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Damian

T he scale-edged blade slide easily from its scabbard, barely making a noise as I exited my bed with practiced ease.

Not that I needed to be silent. The insistent rapping of knuckles on my door would more than mask the tiny amount of noise I made.

It was dawn but not quite time for me to be awake. Which meant something was wrong.

Marching toward my door, blade at my side but ready in the blink of an eye if the person wasn’t friendly, I began mentally cataloging the list of problems I was aware of and extrapolating what could have happened to cause them to erupt overnight this way.

Nothing I came up with was good.

Nor was any of it right.

Peering through the peephole, I recoiled in shock at the vision that greeted me. Swiftly, I laid the blade on a nearby table, then ran my hands over my hair, trying to smooth it back. There was no time to do anything about my lack of clothing, however, because any further delays were absolutely unallowable.

“My sovereign,” I said as I opened the door in my boxers, starting to come to attention. “What can—”

“There’s no time for that,” she said, breezing past me into my quarters. “Shut the door. Lock it, then move to the back of your room. We need to talk.”

Swallowing the giant lump in my throat, I nodded, closing the door and dropping the bar across it to prevent easy entry by any unauthorized parties.

Alarm bells clanged wildly in my head. Something was very wrong. The sovereign had come to awaken me, and she didn’t have time for formalities?

“Are we at war again?” I asked as we retreated to my kitchen, putting another stone wall between us and the door.

“Not yet,” she said, “but we might be soon enough.”

I stared at her, fully awake now. “You have my undivided attention.”

Watching the way she braced herself before telling me the news was a very discomfiting feeling. The fear growing within me was further fed by these absolutely foreign actions. She was nervous. Perhaps scared, even. The Sovereign of All Dragonkind was scared .

“What the hell is going on?” I whispered.

“Something was stolen last night.”

I frowned. “A theft?”

Why would that be such a big issue. Theft wasn’t common, but neither was it unheard of. But how could that send us back to war?

Green flashed in her eyes. It was unsettling to see her so agitated.

“My sovereign. What was stolen? ”

She locked eyes with me, and I braced. But no matter how much I tried to be prepared for her answer, I wasn’t.

“The Scepter of Mount Anaris,” she whispered.

My jaw dropped open.

The pause lingered for a second. Then two.

“ WHAT?”

Almost immediately, I shook myself, realizing what I’d done, who I’d shouted at. “My sovereign, please, accept my apology for—”

“Yes, yes, accepted. Don’t worry. I reacted much the same when Jair told me.”

The head of her personal guard, Jair, was a good, solid man. One I knew I could trust thoroughly.

“But how?” I asked, the question more rhetorical than anything. I was trying to handle my shock by speaking.

In the back of my head, an outlandish thought cropped up.

There’s no way.

“We don’t know yet. But one of Jair’s men reported it missing this morning. He immediately came to me with the news. I, in turn, told him to keep it between us and tell no one. Then I came to you.”

“Why would anyone in their right mind steal the scepter?” I asked, shaking my head. “It benefits all dragons.”

The thought grew louder. I knew I should probably tell the sovereign, keep her informed, but … there was no way. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?

“My thoughts exactly,” she said, shaking her head hard enough to disturb several locks of hair. She casually tucked the platinum strands behind her ear.

Most would have missed the slight tremble in her fingers. But not me.

“It’ll be okay,” I assured her. “This is my job. This is what I do. I will find who stole it. I will have it returned. Then I will ensure justice is served, my sovereign.”

“I know.” She took a deep breath, regaining some of her usual composure. “You should know that I fear this may be the first step, Damian.”

She had to be referring to the shadowy whispers she’d warned me about.

Which meant the voice in the back of my head, the one I was ignoring when I shouldn’t be, would be irrelevant.

I opened my mouth to say something. To tell her, but the words didn’t come out.

Misinterpreting my actions, she nodded. “I know. But if they get their hands on enough of the scepters … they could in theory use them to bring the shield down instead of keeping it up. We all know what happens if it isn’t there.”

I nodded. All dragons did. The shield protected us from the humans. It hid our isles from their eyes, and the magic subtly encouraged ships and even flights to skirt around us. To keep us safe.

If it came down, the humans would find us. And then they would probably nuke us.

“I won’t let that happen,” I promised. “I’ll find the culprit.”

“Quietly.” Her lips flattened into a line. “You must do it quietly, Damian. Nobody can know. Too many already know. If word of this gets out, it will only hasten the actions of those who want to use it against me. They will say I lack the power to be sovereign if I can’t protect what matters most to our people.”

“There are a million flaws in that logic,” I growled.

Placing a hand on my shoulder, she smiled. It was a sad thing. “I know. But it won’t matter. That’s politics for you.”

I looked skyward. My opinion on politics was well known. I didn’t need to voice it.

“Go find who was in the restricted area and who could have taken it.” She watched my face closely. “Find them for me, Damian. Please.”

“I will. I promise.”

My brain was shouting at me to tell her. To say everything. I knew I should.

So, why wasn’t I speaking? Why was I … defending the human …

Whether the sovereign could see the internal war going on or not, she eventually decided she’d seen enough and departed my quarters, leaving me in inner turmoil.

Furious at myself, I dressed quickly and headed down to the restricted areas.

Again.

“You fool,” I cursed at myself. “You know who was down here. Someone with a very good reason to steal the scepter.”

Except she hadn’t had it on her. I knew she hadn’t. I knew very well .

The growl that tore from my throat echoed up and down the hallways.

After all, the reason I was perfectly well aware that the human, that Aurora, hadn’t stolen the scepter was because my eyes had been all over her. I hadn’t been able to stop myself from staring at her body every single chance I’d gotten. When her eyes had looked away, my eyes had gone to her.

I practically had the lines of her body memorized.

It had all started in the hallway during that unexpected encounter. Those eyes, so bright and piercing with a green that was as soft and airy as the sovereign’s were hard and noble. Different yet eerily similar.

And the way her hips moved as she walked, highlighting her firm posterior. I’d stared long after her, watching it go.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Enough!

I smacked a fist into the palm of my other hand hard enough to hurt. It was not the time for such thoughts! The entire safety of the Dragon Isles was in danger, and there I was, daydreaming about bending a human over and taking her from behind. My hands grasping her waist, pulling her back into me as the impact ripples shot across her ass. Her cries filling the air deliciously as I pleasured her unlike any human.

My dragon, the bestial, untamed side of me, loved the idea, lending its not inconsiderable mental power to the idea that I should go seek her out. Take her from Janus and make her mine. Ours. Whatever.

“Stop it. Stop it right now. You have a job to do!”

Leaning against a wall, grateful for the emptiness of the lower levels, I paused to take several deep breaths. My composure was integral to who I was—to what I did for my people. I could not afford to act like this. To lose control. Least of all over a human woman I didn’t even know!

Integral to who you are? You already didn’t tell the sovereign you caught Aurora down here last night.

Because she didn’t have the scepter on her.

I pushed off from the wall and stormed off to the room where the Scepter of Mount Anaris was kept. One of five matching scepters scattered across the Dragon Isles, it was nearly three feet long, made of pure platinum, and imbued with a power no living dragon understood.

It also glowed. Brightly . The brilliant white light it constantly emitted was not easily concealed. Not only did Aurora’s clothing not leave any room to store such an object, it also wouldn’t have hidden the light.

She hadn’t done it. So, it was okay I hadn’t told the sovereign.

Stop lying to yourself. Because if you’re wrong…

I wasn’t. But I couldn’t be entirely sure.

Either way, I had to find who had stolen it. And soon.

Before it was too late.