Prologue
The scent of raw meat, tinged with putrid rot, curled around Serefina, filling her nostrils and awakening a memory she would have sooner forgotten.
At least he’d waited to confront her until after closing, when she was the last person left in the place. Her hands shook even as they slowed in the mundane task of clearing one of the handful of linoleum-topped tables in the small, rural Kansas diner where she worked. Where she pretended to be just another human and not who and what she truly was.
A prize sought by every creature.
Legend held that the man who captured a phoenix would be blessed. Unable to put a foot wrong. Every choice the right one. Every action leading to greater fortune. Except legend had it wrong. The man had to capture the phoenix’s heart.
The man who’d come for her would never have her heart. She knew who stood directly behind her, bringing that nasty smell inside with him where the rancid fumes mingled with the grease that hung heavy in the air.
Pytheios.
The Rotting King of the Red Dragon Clan. The man who had once deluded himself into thinking he could mate Serefina and take her parents’ throne. But she’d chosen another, a different clan’s king, and for her sins, Pytheios had murdered him.
Zilant. Her destined mate, and her one true love.
So she’d run.
Disappeared.
Pytheios had hunted her ever since, needing her at his side to legitimize his reign as High King. Thankfully, he had no idea of the secret she’d taken with her that fateful night all those centuries ago when she’d escaped, pregnant and terrified. And so alone. A secret concealed not ten miles from here. A secret she’d guard with her life.
Pytheios would never find her daughters.
“You didn’t think you could remain hidden forever, did you?” Pytheios’s charred voice rumbled behind her. Smug bastard.
The skin on the back of Serefina’s neck crawled at his mere presence. She didn’t question how he’d finally tracked her down. Five centuries of hiding from him were five more than she’d expected to get.
Now her daughters must find their own way without her there to guide them. Protect them. Teach them. Please let me have prepared them enough.
Serefina didn’t bother trying to figure out how to save herself from the attack she knew was coming. Before Pytheios had killed them, her parents had been living proof that the dragon king who mated the phoenix would become the High King and rule wisely and well, leading to an era of prosperity.
The Red Clan had ruled over all dragon shifters during her parents’ reign. The five other dragon kings would have no choice but to bow down to Pytheios if he brought her back as his mated prize.
But he wasn’t destined to be her mate. Her fire would consume him, as it would any dragon shifter other than Zilant, whether she liked it or not. Zilant’s brand hadn’t yet appeared on her neck, but all that meant was that she hadn’t died with her mate. No other man could ever have her.
Pytheios might try anyway, or at the very least take her. Imprison her. Use her.
So yes. There was no doubt in her mind; today was the last day of her life. But could she save the fire inside her, and the magic that came with it, to perform one last desperate act to protect her daughters before the final blow came?
Acrid bile burned her throat as it rose from the pit of her stomach. She forced it down. Now was not the time to allow fear into her heart. Fear could wait for those last precious seconds of life, when she’d fought until she could no longer move, when she’d done everything she could. Maybe not even then.
Not fear for herself. Fear for the four precious women she’d be leaving behind.
If not for them, death would be a welcome relief. Then she could finally join Zilant in the afterlife where he waited for her.
Serefina closed her eyes, reaching for the power that had lain dormant inside her for too many years, stoking an inferno, the flames licking her insides with a pleasant warmth she’d almost forgotten.
“Turn around,” the monster behind her commanded. “Now.”
Frustration lined the edges of Pytheios’s words, and she smiled. Even now, she could defy him. She took some small consolation from the thought.
Slowly, as if careful not to spook a wild animal, she pivoted. And blinked. The years had not been kind to her enemy. When she’d seen him last, his body had already started rotting, having passed into that age when an unmated dragon’s body broke down, becoming susceptible to disease, deterioration, or insanity. Sometimes all of the above. For Pytheios, disease had taken his body in the form of skin decay.
The flesh hung from his bones as though gravity had dragged at him so long, the tissue lost elasticity. His eyes were sunken into his head, the reddish-brown irises, the hallmark of a red dragon, now milky and faded with age. Even the king’s brand, the symbol of Pytheios’s house, appeared faded where it marked the flesh on his hand between his thumb and forefinger.
How was he still alive?
Despite his now-decrepit appearance, she knew she’d never overpower him physically. She’d be willing to bet he no longer did his own fighting, though, and likely hadn’t in a while, which might make him slower, easier to surprise.
Serefina lifted her chin, ready to buy herself time. “You look like shit.”
His lips pulled back in what she guessed was supposed to be a smile. “How very…American. You are as lovely as ever.” He sniffed the air. “And you smell like ambrosia.”
Again, she had to hold down the bile threatening to spew from her. Serefina focused the fire inside herself, the gathering power undulating under her skin. If she wasn’t visibly glowing yet, she would be any second. She directed a small amount of energy into a single thought that she sent to her daughters.
The time has come.
They knew what those words meant. They knew what they had to do. Since the day of their birth—a day of joy devoured by a despair so deep she’d hardly been able to push her babies out of her body—Serefina had been preparing them for this eventuality.
Pytheios, still so arrogant he hadn’t yet restrained her, continued his demands. “Time to give me what you denied me more than five hundred years ago.”
“My duty was to Zilant, my destined mate,” she spat. “You will never be my king.”
Pytheios’s neck worked as though he were swallowing back his rage, the column of his throat moving like a serpent was trapped inside. “I no longer need your submission or your body.”
An icy shard of terror pierced her heart at the words and the sneer curling his lip. What did he mean?
“I’ll take your power and your life.”
Take her power? Could he? She’d never heard of such a thing, but his threat lent urgency to her next steps.