Prologue
Three months ago…
Angelika Amon stuck to the perimeter of the large training room in the mountain stronghold of Ben Nevis in Scotland, headed for the smaller, human-sized door that led to the platform outside. Jedd would kill her if he knew she was planning to go out there at all, let alone without him.
Then again, he was supposed to be her bodyguard.
The night her mother died, she had sent each of her daughters to different protectors— Kasia to their faithful hellhound Maul in Alaska, Meira to gargoyles in some still unknown place, Skylar to a rogue dragon shifter in South America, and Angelika to a pack of wolf shifters in the Pyrenees. The same pack that was with her now, living inside a dragon shifter mountain just to give her a cover story. If she hadn’t believed in miracles before, that would have convinced her.
Jedd, one of the best fighters of the pack, was her best friend more than bodyguard these days. She hated to worry him. Even so, she had to get out. Alone. The cave walls felt as though they were closing in on her.
Not claustrophobia. Not exactly. Worries piled so high she couldn’t see her way around them.
The Kings’ War had set dragon shifters on opposite sides. The Black, Blue, and Gold Clans had risen up against the corrupt regime in place for five hundred years: the Red, Green, and White Clans that supported Pytheios, the no-longer-rotting King of the Red Clan. The same king who’d murdered both of Angelika’s parents as well as her grandparents and many others in power in order to secure the Red throne for himself and declare himself High King. A position that had always been held by the king mated to the phoenix.
Only he hadn’t had a phoenix.
She and her sisters had been in hiding with their mother—the best-kept secret in history for five centuries—thought to be extinct.
Until recently.
Now their mother was dead, her sisters were outed, and Angelika was the only one still a secret, hiding in plain sight while her world fell apart around her.
Kasia and her mate, Brand, were barely holding on to the Gold Clan he ruled. Skylar and Ladon ruled the Blue Clan here. They were fine by comparison but losing their allies in rapid succession. Meira was supposed to have mated the King of the Black Clan, but that had gone sideways in a hurry. She was out there right now, running from one danger to the next in search of her missing king.
And Angelika…well, she hadn’t inherited any of her mother’s phoenix powers or the ability to shift like her dragon father, so she’d been rendered obsolete in this war. No one seemed to know what to do with her.
Worse, Pytheios claimed to have found another phoenix, which was impossible. Four was already unheard of. There had only ever been one at a time.
What else could go wrong?
She needed to get out. Fresh air and a moment to herself would center her just so she could keep going.
She had taken precautions, at least. White-blond hair bundled under a black beanie—check. All black clothing, like a badass black dragon—check. One of Jedd’s jackets, making her person smell even more of wolf and less like the phoenix she technically wasn’t—check, check, check.
See. Precautions appropriately taken.
As usual, a shifter was guarding the massive dragonsteel door that shut the mountain off from the outside world—open during the day, it remained sealed shut at night. Ignoring the grumpy face, she gave him a cheerful wave where he sat inside a glassed-in control room. Except the door didn’t click. She turned back to face him, eyebrows raised, then flashed a thumbs-up, gestured at the door, and another thumbs-up. Rolling his eyes, the guard reluctantly pressed whatever combination of buttons needed to be pressed to automatically unlock the smaller, human-sized door leading outside to the flattened ledge used as a landing pad.
Outside, she paused and closed her eyes and breathed, letting the tension drain away as she stood under the clear, open sky.
“It is not good for you to be out here unaccompanied.”
Angelika stiffened, her eyes shooting open. She knew that voice, though only from afar. Like dark silk or smooth bourbon, low and even. Measured. From a man impossible to overlook. Turning her head, she found Airk Azdajah standing at the precipice, the white dragon shifter’s toes practically hanging over the edge to the canyon below.
“I can take care of myself,” she said. Knee-jerk response. Everyone seemed determined that she was in need of protection.
“You did not even know I was out here until I spoke.”
Unlike most shifters, whose speech changed slowly over time, the same way humans’ did, this dragon still spoke more…formally. She liked it. It made him sound old-fashioned, or chivalrous, even, which was why she smiled a little.
He shook his head in obvious disgust. “Return to the mountain, little wolf.”
Angelika ignored the imperious order. Besides, she was curious. “For someone still struggling to shift, you’re taking an awfully big risk, standing there.”
Though she’d spoken the words with kindness, Airk’s shoulders drew back, his spine going steel-rod straight.
Before he could snap back, she crossed the distance between them. “What are you doing? Trying to force your dragon to emerge? Isn’t that dangerous?”
He turned ice blue eyes on her, quietly intense in a way no man she’d met before came close to. That was saying something, given the natures of shifters, whether wolf and dragon. Probably Airk’s way was a holdover from centuries kept in captivity with few to talk to. The thought of him alone and caged like that made her heart ache.
She expected him to dismiss her again—that or dismiss the danger. Instead, his expression eased. “I am less concerned with falling to my death than I am with releasing a feral dragon.”
He had never released the animal within, according to Skylar, who knew him best, though that wasn’t by much. Not long ago, her sister had been captured by Pytheios and locked in the Red Clan’s prison in Everest…with Airk. He was the one who’d helped Skylar escape, or, more accurately, they’d helped each other.
“Then what are you doing out here?” she asked.
Airk looked down into the deep ravine below before he raised his gaze to the stars, the cool light of the waning moon illuminating his face and setting his white hair aglow. His lips twitched as though a smile was beyond him, unused, stiff and almost shaky. “After centuries inside a mountain…”
He left off the rest, but she caught his meaning.
“I don’t blame you.” Without thinking, Angelika reached over and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.
His fingers twitched in her grasp, and he stared at their clasped hands. “You dare touch me?”
The question came out not angry or offended but almost…bewildered. She got it. She’d seen how all the dragons in this mountain avoided Airk.