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Aldronn

“Shift or leave.” My voice snaps with command as I stare down the cat sith. “I don’t care which.”

“Fine. Fine.” Shadow shifts again, this time turning into a six-and-a-half-foot tall heavily muscled werepanther, his face something half man, half cat. “Happy now?”

“Yes.” Because he’s also covered in thick black fur tipped with silver, instead of naked in front of my bride.

May looks up at me, her gaze assessing. “Are you always going to be this possessive?”

“I don’t know.” I hate admitting that, but I also told her I’d never lie to her, and I don’t plan to start now. “I’ve never felt this way before.”

“It’ll get better after you knot and complete the mate bond,” Wranth says, my cousin taking pity on me. “But it’ll never go away completely.”

As if to prove his point, Naomi blinks back into view, and Wranth’s eyes snap straight to her.

She’s brought Rune with her in his animal form. The large cu sith regularly trains with my guards and is a fierce and loyal warrior.

“Is that a wolf?” May asks.

“Hello, I’m Rune,” he says, turning his amber eyes on her.

“Hi, I’m May.”

“Why are you a werepanther?” Rune looks at Shadow. “Should I be in my dual form?”

Shadow shrugs. “The orcs didn’t like my naked fae form. Bipeds.”

The unicorns snort in unison.

Rune shifts, becoming as tall as Shadow. He’s now a werewolf covered in brown-black fur, his eyes still amber.

“Boy, that’s rad.” May’s eyes bounce back and forth between the two of them. “You guys are shifters!”

Naomi says, “I’ll be coming back with the others in just a bit.”

“Wait a minute,” Aldronn says. “How many others? And why are you here?” He eyes the shifters.

“I’m bringing your guard. You guys tell him the rest,” Naomi says and disappears.

The werewolf turns to me. “As soon as everyone heard you were on a special quest for the Moon Goddess, each type of fae in the alliance wanted to send representatives along to help.”

“Can’t let you orcs get all of the credit,” Shadow adds, his green eyes dancing with amusement.

Naomi makes six trips in quick succession, bringing one of my guard each time. They bow their heads as soon as their gazes find me.

Kronn steps forward. “Your orders, my king?”

“Set up camp over there.” I gesture toward the other side of the clearing. “And establish a defensive perimeter.”

They hurry over, drop their packs and saddles on the ground. Two begin erecting tents while the others spread out to stand watch.

Then Naomi brings six naked men and women, who each shift into unicorns the second she lets go of them. The mounts join my guards in circling the glen.

“That’s right. You can shift, too!” May looks at Starfall. “You never do.”

“Why would I?” She tosses her mane, the move making the grooves in her horn catch the sunlight. “I’m perfect exactly as I am.”

Naomi returns, holding the biceps of a dragon in dual form.

The fae woman is over six-feet tall, and made even taller by a pair of horns that spiral up from her head. Dark green hair offsets her light skin, matching the color of her scaled tail and the large green wings rising from her back. She wears a breast wrap and a miniskirt of unbleached linen, her clawed feet bare.

“Sheevora the Magnificent,” I say, tipping my head to her. “You do us an honor.”

“It is… interesting to take on this form instead of my proper dragon one.”

“Dragon?” May gasps, her eyes gone wide with excitement. “Did she just say dragon?”

I nod.

Sheevora stares down at herself for a moment, as if still puzzled by her dual form. I wonder if this is the first time she’s shifted since the doors of Faerie were reopened. But it was necessary so Naomi could teleport her here. Sheevora’s dragon form is as large as a cottage.

The dragon extends a clawed hand. A crystal rests on her palm, the air above it bending and swirling with distortion. It’s a door crystal, but there’s no clue as to which Faerie realm it leads to. “I could not leave this behind.”

“What happened?” My premonition magic twangs across my senses. Whatever this is, it won’t be good.

“Lukendevener went to Avalon to discover the truth of the dark fae.”

Rage boils my blood. I’m as quick to anger as any orc. It takes all of my diplomatic training to keep my expression carefully neutral as I digest this latest bit of dragon arrogance. We’re supposed to be allies, the dragons, orcs, unicorns, cat sith, and cu sith all equal partners.

But there’s never been true equality in Faerie. Those with the greater magic always come out on top. In Avalon, that meant elves—now the dark fae.

In most other realms, it means dragons.

“I did not realize he had returned from Dularia.” Lukendevener already broke our pact once, when he abandoned Wranth and Naomi in the middle of their quest to go and seek more dragons in their home realm. “And now he’s gone off again without consulting the rest of us.”

I thought I did a good job keeping my anger from my voice, but May frowns up at me and sets a hand on my forearm. I cover it with one of my own.

“He made contact with dragons in Dularia,” Sheevora says, without addressing my other concern.

“Are they going to aid us?”

Her lips press together in a thin line, which is all the answer I need.

“So he abandoned Naomi and Wranth when they still needed his help to open the doors of Faerie. And for what?”

“Information.” Sheevora’s eyes flash with anger, and smoke curls from her nostrils.

I don’t think dragons have fire in their dual form, but I’d hate to be proven wrong.

“Hey, hey.” Naomi steps between us, patting the air with her palms. “It’s all good. Wranth and I are fine. We got the doors open.”

Wranth’s frown says he’s not as ready to forgive Lukendevener. “Tell us this information worth putting my bride in danger.”

“The dragons who remained in Dularia three-hundred years ago were indeed approached by a being calling himself the Dark God. They rebuffed his attempts to rule over them and have been under siege ever since.” Sheevora’s wings flare in agitation, her tail coiling restlessly around her calves. “The god then approached the wyvern, and they succumbed to his offer, being turned into dark, shadow versions of themselves. They attack regularly. It has been a long hard campaign. The dragons haven’t known a single year of peace in all the time we’ve lived in Alarria.” She meets my gaze, unflinching. “It’s not that they won’t help us. It’s that they cannot.”

Tension thrums through my body as I remember my own battle with the shadow fae. “Did they have any advice on how to fight the shadow wyvern? Any magic that can defeat them?”

“Only that dragon fire is effective against their shadows.”

We stand for a moment, everyone lost in thought, the roar of the falls suddenly apparent in the relative silence.

“So maybe the Moon Goddess really did bring all of you here to protect you,” Naomi says. “She took a lot of the orcs from Avalon before the Dark God got to them and did the same with the dragons from Dularia. Maybe she thought the unicorns, cu sith, and cat sith were also in danger.”

“So Alarria’s some kind of Noah’s Ark?” May asks. “Hide a sample of all the different Wild Fae someplace safe?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the sluagh?” I ask. “Ogres and kelpies are Wild Fae, but the soul stealers certainly aren’t.”

“I believe the Dark God sent them,” Sheevora says. “They’ve hinted as much.”

“Even if she tried to save all of you, that still doesn’t make the goddess a good guy,” May says. When everyone turns to stare at her, my little queen doesn’t back down. Pride fills me as she lifts her chin. “Or not all good. She tricked me into thinking she was my dead mother to get me to come to Alarria, and that’s seriously messed up.”

“Why would she go to such lengths to get you here?” Rune asks. The wolves are some of the most dedicated to the Moon Goddess, their famous loyalty coming into play.

“My witch power is telepathy,” May says. “I can talk to the goddess.”

“You can what ?” Sheevora bellows, leaping into the air and shifting into her dragon form, so large she blots out the sun, throwing the clearing into an early twilight.

Pandemonium breaks out.