one act on lust had cost him a kingdom, but I couldn’t tell him everything the Oracle had told him was lies.

I was the First Witch. But how could I bring him the greatest kingdom on Earth when I couldn’t even save myself from my curse and my grandfather’s legion?

I couldn’t bear to see the bitterness on his face if he finally found out that I was the First Witch. He’d pictured how majestic she was. He’d even prayed she was the opposite of me.

Even if he accepted me for who I was, I wasn’t a fool to believe we would share a future. He was the Dragonian prince and heir, and I’d never been groomed to be the royalty. I would never fit into his complicated, political life.

I was an uncivilized wolf girl in everyone’s eyes, or the witch everyone would come to hunt if they knew about my other heritage.

But if he thought I would settle for being his concubine, he was seriously mistaken.

Freyja, Ventus called in my head and jerked me out of my brooding.

What? I asked.

So this is it? he asked.

This is what?

My brothers and I are going to close the bet.

What bet, exactly?

You and the prince get together and he knows who you really are in the end.

We’re not together.

You slept with him.

Like that means anything? Seriously? How many woman has he slept with? I bet even you’ve lost count. I’m just one of the faces in the crowd.

And now I’d become one of the women he bedded and would soon discard after he met his witch. However, he’d already met her but didn’t know she was me. And he’d already fucked me—the witch.

This sounded like a total fuck-up.

“Freyja,” Ares called me after his long silence.

“What?” 

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“You never think nothing. You little head is always plotting. What are you scheming now?”

“Tell me, Prince,” I asked. “Is it easy to command the pure-blood Dragonians? Can they truly accept you?”

“They’ll have to,” Ares said, studying me to detect which direction I’d mislead him to. He demanded I trust him, yet he couldn’t set an example himself.

It took two to dance.

“My race can’t further evolve because of our genetic limitations,” he said. “I’m their future. As a hybrid, I’m faster, stronger, and brighter. And when the witch finally joins me—”

He stopped. Seemed like I wasn’t the only one who spoke too much.

I hadn’t expected that comment to hurt so much, as if he’d stabbed me right in my heart with an angelblade. And I was shocked by my reaction. I’d known from the beginning he would always want her more than me and I’d told myself it wouldn’t bother me.

She was his future, and I was his few nights of entertainment.

“I didn’t mean—” he said, then stopped himself again.

Of course he meant what he said.

“I don’t give a damn,” I said. “All we had were a few quick fucks to blow off the steam. They meant nothing.”

He growled.

“When you have your witch and we part our ways,” I added, “we won’t even remember each other. I’ll forget you just as quickly as you forget me.”

A guttural, threatening sound rumbled from his chest.

I ignored my bleeding heart and kept my voice even and carefree. “So, Prince,” I asked, “why did Commander North Darken only make you the heir eighteen years ago? Why not earlier?”

“He made me the heir after he had no better candidates. Is that what you meant?”

“I meant no offense,” I said.

It seemed our words always got twisted, but now, after we had slept together, they seemed to have more power to hurt each other.

Ares sighed. “It’s common knowledge that my father coveted the Fey Empress ever since he’d first laid eyes upon her. She was a princess back then and her emperor father sold her to the Angel King. She sought my father out for an alliance to take down the Angels. My father believed that she would finally choose him. He wanted their offspring to be the heir, but the Fey Empress mated with the High Prince of All Angels. When my father saw all hope of interbreeding with the Fey had faded, he married my mother, a tribal princess of the advanced humans, and I turned from a bastard to the legitimate heir overnight.”

“Why didn’t your father choose any of your brothers? Don’t the Dragonians prefer a pure-blood prince to be their next king?” I asked. “Why give the future throne to a hybrid?”

“My father is a visionary and a revolutionist. He and his scientists collected and studied the genetic makeup of all species and found the advanced humans’ genes were superior to any other mortals’ on Earth. He believed that the humans were Earth’s future. As you can see, with how fast humans breed and evolve. He mated with my mother to guarantee the superiority gene in me, in his offspring.”

Commander North Darken also used the lab to enhance his heir’s DNA, so Ares was more than any mixed advanced humans and Dragonians. Save Fey, Ares was probably the most advanced specimen on Earth.

“My father hopes I’ll rule both humans and Dragonians when he passes,” Ares added.

And they believed that with the First Witch joining the hybrid prince, their ambition would be reality. Only they hadn’t expected me, the wolf girl, to come along.

Which men could turn away from such a dream and a promise? My anger and bitterness toward Ares ebbed.

“Merlin said humans would take over Earth,” I said. “The Fey would fade away.” 

“The immortals live in a different realm than us,” Ares said. “Their magic is only strong in the Twilight Realm. There’s no magic on the mortal land.”

The world had shifted, as the druid had said.

“Magic is coming to the mortal land,” I said.

I was the First Witch and Merlin the First Druid. If I could manage to have offspring, they would inherit my magic and spread it. That was what Merlin had meant that I was the beginning.

I’d never thought that would be possible before, but since Ares could touch me, he could sire my children. I brushed at that thought, and in response, lust swirled alive in me again and clung to me like vines. Warmth pooled between my thighs and my mound was slick with need.

Though his clouded mind couldn’t perceive our mating bound, his primal instinct could sense it. Ares tightened his grip on me.

His huge erection pricked against my bottom, and his arm voluntarily moved up until his hand was on my swollen breast.

The mating call grew louder, brighter.

Even though I was on the guardian’s back, all I wanted to go on fours and raise my rear for him to fuck me from behind. Or I could stay where I was and just haul off my pants and get his cock inside me.

I blinked, shaking my mind out of its lust-filled stupor.

Damn the mating instinct! I thought one fuck would get it out of my system, but the mating frenzy had just started.

I turned to glance at Ares.

He also looked like he wanted to mount me right there, right then, in the high air.

Our reasons were weakening.

His body trembled at his restraint.

We’d made a mistake mating in the tent. How were we going to resist the frenzied call of lust and passion? Even the rapid, chilly current slamming into our faces couldn’t cool the heat in our blood.

“How close are we to the shifters’ territory, Ventus?” Ares asked through his clenched teeth.

He wanted to land.

I held a hope that we could find a secluded place and fuck again. Maybe next time we could get it out of our system.

“Two more miles, Your Highness,” said Ventus.

Ares grunted, but he knew it would be cruel to push the wounded guardians to fly faster.

With the mating fire scorching us, the two miles felt like two hundred acres.