From behind the perceived safety of her desk, Gwendoline studied Mathis. He stood before her in the office of her estate in Midnight, deep under the mountain. She had planned to toy with him, but now that she was looking at that tanned, roguish face, and gazing into those eyes that usually glinted with mischief, with cunning, with life, but now shone only with sadness, she found herself unwilling to play. In fact, she just wanted him to go. This was far too painful.

Don’t fall for him again.

“So, Macleod,” Gwendoline told him imperiously. “Say what you came to say and then leave. And be quick about it. I’m granting this audience as a favor only because of the what we once had. If you take up too much of my time, I might just have to get in touch with the Wayfarers, and inform them you’re neglecting your duties to go gallivanting around the continent, getting in touch with old flames.”

He gave her a hurt a look, but quickly masked it. He cleared his throat, and shifted from foot to foot nervously before he began.

“Do you remember what happened in the final two weeks before we planned to flee the Steel Tower?” Mathis said.

“How dare you ask me that?” Gwendoline said. “How dare you? A woman could never forget something like that.”

The painful memories came flooding back, and she was certain he had done this only to unbalance her. She tried to push them away, tried to banished them to the vaults of her mind, but couldn’t.

She remembered the days leading up to those final two weeks. They had been so in love back then. So frickin’ in love. She even broke the First Rule for him, laying with a non-dragon. Thankfully no one at Midnight ever found out.

Thinking back, those naive times were some of the best days of her life. She and Mathis were inseparable. They were in most of the same classes and labs. Had the same group of friends. Nothing could have parted them.

Nothing except her weakness in the Strength. It soon became clear that the Steel Tower would expel her when the year was out, while Mathis would remain.

In her final month, Mathis had hatched a reckless plan to run away with her. If they couldn’t be together, he would refuse the training and become an outlaw to be with her. Or so he said.

She believed him and made plans to flee. She confided those plans to her roommate and best friend, Ephephany, who agreed to help.

But then one day, two weeks before she was to escape, Gwendoline returned to her dorm late after a particularly difficult lab, only to find her roommate, Ephephany, had male company.

Mathis.

Seeing him rutting on top of her best friend like that, their naked bodies intertwined in the heat of passion, had destroyed her.

She packed her bags and left the tower that very day.

It was because of humans like Mathis that dragons had originally created the First Rule. Or at least, Gwendoline believed that, because breaking the rule and sleeping with a non-dragon caused only pain.

“I’m sorry, I guess I’m a bit insensitive,” Mathis said. “I wasn’t sure you’d still remember, after all these years. I assumed you had many lovers since.”

His words roused her from the agonizing memories, and she glared at him. “A thousand lovers could not make me forget.”

Mathis lowered his gaze a moment, and when he looked up again, his eyes were wet. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“Is that all you came here to say?” Gwendoline said. “You’re sorry?”

“No,” Mathis said. “I wanted you to know, I had no control over what happened with Ephephany.”

Gwendoline smiled grimly. “Of course not. Like most men, your brain is located in your cock.”

Mathis exhaled sadly. “You misunderstand. Sure, Ephephany was a beautiful woman, and while I might have fantasized about her a few times, I would have never acted on those fantasies. You were all I ever wanted. I was going to find a way to make it work between us. I was going to marry you.”

“And yet you did not,” Gwendoline said. “I think I’ve heard enough.” She pointed toward the door. “Get out of—“

“Ephephany used compulsion on me,” Mathis interrupted.

Gwendoline stared at him, stunned. “What are you talking about? She’s not a member of the royal family. She doesn’t have the ability to use compulsion naturally. She only learned it after many years practice with the Strength.”

“You’re right that she doesn’t have the innate ability,” Mathis said. “But you’re wrong about how long it took her to learn. It wasn’t years. You don’t know Ephephany like I do. She never was patient, not in those days. Back then, when she set her mind on something, she would do whatever it took to acquire it. Compulsion. Me.”

