MasukRHYDAN'S POVI told Brammon and Fenric to meet me at the camp. Whatever we needed to discuss, it wasn't something I wanted anyone else overhearing.I arrived first. Brammon and Fenric had opted to make the journey in their beast forms, taking a run to burn off some of the anger they'd been carrying since we left Opal City.Not that I could blame them. I was hardly in a better mood myself.As soon as my dragon touched down on the plateau, I shifted back and made my way toward our tent, intending to wait for them inside.The camp was relatively quiet at this hour. Most of the Scions were either at the training grounds or in the coliseum. Only a handful moved between the tents, while the occasional guard patrolled the perimeter.I hadn't gone very far when I sensed them approaching.The ground trembled beneath my feet, followed by the rapid pounding of paws and the unmistakable sound of something enormous tearing across the earth.I barely had time to turn.Fenric and Brammon came barrel
BRAMMON'S POVAnwen had been asleep even before we were airborne on Rhydan's back.She had barely stirred during the journey, despite the roughness of the flight. Rhydan had carried us at an incredible speed, yet she seemed scarcely aware of it. Even now, as we bathed her, she remained mostly unconscious.Every so often, she would let out a small whimper when our hands brushed against a particularly tender patch of skin or one of her more sensitive places, but that was the extent of her reaction.Her head would simply roll to one side, her body slumping against whoever was holding her, before she drifted off again.It was clear how much the night had taken out of her. At last, her body seemed to have given in completely.None of us said much as we washed her. We worked quietly, careful with every touch, taking our time whenever she let out a faint, pained sound or shifted uncomfortably.When we were finally done bathing and drying her, and had settled her into bed, we found ourselves
RHYDAN'S POVGadreel was practically drooling as he lined himself up at Anwen's entrance.He arched back—all the way back,so the drive would come from his whole spine, so it would be brutal, so it would hurt.So it would hurt us too. That was the point of it.He railed.I waited for Anwen to scream in pain.The scream came. But it didn't come from her.It came from Gadreel.Something caught him. Something that was not her body, something invisible and flat and hard, and it slammed into the head of his cock like a shield wall and threw him back onto his heels. He howled, both hands cupping his hurt flesh, bent double.Anwen's eyes flew open. She craned her head around, bewildered."Who's doing that?" Gadreel demanded, spinning. "Who?"Nobody answered. Nobody knew.His head snapped to us and his finger came up like a blade. "This is your doing," he spat. "Isn't it? Still cheating it, even now—""It wasn't us, you idiot." Brammon said, stepping forward.Gadreel rounded on the High King,
RHYDAN'S POVThe moment we sensed Gadreel approaching, Brammon and I were already on our feet. We barely managed half a step before someone blocked our path.The High King.He raised one hand, his expression perfectly composed.“Don’t,” he ordered.Brammon and I stopped only for a moment. But just as I was about to step around him and continue forward, he shook his head.“You’ve had your moment. Let them have theirs.”My aura broke loose. So did Brammon's—both of us at once, heat and weight flooding the aisle, rattling the empty cups on the tables, making the nearest Scions shift where they stood. Even Gadreel paused from dragging Anwen.The High King, however, didn't so much as flinch.He remained perfectly still, his raised hand the only thing standing between us and the man hurting Anwen.I had always been curious about the true extent of his power. In all the time I'd known him, I'd never once seen him unleash it. Not even a fraction of it.I knew it was there. I could sense it, l
FENRIC'S POVI pressed my nose into her hair and breathed her in.Under the salt and spend and the smoke of a hundred Scion bodies, there she was—that stubborn, warm, human smell of her. Peaches and peonies. My arms came up around her, cupping the weight of her breasts in my palms.My touch was meant to comfort, not claim, shielding her from curious eyes.Because they were still watching.Gadreel sat three chaises away, never once looking away. Vaelis lounged beside him, feigning ease, his gaze moving over her like that of a man appraising a horse he intended to buy. Both of them patient, wanting, and waiting for their turn. They would not get it.The sun should be bleeding through the glass above us any moment now. She was still locked in my knot, snug and swollen and sealed, and by my reckoning it would hold her a while yet. Long enough. It had to be.And Anwen… this tiny, clever, wicked thing knew exactly what she was doing.She squirmed on my lap, a slow roll of her hips, chasin
ANWEN'S POVI did not know if I had really said the words.It felt real enough to taste, yet thin enough to doubt.Had I said it aloud? Had my mouth shaped those three words, or had I only thought them, so loudly that the thought felt like speech?I could not remember.The night had wrung me out until there was nothing left in me but raw nerve and ache, and between one crest and the next, I had slipped in and out of waking until the edges of dream and reality had bled into each other and stayed that way.Fenric had given me no sign. He only kept going, holding me close as he always did. If I'd really said it, he would have teased me about it, or tried to draw it out of me.Brammon and Rhydan, watching from their seats the whole night through, had offered nothing either. No raised brows, no flicker of understanding. Just that same heavy, patient attention.Part of me hoped it had all been a dream.Not because I doubted what I felt. I didn't.It was real. It had been real for weeks, per
ANWEN'S POVI woke with a shiver, pain lancing through my side like fire as darkness pressed in on all sides. For a moment, my mind betrayed me, dragging me back into the cramped, suffocating wagon compartment, the stench of fish and rotting wood clinging to my senses as sharply as ever.Then some
ANWEN'S POV“What do we have hiding in here?”His eyes pinned me as if he could peel back my skin and see the truth beneath. Then his hands closed around my shoulders—hard, immovable. Strong. The kind that could crush bone without trying.I kept my head down.I nearly yelped when his grip tightened
ANWEN’S POVArlo was already moving around the room, grabbing things—my thick scarf, the small pouch of medicinal herbs for my fever and cough, an extra pair of socks. He stuffed them into a rough sack with hurried hands.“Where are we going?” I asked, pushing the blankets aside and climbing to my
ANWEN'S POVTwenty years later.Monsters rule the world now.They don’t hide in shadows or lurk beneath beds. They sit in councils. They wear crowns. They walk our roads in broad daylight as if the world belongs to them.Because it does.They call themselves the Scions—magic wielders, shifters, and







