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“Equinox. Is that game adapted yet?”

My nephew gives me the sort of look that makes me want to smack him around his disrespectful head.

“It’s not that easy, Uncle. It will take months, maybe even years to shift the game that much. Why does it even matter? Humans don’t come to our realm unless we bring them. Nobody else is ever going to work out the connection. It’s a secret in plain sight. It should delight you. It delights me.”

“Never give away secrets you don’t have to give away, especially to your greatest enemy.”

Tarantaraaaaaa!

I startle as I hear the war trumpets blow. Heavy footsteps crash throughout the keep as the archers mobilize.

I rush toward the crenellations at the top of the main keep, knowing that there is no good reason for this to be happening. Equinox follows on my heels, escaping his chambers. I will deal with him later. Right now, I have a bad feeling about this.

Emnis, captain of the keep guard, is already giving commands. In times like these, they do not wait for me to officially give the order to defend the castle. Emnis has the authority to kill any interloper, and now I am realizing that I should have introduced him to Melissa as soon as she arrived.

“Fire!”

A volley of arrows rises into the air as I arrive on the scene. They are silver barbed, designed to tear into the flesh of those they hit. They catch the sun as they rise, a razor-sharp hail directed to the distance.

“What the Drakonis is happening?”

“Horse thief, your highness. An intruder has taken one of the prepared mounts for the royal whelps and fled the castle.” Emnis points in the direction of the fleeing animal, upon which a figure in a gold dress can be seen clinging.

“We can only assume it is one of the ferals having made another one of their looting incursions.”

“Hold fire!” I boom the command.

“Sire, the horse has been stolen,” Emnis says, confused.

“You risk hitting the animal, and besides, unless I am greatly mistaken, that is no feral. That is my mate.”

“Your mate, sire? I did not know you had selected a female for breeding.” A smile spreads over his face. “Congratulations!”

“Save your congratulations. Even now she could be skewered by one of your arrows.”

“She seems to be upright in the saddle. Should we send a detail after her, your highness?”

“No. I will retrieve her myself.”

“It looks like she’s heading to the forest,” Emnis says. “Why would she be going there?”

“It’s where the low-level loot drops.” Equinox grins. “She must be a DFE player. She’s going to try to play the game.”

I pick my nephew up and throw him from the keep. He falls for approximately three seconds before taking his dragon form and frantically beating at the air to avoid a conflict with the ground.

“Make the changes, boy! Or next time I throw you off, you’ll have your arms bound.”

Equinox wheels over the keep, his golden scales reminding me of my brother, and of myself. I remind myself that killing him is not an option. He is family. He has my blood in his veins, and one day relatively soon he will be uncle to a new generation.

He lets out a cry that sounds impudent to my ears, but I am not worried about Equinox right now. I am more concerned about reclaiming my mate, who is tearing into the distance on a steedwho has already reached the tree line. They will be hard to see from the air. I will have to hunt them down.

CHAPTER 5

Melissa

I made it to the forest without falling off, and once we got into the trees, the horse slowed down enough that I could stop clinging on so hard and actually ride slowly, until the trees got thicker and the bushes got denser, and then I got off and just led the animal behind me.

He keeps stopping to snatch grass, which I let him do because why not. I wish I could eat grass and be satisfied the way he seems to be, but hopefully I’ll find some basic rations on one of the creatures of the wild.