“You’re saying she learned compulsion in her first year as an apprentice?” Gwendoline asked.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Mathis replied. “She was a dragon witch, one of the most powerful Wayfarers of us all…”

“I don’t believe it,” Gwendoline said. “Even as a dragon, she was too weak and inexperienced at that point. Compulsion is an advanced Weave. It would’ve been far beyond her abilities. And she would have had no one to teach her in the first place: Weaves like that are forbidden to those new in the Strength.”

“She taught herself from books she stole from one of her teachers,” Mathis said.

Gwendoline folded her arms. “I call bullshit. Who put you up to this?”

“What?” Mathis said. He seemed confused. “No one.”

“It’s obvious to me you’re doing this for some sort of political reason,” Gwendoline said. “You’re trying to sow discord among us. Though what Queen Yvonne hopes to gain by pitting me against Midnight’s witch is beyond me.”

“No,” Mathis said. “That’s not it at all.”

“I’ve lived through palace intrigue for most of my life,” Gwendoline said. “Tread carefully, Macleod. When my bullshit detecters go off, they’re rarely wrong.”

“I swear to you I’m not doing this for political gain,” Mathis said. “I’m doing it for you.”

Gwendoline studied him. He seemed truthful. Perhaps she was wrong…

She tapped her lips, considering that possibility. “All these years I thought it was you who had driven the wedge between Ephephany and I. You who had seduced her. Ephephany and I were best friends, and you had to go and sleep with her. And now you’re telling me it was her all along?”

“She secretly loved me,” Mathis said. “She knew you were leaving when the year was out, and at first she decided to be patient. She only had a few months to wait before you were out of the picture after all. But when she found out you and I were planning to run away, she couldn’t take it. She stepped in and made her move.” He paused, reaching across the desk toward Gwendoline’s hand, but then stopped. Changing his mind, he pulled it away. “Ephephany eventually let me go. I could have fled the Wayfarers then and sought you out, but I didn’t. I’d gotten used to life in the tower, life as a witch, and I wanted more, lured by the promise of knowledge. I swore to myself that when I graduated, I would seek you out first thing, and we would finally have our long overdue life of happiness.

“But when twenty years had passed and I finally became a full-fledged Wayfarer, I realized it was too late. You would have moved on, by then. Especially after what you thought I did. I couldn’t expect you to drop everything and give up your life to follow me around while I performed my duty. And I certainly wasn’t ready to give up my own life. At least that’s what I told myself.

“I tried to forget you. Tried to lose myself in the Steel Tower’s warrior class. But you were alway there at the back of my mind, pulling at my heart. Whenever thoughts of you would bubble to the forefront, I’d dismiss them, telling myself it was too late. Much too late. The one woman I had ever loved was lost to me. I’d taken too long.

“The years passed. Sometimes I managed not to think about you for months at a time. Once I was able to do it for even an entire year. And then when I met a vampire who reminded me so much of you, it all came crashing back. For all the suffering and sorrow the vampire caused me, in the end I should have thanked her. Because she reminded me about the one woman who meant more to me than this power flowing through my veins. More to me than life itself. She reminded me that the world was a dull, listless place without you at my side.”

Gwendoline didn’t know what to think. She felt confused, and strangely vulnerable.

The one woman who meant more to him than life itself.

Mathis looked down, gazing at his hands. “Look, Gwen, as I told you in my message, I’m not looking for forgiveness. I just wanted you to know the truth. And to see me for the coward I am. How weak I am. I project an image of bravery, of strength. But inside I’m none of those. And now you know. For what it’s worth, I never stopped loving you.”

Mathis glanced up and stared at her for several moments. His eyes pleaded for some response. Any response.

Gwendoline was still taken aback. Her thoughts tumbled over one another, her emotions all over the place, and she couldn’t form anything coherent. Couldn’t think. But she had spent too many years in the royal court, and suspicion and retribution finally won out so that when she did speak, her words didn’t seem her own.

“You have said what you came to say,” Gwendoline told him. “Now please, go. I want nothing more to do with you.”

Mathis nodded slowly. He said, so softly she almost couldn’t hear: “I understand.”

Then he turned around and left.

Gwendoline wept when he was gone.

She wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her all those years ago, and yet all she had done was hurt herself.

