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I should, but I am finding it hard to make my legs move.

It was one thing when I was escaping him, when I thought he would come after me and I would have to keep moving in order to evade him and when, let’s be real, I didn’t think it was actually going to be over, and that I’d be leaving him to the mercy of his increasingly unhinged nephew.

Fuck. I’m going to have to rescue him.

The same tyrant who just pinned me down in a cage and fucked my ass for my attitude is now dependent on me for his escape.

Nox starts to come back toward me, I slip away around a corner, let him think I’ve gone just like he told me to. The plan is changing so quickly. It’s gone from me having to stay with Nox for protection to having to, well, hide in his secret lair so I can maybe rescue my captor.

Fortunately I am adaptable. And devious.

“You won’t get away with this, Nox,” Ornix says.

“Actually, I will. I’ve planned it to the letter, and it’s going very well. In the human realm, I have the kind of power you can only dream of. I have economic power, riches beyond your imagining.”

“They’re not real, boy. They’re ones and zeroes. They mean nothing.”

“You will see what my nothing can do,” Nox says. “You will suffer for the longest time, knowing and seeing and feeling all my nothing . You will regret everything you ever did to me.”

Now I feel sorry for him again. He’s spent a lifetime feeling powerless, and finally he gets to show Ornix what he’s made of. It’s kind of cute in a way, or it would be if he wasn’t trying to take over an entire world right now.

“I’m going to give you a chance to undo this foolishness, boy,” Ornix says. “I do not want to have to use my power on you. You will suffer for this, of course, but it does not have to be a complete erasure if you do not force it. Turn off these walls, and?—”

“Never,” Nox cuts in. “I’ll never let you go. It’s the one thing I will do, no matter what. I’ll hold you prisoner, and I’ll…”

I peek around the corner to see what is happening, and I am very glad I do, because it’s just in time to see Ornix walk through Nox’s electric barrier as if it wasn’t there.

“What the fuck!” Nox’s yelp of surprise is hilarious enough to make me snort out loud. I clap my hand over my mouth, hoping neither of them heard me.

Fortunately, Ornix is busy pinning his nephew up against the wall by the neck and staring at him with what I have to assume is an expression of contained yet somehow unbridled fury.

“I warn you. Over and over. Time and time again. And you never learn, because you never really listen.”

Nox makes a sort of choking sound indicating that he cannot breathe. I wonder if I’m about to see Ornix kill him outright. It’s clear that my mate’s powers far outstrip anything Equinox can put together using human technology.

Ornix snaps his fingers, and all of a sudden all three of us are back in the dragon realm.

I didn’t even see a portal form, and I didn’t know that Ornix had even seen me.

How did I get brought with them? Does he just sense me?

Or am I some kind of fuck-filled part of him now, so full of his seed that he doesn’t even need to know where I am to know where I am?

I feel guilty, like I did something wrong. I guess I did. I guess I kind of cooperated with Nox. Fuck. Am I in trouble? I decide to slink away to another part of the castle. Ornix has taken us to the dungeon, and I’ve had enough of these underground walls for quite some time.

“Don’t. Move.” Ornix grinds the words out, and I know they are not directed at Nox. That instruction is for me. I freeze in place, immediately obedient because I just saw the craziest shit I have ever seen. I did not expect Ornix to just walk through Nox’s barriers like they didn’t exist.

They hurt. A lot.

“Do you have the seal, boy? How long have you been plotting this?”

Now free from Ornix’s grasp, if nothing else, Nox shakes himself and tosses his hair in what has to be the most pretty-girl expression of not giving a fuck about being caught.

He knows he’s fucked. I know he’s fucked.

I suspect I am… god. My ass is still throbbing internally from the last time I defied my dragon master and that was just for not wanting to attend class.

The punishment for treason is going to be so much worse, I’m sure.

“I suppose there’s not really any point in pretending anymore,” he says.

“No. There isn’t,” Ornix grinds out. “Tell me everything and tell me now.”

“Fine,” Nox says, folding big, scaled arms over his chest and still somehow managing to look like a petulant little boy compared to Ornix, who is ancient and unamused.

“Of course I have the seal. Of course I’ve been plotting against you my whole life.

Of course I tried to convince your mate to leave before she could be bred.

You killed my father. I’m the most obvious villain that ever villain-ed, and you couldn’t see me. I have no idea why.”

