When Rik paired me up with Mehen for guard duty, I braced for the man’s arrogance and the dark twist of his bond. The oldest Blood, and by far the most grumpy after centuries of imprisonment as a dragon, he could make the simplest of duties unpleasant, to say the least. His hatred and rage leaked through our bonds, and carrying that much negativity took its toll, poisoning our minds with his bitterness.

So it was a very good thing that Rik and Shara had fucked him so hard last night. It’d definitely knocked the mighty dragon down a few pegs and taken the edge off his rage. But what had helped the most was the cuddling after the fact. Sleeping with several warm bodies made it difficult to sulk and plot revenge. Though I’d die of old age before I’d ever hear the man admit that he’d actually enjoyed sleeping tangled up in that big pile of warm bodies.

Listening in on our queen’s bond as much as possible at least helped pass the time when I wasn’t physically near her. I couldn’t wait to take her shopping again, and a queen’s court visit would be off-the-chains fun to prepare for. She’d need a formal gown for each night, and we’d need to dress up too.

Her first political challenge had ended in the death of another queen’s Blood. Hopefully this visit with Zaniyah went better.

“So why are you banned from her bed?” Even Mehen’s voice was harsh and abrupt, slicing through my thoughts like a red-hot poker.

I couldn’t suppress the twitch of surprise. I’d totally forgotten he was with me. Stupid. We were supposed to be on guard duty, not listening in on our queen’s bond and plotting a wardrobe. “I fucked up.”

Since he’d distracted me anyway, I cast my senses out as far as possible, feeling for anything amiss. A few rabbits had braved the fresh snow in search of food. A bird with long green tail feathers sat on a low limb at the edge of the woods, watching as we paced our queen’s blood circle. But I sensed nothing else for miles.

Mehen grunted beneath his breath. “That doesn’t tell me much.”

I shrugged uncomfortably, avoiding his gaze. “I made a mistake, okay? She shifted into a cobra and was hurting Rik. I tried to free him before she killed him. I would have hurt her to save him, and Rik banned me from her bed until he’s sure I wouldn’t put his, or anyone else’s, welfare over our queen’s ever again.”

Mehen’s eyes widened. “She managed to hurt our alpha?”

“She fucking killed him,” I said flatly. “Though being Isis’s descendant has its advantages. He’s got two huge scars on his stomach from where she bit him.”

“She loves him.”

“Her cobra didn’t care. At least when she bit you, she didn’t poison you too. Rik’s poisonous, but Guillaume said anyone of her blood carries the antivenin now.”

“Alpha won’t be feeding us anyway.”

Probably not, though sometimes I missed the taste of his blood. Though I loved my queen and tasting her blood was fucking fantastic, I loved Rik too, and I’d known him for far longer. I needed my queen’s blood for power.

But Rik’s…

He just tasted like home. Family. When it’d been just him and me against Keisha Skye’s court. I’d never in a million years want to go back to that. But he’d been the best thing I’d known for nearly forty years.

“So how long do I have to put up with all of you being absolute shits to me?”

I snorted. “As long as you were imprisoned.”

“You tried to hurt her too.”

Wincing, I shrugged and focused on the bird again. It still sat there. Watching. It was strangely colored, too. More tropical than anything I would have expected to find in Arkansas. But it didn’t feel like a thrall or another Aima, though I’d have to get closer to be sure it wasn’t something magical. “I never would have killed her. I just wanted to stop her from smashing all the bones in his body and suffocating him. Does that bird look strange to you?”

“Yeah, I wondered how fucking long it’d take you to notice it since we’re supposed to be on guard duty.”

:There’s a suspicious bird watching us.: I told Rik in the bond. :But I don’t sense anything off or threatening. It’s just out of place.:

:Show me.:

Looking at the bird, I dropped my inner shields. Literally letting my guard down. Rik’s bond surged inside me and I felt him slide into me, looking out through my eyes.

“Fuck,” Mehen whispered beneath his breath. “I didn’t know he could do that. You even smell like him right now.”