She sat there, for how long, she didn’t know.

But then she got up.

She needed to speak to the witch. Needed to see if Mathis was telling the truth, or if this was some grand lie meant to break her apart.

If the latter, she promised Mathis would pay.

* * *

Gwendoline entered the giant mushroom that served as Ephephany’s house, and made her way to the study. There, shelves lined the walls, some filled with artifacts, some books. In the center of the room sat the witch herself, behind a desk, her nose buried in a thick tome. She hadn’t aged a day since she had gone to the Steel Tower all those years ago, and looked little more than seventeen. She wore the usual black blazer over a white dress shirt, with an ebony skirt ending at her knees. Dark-rimmed glasses and shiny black shoes completed the look.

Gwendoline still hated Ephephany after all this time. When the witch first returned to Midnight twenty years after her training began, she was a completely different person—the naive dragon shifter replaced by a self-assured and erudite Wayfarer. It hadn’t mattered. Gwendoline despised her with all her being. How could she not? Even when she believed Mathis had done the seducing, that Ephephany had accepted his advances made her an equally guilty party.

Ephephany had returned as the most powerful dragon in Midnight. She could have been queen if she wanted, forcing Jett from the throne, though it would have meant a civil war. But that was not the Wayfarer path. Drilled into the apprentices during their training, the teachers taught them not to covet power but rather to protect those who did not have it. Ephephany would advise the king, no more.

But while Gwendoline might respect Ephephany for her power and the restraint she showed in using it, and though the witch was obviously a far different person than the young woman who had betrayed her, to this day Gwendoline had never forgiven her.

And if Mathis spoke the truth, it only made Gwendoline loathe her all the more.

Ephephany looked up. “Hello.” She smiled wistfully, as she always did when Gwendoline visited, perhaps regretting the friendship she had ruined for a man.

“Did you use compulsion on Mathis?” Gwendoline asked.

Ephephany exhaled deeply. “So now you know. I was wondering when he’d finally tell you.”

Gwendoline felt her knees buckle, and she reached out, fumbling at the wall behind her, finding a shelve to hold herself up. “So it’s true.”

“It’s true.” Ephephany admitted. Her eyes defocused as if she gazed off into the distance. “I was so full of myself back then. I actually believed I could have everything I wanted. Everything. And mostly, I wanted what you had. Your position among the royal family. Your man.”

She closed the book with a loud thud, then sighed. “I let him go six months after you left, when I realized what I was doing was abhorrently wrong. He would gaze at me, and I could see the glossy film over his eyes, the fakeness behind his every word and action. He could never look at me the way he did you. I was living a lie.

“When the compulsion lifted, Mathis knew what I had done, and he could have had me ejected from the Wayfarers for it, but he kept silent. Why, I don’t know. Maybe a part of him had grown to love me, or at least care for me. Or maybe he knew that I wanted the Wayfarers to punish me, and perhaps expel me. He knew that, and denied me the easy way out so that I would experience a greater punishment: spending my years alone, suffering in silence. As I have to this day. My punishment is to never know love.”

She finally met Gwendoline’s gaze. Her eyes were moist. “I wanted to tell you. And I tried several times after I requested assignment in Midnight. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m not the person I was all those years ago. The covetous, greedy little dragon. I guess I hoped you’d never find out. In a way, I tried to convince myself that I had never done it. That it was something I imagined. But now my time of reckoning has come. You are a member of the royal family. Punish me as you see fit. If you report what I have done to the Steel Tower, they will strip me of my title, and Sever me.” That meant burning away the ability to Siphon the Strength forever. Something that would essentially destroy a Wayfarer.

Gwendoline swallowed and took a moment to steady herself. Then she gazed at her former friend and said: “I couldn’t do that to you, Ephephany. I couldn’t take away the shining light of your power, a power you have done so much good with. I’m not sure I can ever forgive you, but I won’t see you destroyed.”

Ephephany lowered her head, the tears finally coming. “Thank you. You always were a better friend to me than I ever was to you.” She shook her head. “I have power. Such limitless power. But for all that, I can’t have what I truly want. I never could.” She closed her eyes. “You know, I always wondered why you never reported that I broke the First Rule when I returned to the dragons. I half expected it. Wanted it, even. To be punished. You could have had me stripped of my lands and banished. Like your brother is today.”