“It’s because you’re nice most of the time,” I interject. I can’t help myself. Obviously everyone knows I’m here now, they can see me and also I’m pretty sure Nox just confessed to manipulating me, which I don’t love for myself.

“Well, let that be a lesson to you, little human,” Equinox purrs at me. “Being nice most of the time does not mean someone is not also a beast from a hell dimension bent on destroying you down to the atomic level.”

Ornix hasn’t responded. His presence is heavy and grave, so fucking solemn that I wonder if something has broken that won’t ever be healed.

“I don’t want to have to hurt you, Equinox. Give me the seal.”

“It doesn’t matter if I give you the seal or not. At this point, we both know that the game has been playing for too long for you to let this go. I’m a threat to your throne, your crown, your kingdom. You won’t be able to handle me living.”

“I am not going to kill you, Nox.”

“No? What are you going to do?”

“I am going to banish you. You can go back to your human world and live among them. You can build your empire there. You can live a human life. I am not going to kill you. But I am going to strip you of the essence that made you here. I am going to make you human.”

Equinox looks suddenly frightened, but he shakes his head. “That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is. If longevity can be bestowed, it can be removed. You see, nephew, I have lived much longer than you. I know deeper magic. You have made yourself master of modernity, of technology, of the little trinkets and toys humans used to amuse themselves. But the deeper magic evades you. Even the electric trickery you use to make a portal is weak. You do not know who you are beyond the pain of your formative years. You have not reached back to your ancestors. You have not sought the wisdom of the past. And so you have no counter to what I am going to do to you next.”

Ornix is fucking terrifying when he is being logically brutal. I can see Equinox regretting every decision he ever made—and I can equally see that he realizes it is far too late to backtrack now.

He throws the seal to Ornix. “Here. Take it. Whatever. What cell do you want me in? Sorry, Melissa. Looks like the two of us are stuck here for the rest of our lives.”

Watching Nox fold like the proverbial house of cards almost makes me feel sorry for him. Almost.

Ornix turns around and grabs me around the waist, throwing me over his shoulder. He carries me up and out of the dungeon, only pausing to tell the guards:

“Deepest cell for the boy. Not a trace of light.”

A shiver runs through me at his tone. He sounds completely calm and entirely merciless. Then he finishes carrying me upstairs and deposits me on the bed, looking down at me with a stern expression that I know does not bode well for me.

“Am in trouble?”

“When are you not, angel?” He rumbles the response. “Whenever there is trouble, you are at the core of it. You are not in trouble, you are trouble incarnate. Making another one of your futile escape attempts too, I see. Have you not yet learned not to team up with my imbecile nephew?”

I don’t think Nox is stupid, but I don’t say that part out loud.

“You just got him to put himself in the dungeon,” I say instead, admiringly.

“Yes,” Ornix says. “I did.”

“Is it actually possible to do that? To take away his dragon-ness?”

Ornix gives me a long, slow look, as if he is trying to weigh up whether he should entrust me with the truth.

“No,” he says. “It is not.”

I slap my hands over my mouth and I let out a giggle of pure glee. “You just got him to give you the seal and imprison himself without doing anything.”

“Yes.”

“That’s incredible. It could have been so bad. But you stopped it. Without lifting a finger.” I pause. “I don’t think I have ever been so attracted to anyone.”

“You like duplicitous tactics?” He scratches his fingers lightly along the back of my neck. “Interesting, for one as direct and chaotic as you.”

“Hey, I can appreciate the game when I see it being played well,” I say. “And you played that so well. That was so impressive.”

“It’s a Band-Aid. It does not change the fact that he plotted. It just gives me time to try to find a way to avoid killing him.”

That really brings the mood down. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

“I don’t know, Melissa,” he says, his voice terse.

“You are at risk. Our infant, should there be one, is at risk. I know you think he is a friend, but he has repeatedly used his connection with you to manipulate you. I do not want you to talk to him anymore. Do not go to the dungeons, do not accept any messages from him. Remember that he used you. I am not the only one playing games here. Dragons may seem to be creatures of force, but we are also of the mind. And you are an innocent. You like to see the best in people. You like to connect. It’s a weakness. ”

“You think I’m weak?”

“No. But your need to be friendly allows others a point of entry and your belief in friendship blinds you to treachery.”

“So yes.”