I didn’t try to speak, not with Rik in me so strongly. It’d be weird to hear his words come out in my voice. I didn’t think Mehen or any of the other Blood would be able to do this. Not as fully as I could. I’d submitted to him in more ways than one, which made this easier. He might have fucked Mehen last night, but mighty Leviathan hadn’t submitted. Not entirely.

A raucous caw announced Nevarre’s raven as he flew past, headed straight for the strange bird. I hoped he didn’t kill it. The bird was beautiful and it wasn’t hurting anything. Yet.

The giant raven landed on the ground below the limb and cocked its head, watching the smaller bird. It squawked and squeaked, Nevarre bobbing his head and pacing beneath the tree. Then the bird shot up into the air, headed south.

:It was a messenger from Zaniyah.: Nevarre said through our bonds. :Skye will attack. She said beware the ground.:

“Beware the ground?” Mehen asked. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Nevarre flew back over the nest boundary and landed on the ground before us. :She was a true bird, a quetzel, not a shifter, so she didn’t have a full vocabulary. She sent me images, though, of something swarming up out of the ground. She pecked at it, like she could eat it. So maybe bugs? Worms? But something coming up out of the ground.:

I let out a disgusted growl—that sounded way more like Rik’s troll than my warcat. “Up through the ground—directly into the nest.”

Rik backed out of me so hard and fast that I reeled, losing my balance a moment. Mehen steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.

:Everybody shift. Nose to the ground. Nevarre, use your eyes from above. If you see anything suspicious, even a dark speck against the snow, map it for us. Find this fucking threat before our queen’s nest is compromised.:

I did not relish the chore of admitting to my queen that her supposedly impenetrable nest might soon come under attack.

I had sworn she’d be safe here. And within days, we faced an unknown threat from the ground. Worse, she’d owe a debt to Zaniyah for warning us in advance.

But all of those considerations paled in comparison to the very real threat of what would happen to my queen, and me, if Keisha Skye managed to get a hook in Shara.

“How does she know where we are?” Shara asked, turning from her conversation with Gina to look at me.

I hadn’t thought she was listening through the bonds, not while planning the trip with her consiliarius. “Kendall wasn’t our only sib in Skye court. Any of them could pinpoint our location, though we fed from Kendall the most.”

“So she’s going to try to break through the nest from below,” she mused, staring off into space. “Could one of her shifters fly over at the same time, like Nevarre?”

“No, not to my knowledge. But I’ve never heard of anyone penetrating a nest through the ground, either.”

:If Nevarre wasn’t your Blood, he probably couldn’t fly high enough to penetrate the nest,: Mehen added, still in his human shape. Now that our queen had taken him as Blood, he couldn’t shift into his dragon form unless she explicitly allowed it. :Your blood creates a magical wall that extends above and below, though the ground is harder for your blood to penetrate. Most winged creatures couldn’t get over it, but my beast could.:

“What kind of shifters would come up through the ground?”

“None that I can think of,” I replied. “Especially in her court. She has mostly cats and wolves in her Blood.”

“You haven’t talked about her court much.”

She’d said much the same thing a few moments earlier, but more than curiosity rang in her words. She needed information and if we were under a real and present danger…

Rock hardened beneath my skin, turning my face to granite. “Because I would rather forget.”

She could have sank into my bond and dragged the past out of me. She could have viewed my memories like a movie. But my queen only threaded her fingers through mine and hugged my arm to her. “If no shifter can get up through the ground, what could she send against us? What powers does she have?”

“The bird pecked at something on the ground, so Nevarre is guessing some kind of bug.” My voice rumbled with rock troll bass, but hopefully she thought it was anger from the threat, not because my heart ached with gratitude. I knew she needed information, desperately, but she wouldn’t drag it out of me all at once. Though maybe the rip-off-the-bandage approach would be best in this case. “I wasn’t high enough in her court to know her powers, and what she displayed…”

She kissed my shoulder. Only then did I realize how tense I’d become. I made my muscles relax so I wasn’t a granite boulder against her.

“There’s only two things to know about Keisha Skye.” Daire stepped into the room, his usually easygoing personality a vicious snarl, his warcat pacing back and forth in his bond. “She wants a child to replace the one she lost, and she enjoys breaking alphas.”