“I couldn’t,” Gwendoline told her. “Because you would have told on me in turn. I broke the First Rule to be with Mathis before you.”

“I wouldn’t have told,” Ephephany said.

“Maybe,” Gwendoline said. “But I didn’t know that. Besides, I liked having you here in my sight. At the time I didn’t know that you’d purposely chosen to be posted at Midnight. A part of me was happy when you arrived alone, away from the man you took from me. I feared that if you were banished, you would end up right back in his arms. I couldn’t allow that.”

“Well, now you know the truth,” Ephephany said. “He would have never taken me back. I wasn’t the one he wanted.”

Gwendoline looked away. “Yes, well, it’s too late for him and me.”

“Is it?” Ephephany said. “Love is never too late.”

“I told him to leave me alone,” Gwendoline said. “Told him I wanted nothing to do with him. It was just a reaction, after everything he told me. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. I just wanted to hurt him, like he had hurt me. Like you had.” She shook her head. “I’ve lost him again.”

“I’ll it say again: it’s not too late,” Ephephany told her. “Phone him. Tell him to turn back. Tell him you didn’t mean those words.”

“I… I can’t,” Gwendoline said.

“Don’t tell me you’re too proud to admit when you’re wrong,” Ephephany said. “You, a member of the royal family? You’re going to let the only man you’ve ever loved get away because you can’t tell him you made a mistake? Open your heart to him, Gwen. Bare your soul. You won’t regret it.”

“I did once,” Gwendoline said. “And that caused me more pain than I’ve ever had to endure.”

Ephephany lowered her head. “That pain was my fault. I’m not asking you to forgive me. But I am asking, begging, that you forgive him. You know what compulsion can do to a person.”

She could indeed. She dismissed the dark memories those words stirred within her, memories of a time when she had taken vengeance on all men, using her innate compulsion ability to turn courtiers and guards into adoring slaves.

She focused her thoughts on Mathis. It wasn’t his fault. It never had been. She remembered his beautiful face, the way he used to touch her, the feelings of pure contentment and belonging that once filled her waking hours. If she could feel that way again, if only one more short time…

Gwendoline retrieved her sat-phone from an inner pocket and quick-dialed his number. Her heart beat anxiously in her throat as she waited for the dialing sound to come over the speaker.

But it never came.

“Hello, you’ve reached mailbox twenty-two,” a neutral male voice answered instead. “Please leave a message after the tone.”

Gwendoline hung up and pocketed the phone. “He’s not answering. The call was sent straight to voicemail.”

“It’s not too late,” Ephephany said. She glanced toward the ceiling. “Dan, have you been tracking the Wayfarer since he left Midnight?”

“I have,” the computer system that ran Midnight replied. “Surveillance cameras indicate he has only just reached the dirt road leading from the foothills. He has entered a Range Rover parked there.”

“I’ll never make it with a collar,” Gwendoline said.

“Then go without,” Ephephany said. “I’ll have Dan wipe all records of you leaving Midnight. As long as you return here by tomorrow morning, I don’t see a problem.”

Gwendoline hesitated. “You’ll cover me while I break a law you witches hold as one of the most sacred in the world? The law that prevents dragons from roaming among humanity uncollared?”

“My loyalties never really did lie with the Wayfarers,” Ephephany said. “Why do you think I asked to be posted here?”

“And what if I break the First Rule?” Gwendoline said. “A rule created by us dragons? I’m not saying it will happen, of course, but there is a chance…”

Ephephany shrugged. “I never agreed with that rule. I’ve always felt dragons should be able to be with whoever they pleased, including non-dragons. I thought you would have figured that out by now, considering what I did to you.” When Gwendoline still dithered, Ephephany stood up. “Go, Gwen. Make this right. If you do this, maybe I can finally forgive myself.”

Gwendoline stared at her former friend in disbelief. Then she nodded quickly and left.

She was starting to hate Ephephany a lot less.