Gabriel awoke early the next morning when Medeia came to see him. Sevilla was with her, along with several vampire and dragon guards. Sevilla couldn’t meet his eyes.

Two of the dragon guards came forward and seized him by the arms on either side.

“What’s going on?” Gabriel said as a vampire bound his wrists together in thick iron shackles.

“You were caught breaking the First Rule last night,” Medeia said. “We have it on video. Thanks to the hidden cameras we’ve placed in this room.”

Stunned, Gabriel gazed at Sevilla, who still refused to meet his eyes.

“You knew, didn’t you?” Gabriel told her. “You set me up from the beginning. Slept with me only because you were obeying your vampire master. You felt nothing for me.”

Sevilla didn’t answer.

Medeia laughed softly. “Stupid men. Always thinking with your dicks first. You are always so easy to deceive.”

Gabriel’s knees buckled slightly and the guards had to prop him up. He couldn’t believe Sevilla had done this to him. After everything she’d told him, everything they had shared together… he shut his eyes. It was all a lie.

When he next opened his eyes, he could scarcely see through the red haze of hatred that filled his vision. He snarled at Sevilla, growling softly. But she wasn’t looking at him. The traitorous bitch wouldn’t dare.

He had been right. Completely. All other shifters and vampires were scum. The First Rule was a very important piece of legislation, protecting dragons from abuse like this. If anything, the rule didn’t go far enough. Vampires and lesser shifters should probably be hunted to extinction. If he ever emerged from this alive, he would have to seriously look at allying the dragons with the Orions to crush all lesser shifters and vampires.

“You are going to be executed this morning with your sister,” Medeia continued. “Already I’ve uploaded the incriminating footage to the Intranet so the citizens will know what you’ve done. I’ve also placed an interim government in charge of the throne, with Cornelius Heftly at its head. That government will remain in place until my puppet Sevilla is ready to announce herself as queen of Midnight, shortly after the successful completion of the blood drive. By the time the drive is done, more than fifty percent of the population of Midnight will be undead.”

“You can’t do this,” Gabriel said. “It’s wrong.”

The guards escorted him down the stairs to the main hall of his mansion.

“Dragons and vampires have forever warred throughout the centuries,” Medeia said during the march. “In the past, we’ve done it openly, but modern warfare is all about subterfuge. The dagger in the dark. The spider emerging from behind the leaf to descend upon the insect caught in its web. Those who don’t adapt, perish. In this case, the vampires have adapted first, and won.”

Gabriel passed by a vat containing a tarry, black goo that had been set up in the main hall.

“What’s this?” Gabriel said, staring at the vat. The substance bubbled, smelling nasty. He worried for a moment that they were going to execute him right there by tossing him into it.

“A special poison I’ve brewed specifically to kill dragons,” Medeia said. “Aldam’s witches taught me the formula. Two parts dragon blood, mixed with one part vampire blood. Apply the appropriate Death Weave and you get this lovely concoction. We’ll be coating all of our arrows with it. Those who refuse to follow me after the blood drive will be struck by these arrows and will die a slow, horrible death. Once they are gone from this world, my witches and I will resurrect them as loyal undead. So you see, you dragons will serve me either in life or in death.”

“Jett’s going to stop your blood drive,” Gabriel said.

“Oh, he won’t be coming back,” Medeia said.

“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked suspiciously.

“He died earlier this morning during a battle in the Hooded Dale.”

“You’re lying,” Gabriel said.

“I speak the truth. Isn’t that right, Sevilla?”

Sevilla stared at her feet. “He’s dead.”

“No,” Gabriel said. “I refuse to believe it.”

“Believe what you will,” Medeia said. “You will be joining him soon enough.”

“Then show him to me!” Gabriel said. “Even you wouldn’t be able to resist turning the former king of the dragons into one of your undead minions!”

“I would have, yes,” Medeia said. “But unfortunately his body was torn to shreds. He took quite a nasty fall on the mountainside. He would have been useless to me as an undead.”

“I hate you,” Gabriel said. “I hate you all. Vampires are scum. You all deserve to die.”

Medeia smirked. “We deserve to rule. You dragons, on the other hand, deserve only to serve us. You have made a mockery of vampires for centuries, forcing them to serve as your slaves. Well it’s time to turn the tables. How does it feel to be a slave?”

The escorting vampires shoved him outside.

The LEDs far overhead shone with morning light, which was equivalent to twilight in the world outside, yet to Gabriel’s dragons eyes it seemed as bright as the midday sun. The walls and outbuildings of his estate glittered cheerily in the illumination, as if happy he was being marched to his doom.

