After Avani left, we all settled back into the living room, Palila putting on a pot of tea for all of us. “What do you mean we need to talk about where we’re going to live.” Ishir starts as Palila comes back into the room. “Well, I need to speak to Edur, but Cedric obviously wants me to live with him.” Tana turns to look at me, and I take her hand. “And I won’t be able to be away from him for longer than a few days at a time now, so we need to figure out living arrangements.” I turn back to the room. “Tana and I have already talked about keeping this apartment. If she’s able to work contract or remote, she’ll still need to come to the city on occasion and I’d rather have a place that’s comfortable for everyone.” “You can continue living here, Ishir, just as you have been.” Tana tells him. “What about me? I won’t have a job any longer, not without anyone here to look after.” Palila says and I can tell she’s nervous about the prospect of having to start over all alone. “Actually,”

I love having Tana here. It feels right having her here, on our pack lands. When I take her upstairs, I show her our room, letting her know that she can change it any way she wants to make it more comfortable for her. Personally, I don’t care what our room looks like. It’ll feel like home if she’s here. I can see her looking it over, but she’s not saying anything. I’m not sure how to take that, so I take her to the next room in the hallway. “I was thinking this could be a nursery for our baby. I haven’t done anything to it yet, but I thought it would be nice if we could decide together how to set it up.” I had cleared out the room, purposefully leaving it empty. I want to make sure that I am just as involved as she is with this pregnancy, but I know this will be a new space for her and our child. Again, she looks around the room, not saying anything. I walk up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and laying my chin on her shoulder. “What’s going on in that head of yours,

After talking to Ishir, there is no way that I’m leaving Tana unprotected. I don’t care that she’s a dragon. She can’t shift and she’s pregnant with my son. I also contact Bastian and tell him that he needs to put a 24-hour guard on Kenna. The conversation with Kenna went over about as well as I expected it to. She has been enjoying her newfound freedom and now I’m taking it away, or at least she perceives me as taking it away. It’s Tana that finds a way to get her to concede. “Kenna, these are the same people that shot harpoons into our wings and brought us to the ground. Both of us. Even if I’m there, I can’t shift. Avani, Kaylani and Zephyr may not get there in time and Cedric’s entire pack would die trying to save you. Do you really want their deaths on your conscience just because you wanted to fly?” I hear her sigh over the phone. “No, Momma. I don’t want anyone dying trying to save me, especially if I was being selfish.” “That’s my girl. You can still fly and when you do, ma

"What's that?” I ask, staring at my mate. Did she just say she’s 70 years old? How is that possible? “I said, I’m nearly 70 years old, Cedric. Dragons live longer than humans and other shifters.” “But you look like you’re in your 20’s. Like me.” “Dragons stop aging once we get to our mid-20’s. So, until I met you, I could have looked like this for centuries. Avani is over 250 years old.” I feel like my head’s about to explode. When Tana said dragons live longer than other shifters, I thought she meant maybe fifty years, not hundreds of years. “Wait, you said until you met me, what does that mean?” “Your lifespan will extend past that of a normal shifter, but my life will only continue as long as yours does. A dragon cannot live without their rider. I don’t actually know, since I’m too young, but I don’t remember hearing stories of dragons living hundreds of years with their riders. So, I assume that my lifespan will be shorter than most dragons.” “How long can you have children?

The battle is fierce. I know this is Troy, even though I haven’t seen him. These creatures, there isn’t another word for them, aren’t natural. He’s created weird hybrids. No, these are mutants. My children are hybrids, this is something else entirely. It’s almost as if he tried to recreate mythological creatures but fell short. There’s a three-headed dog, or wolf, I’m not sure, a lion with bat wings and what looks like an attempt to recreate a dragon but in a smaller, much less beautiful creature. Troy's werewolf warriors come in with the harpoon. I watch as Kenna dodges the first two harpoons they shoot at her. While they are trying to reload, I attack them, ripping them to shreds and tearing the harpoon launcher apart. Kenna attacks the dragon wanna-be. It is no match for my daughter who blows her fire on it, burning it alive. I jump on the back of the lion bird-thing. It has wings but doesn’t seem to be able to fly. It’s almost as if the wings hinder its movements. However, it’s