He noticed that Medeia was wearing black gloves, no doubt to cover the bone gauntlets she wore, so that the dragons in the city wouldn’t realize a vampire witch was among them. Sevilla meanwhile wore no bone accessories at all as far as he could tell. Her hands were bare, free of gloves. Her neck held no accessories. He wondered if Sevilla had any dragon bone hidden on her person, somewhere under that tight fighting outfit. Probably not. He suspected that Medeia had ordered her to bring no dragon bone. Which told him she didn’t trust Sevilla very well.

He didn’t blame Medeia. You can’t trust someone who would do what Sevilla did to me.

“I’m surprised you don’t want to feed on me one last time,” Gabriel taunted Sevilla. “Or you, Medeia.” He yearned for the feeling of detachment, that lightheaded drunkenness, that came with a deep feeding. It would make his death more bearable.

“Oh I do,” Medeia said. “But I’d rather you went to your death fully aware of what was going to happen to you, rather than in a drunken bliss. If I drained you, you might welcome the end. But now, fully healed, you will know the fear of death down to your core. I’m looking forward to seeing your frightened face when your head is lowered to the cold stone of the chopping block. I will dearly enjoy watching you beg for your life.”

Gabriel had to smile at that. “You misjudge me, vampire. I’ll show you what dragon courage is.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” she said mockingly.

As they passed through the main gates of his estate, Sevilla and Medeia fell in beside the convoy and pretended to be vampire servants. Cornelius Heftly and other dragons who were apparently part of the interim government were waiting on the street outside, and joined them, forming a grim procession of dragons and vampires that wound its way through the streets of Midnight. Gabriel memorized the faces of his betrayers, those members of the interim government, certain that most of them weren’t undead, but rather merely acting on the chance to seize power.

Idiots, one and all. They would pay if Gabriel ever got free.

Dragon shifters had gathered at the entrances to their own estates to watch in subdued silence as the column passed by. Most of those shifters fell into place behind the progression after it passed, following toward the final destination.

His captors took Gabriel to Granger Field, which served as a gathering place for the dragons during town halls, birthday parties and concerts. It also served as a place for public executions.

A crowd had already gathered. The other spectators who had joined the procession dispersed into the throng, doubling its size. By his reckoning, nearly the entire population of Midnight had turned out to watch the coming executions. Now he knew how Jett must have felt when his brother faced a similar fate in the lands of the Wayfarers. One big difference was that the crowd that had gathered to watch Jett’s demise had been composed of strangers, while the men and women of this group were Gabriel’s own subjects. That made it even worse. There could be nothing more humiliating than dying an ignoble death in front of one’s former subjects and peers.

A chopping block had been placed on the large wooden platform in the center of the field. Next to the chopping block rested a large ax whose tip was coated with a black goo, presumably the same substance Medeia had prepared in the vat in Gabriel’s mansion. Standing beside it was a tall, muscular dragon shifter wearing an executioner’s mask. From the perfect symmetry and large size of his muscles, Gabriel guessed he was a member of the Diamondback family. So Cornelius didn’t get to be the executioner after all. That pleased Gabriel in a small way. It was one less humiliation, anyway.

“Where is my sister?” Gabriel asked Medeia. “You said we would be executed together.”

Medeia smirked. She kept her head down, continuing to pretend she was a slave. “Did I? I don’t recall… no matter. I’ve decided to execute you separately.”

“At least let me see her one last time before I die,” Gabriel said.

The smirk deepened. “I refuse to grant her the honor of witnessing your execution. Instead, when she comes here to meet her own death, she will see your headless corpse lying before her.”

Gabriel felt sickened by the image the vampire witch painted. Gwendoline would be so broken when she saw him like that. It gutted him just thinking about it.

Cornelius took to the stage and addressed the crowd. “My fellow dragons. We are gathered here today to witness a historic execution. Today…”

Gabriel tuned out the speech. He gazed at the large crowd, at the men and women who had once been his subjects. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see there. Adoration, sadness, or glee? Instead, their faces seemed mostly indifferent, though a few did appear glad.

For the most part, they don’t care. I’m so removed from their day to day lives in my position as king that they don’t even know who I am. This is just a spectacle to them.

Most were likely frightened by the prospect of a change in leadership, which was only natural, but otherwise the execution of their former king apparently didn’t mean much to them.

He wondered if they would act so muted when his sister was executed. They loved her and Jett, he thought. His brother and sister always made public appearances, showing up at birthdays and town hall meetings, and even personally shopping in the markets and town squares. The two of them loved to mingle with the commoners.

But Gabriel, he was a private man, who ruled in private. The commoners knew him only by the rumors they heard. After what Medeia had done to further sully his good name, those rumors had to be terrible of late: he was surprised his subjects weren’t all looking at him with hatred in their eyes. It was somewhat of a relief that they seemed indifferent, actually.

He noticed that the vampires and dragons of his escort were focused on the stage, enraptured by the words Cornelius was speaking, as if they truly felt they were witnessing history in the making. Even Medeia seemed caught up in what the small dragon shifter was saying.

He wondered if he should make a break for it while they were distracted like that…

Gabriel felt something cold rudely press into his hands.

Curious, and slightly annoyed by the distraction, he looked down at his open palm. A small metal object lay there.

What…?

He realized in surprise that it was the key to his shackles. It had to be.

Long slender fingers closed over his own so that his hand formed a fist, concealing the key. Those fingers were familiar somehow…

He looked up as the hands withdrew. Sevilla was the owner. She stared into his eyes from behind the glasses she wore. Her sapphire-blue eyes were moist and seemed to peer directly into his soul.

“I’ve always loved you,” she whispered, and then turned away.

Gabriel stared at the back of her head in shock.

I was wrong about her. So wrong.

He blinked, and a tear fell.

I don’t hate vampires. Or other shifters. How could I? Not when I have a woman I’m entirely unworthy of who loves me. A woman who just so happens to be a vampire.

That one woman had caused him to forgive an entire species. He no longer hated even Medeia. He realized she was merely misguided. Blinded by her lust for power.

He was roused from his thoughts when rough hands grabbed him on either side. At first he thought the guards had noticed the exchange, but when they shoved him toward the stage, not bothering to open his closed fist, he understood that they had not.

He realized Cornelius had finished his speech. That was why the guards had grabbed him: it was time for Gabriel’s execution.

Medeia’s minions guided him up the stairs to the platform’s upper deck. As Gabriel approached the chopping block and the waiting executioner, he surreptitiously slid the key from his fist and fiddled with the lock of his shackles.

The executioner grabbed him by the forearms and thrust Gabriel toward the chopping block, and then forced him to kneel.

In that moment Gabriel opened his shackles and broke free.

He leaped to his feet and slammed his fist into the throat of the surprised executioner. The hooded man stepped backward and grabbed at his thick neck, gasping for air.

Gabriel scooped up the ax that was next to the chopping block and hewed down the next two dragons that rushed the platform.

“A vampire witch is trying to take over Midnight!” Gabriel shouted. “We have to join together and fight her!”

A confused murmur ran through the crowd, but otherwise no one rallied to join him. If only there were still some members of his Black Guard that were loyal to him… but Medeia had converted them all to undead.

Gabriel was waiting for Medeia to bind him up in Weaves of Air, and thus revealing herself to the crowd, but she didn’t. Instead, more dragons and vampires rushed the stage, these armed with nets and whips.

“Damn you, Medeia, use your Strength!” Gabriel shouted as he sliced at the whips. One of the switches struck him in the back, and he realized it was a Strength-enhanced weapon, because it dug deeply into his hardened skin and made him flinch.

A dark blur came at him. Another vampire!

Gabriel almost cut down the latest opponent, but at the last second he altered his swing to miss.

It was Sevilla.

She had drawn a sword and planted her back against his. His earlier suspicions proved correct, it seemed: Sevilla had no dragon bones on her person. Otherwise she would have been fighting with the Strength, despite the suppression pervading this place.

“We fight back to back,” Sevilla told him.

“You should have stayed down there off the stage,” Gabriel said as he fended off a blow from another vampire.

“Medeia would have found out eventually,” Sevilla said. “I’d rather be here on this stage with you, where I belong.”

She really does love me.

In that moment Gabriel realized he loved her right back. For the first time in his life, he truly cared for another woman. He had found love.

He just wished the circumstances were a little better.

The pair fought valiantly but in moments their attackers had subdued them. Whips wrapped around Gabriel’s and Sevilla’s arms, and then a net descended over the pair. Their captors tackled them and pinned them down.

Cornelius, cowering near the edge of the stage, stood to his full height when he realized Gabriel and Sevilla were contained. He rushed down the stairs and off the platform, no doubt to consult with his master in secret.

A few moments later the diminutive dragon returned to the stage.

“So, the slave who broke the First Rule with our former king has fallen in love with him, it appears,” Cornelius told the crowd. “The interim government was willing to punish her in private for what had happened, since the dragon king was the one who seduced her after all, but this latest act of betrayal can’t be forgiven. The slave is hereby sentenced to death with her lover. Their executions will take place back to back. Immediately.”