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Shaking his head, he dropped his hand. He had to admit to agreeing with his beast. The smell and vibrations of the unease of others under their shadow always felt good. As dragon-shifters, they learned at their first pubescent shift to be proud of their coloring, beauty, and mass.

The only thing better than their superbia was the pride in the heart and eyes of their mate.

Mate .

Kai .

Aodh felt the cloak of that weighted blanket on his shoulders again. His beast rose and stretched against his confines. Kai’s possible reaction concerned him. Yes, he worried that his beast might not accept her as a true mate, but there was just as much anxiety around Kai meeting his dragon.

“Mckenna, the team is gathered in the conference room,” Yeongi called behind him.

Shifting away from the map, Aodh started across the room. Usually, his movements were soundless, but the thumping of his steps was a testament to the heaviness he felt inside. “Let’s get the meeting started.”

Aodh quickly walked the stairs out his office door with his aide behind him.

He retraced the path he had made not too long ago.

Once the instructions had gone out of the various radio channels, Aodh knew it would not take long for his leadership council to arrive.

They would have all flown from their areas of the territory.

The higher a dragon flew, the more land it could cross.

It was considered urgent when Mckenna called a meeting outside the regular bi-weekly schedule.

Aodh hated making his Thunder’s leadership members believe there was an emergency or a pending one.

However, he needed to ensure he addressed a few things to keep the rumors among his kind unfiltered.

Nothing added that like ensuring his leaders were abreast of everything so they could trickle it down to everyone under their division.

Secrets were dangerous and led to misunderstandings and possibly someone’s accident.

“Leaders. Thanks for your quick response.” Aodh strutted into the room and greeted everyone occupying the seats where their predecessors just sat. “I know I’ve taken more than a few of you away from your jobs and others’ rest. But there are things we need to discuss and keep on our radar.”

Once again, he claimed his seat at the head of the table. Everyone sat silent, observing him, and waited.

With a nod, Aodh said, “Hugo, I hear there’s chatter across one of the Great Heaths.

” The Great Heaths were large areas formerly known as the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Those large bodies of water were still around.

However, they had shifted during the multiple earthquakes and tsunamis, glaciers melting, and formations in obscure places.

Yes, the topography of Earth had changed.

“Correct,” Hugo confirmed.

“Why don’t you brief us all on what is happening.”

Hugo stood, dressed in their kind’s standard male apparel, in a light-blue cotton vest with dark-gray pants.

His hair was a deep brown, a few shades lighter than his skin, not covered by the markings of his dragon.

His strands were thick with coils intertwined in a multiple rope-like fashion that hung down his back.

“In the early hours, we received a communication report from Europe. They stated that the Asian Council has been tracking unlawful activity. It seems Asia’s request that the inter-preternatural magistrates, IPM, discuss rising issues with the humans. ”

A murmuring began around the table.

“What kind of issue?” Aodh wondered if there had been other incidents of lone humans beyond the perimeters humans had built. Was it as he had suspected? Were Kai and Morlie the start of a human uprising?

“It has been discovered that groups of humans have not only ventured outside their territories but have been cutting down trees.”

A loud gasp and more than a few groans and growls filled the conference room.

Damn it. Aodh’s hands fisted, and he felt the deep punctures of his dragon’s claws into his flesh.

Like most of his kind, humans and their selfish, short-sighted behavior aggravated the fuck out of him.

It was as septic as the saliva of a Komodo dragon—distant relatives to their beasts.

Taking a deep breath, he uncurled his hands.

His palms tingled as his skin healed. He would have needed to shift for more significant wounds to heal, but small ones corrected themselves in seconds.

“How long has this been going on?” Liekki, his brother, sat on his right, second in command to the Mckenna.

“I reached out to Asia directly,” Hugo announced. “They shared that it appears to have been going on for months in the Siberian Forest.”

“Isn’t that area the tiger-shifter territory? Why were they not aware?” Edjer asked.

Aodh was a breath away from asking the same question. It was the reason the IPM had set up specific territories. Not only to allow each entity freedom but also to have transparent governance to maintain the laws and treaties in their area.

“Is it perhaps that the tigers have too much territory to manage? The magistrate can designate some to another.” Aodh leaned back in his chair and waited.

Hugo glanced down at his notes. “Asia’s PM did not voice a concern with the tiger’s handling of their territory.

What they shared was that the forest has become dense.

So overgrown that they have left it relatively untouched and rarely enter it.

Until now, it has stood as the perfect boundary to the human region.

A red-crowned crane shifter was on patrol.

Like us, they have been allowed to patrol other territory borders with their continental treaty during their quarterly magistrate meeting and exchanges.

The humans were spotted not only hauling trees along an old dry river path.

” Hugo looked around the table, and finally, his gaze met Aodh’s.

“Upon the crane’s further investigation, the patrolman noticed the humans had cut down several acres of trees along the outside of their wall. ”

“What are they doing with it?” Admani was a female Drahk who handled the livestock, a position she had claimed from her mother, Doryu.

“Building,” Aodh surmised out loud.

“Correct,” Hugo confirmed. “What? No one knows yet since the human area is a no-fly zone.”

“They have broken the treaty. What should it matter if the Asian PM did the same?” Liekki growled as the lines of his markings glowed the same tangerine color as the flames in his eyes.

“No.” Aodh slashed a hand through the air. “It’s not done that way. Mutual violation leads to war.” Aodh shot his brother a look first, then the others present. With the humans in charge, there had been enough wars and destruction.

Edjer leaned back in his seat and folded his thick arms over his chest.

Liekki arched a single brow high but remained silent.

“What are they requesting, Hugo?”

“No show of force right now. The Asian PM will meet with the human leaders first on the issue. However, they want the IPM to gather within the month for a radio conference.” Hugo paused.

“If the APM cannot get the humans to stand down, they want to discuss all options before it becomes a global, pervasive situation. There is no reason to believe that humans are not communicating, too.”

“Of course, they are. We haven’t seen any harvesting of natural resources starting on this continent, but there have been unauthorized humans on the other side of the wall,” Edjer kept his gaze focused on the maps under the glass.

However, Aodh felt all the others’ gazes on him.

He knew that comment pertained to Kai and Morlie.

Before Aodh could say anything, his brother smiled and said, “So, how is your little human adjusting, Aodh?”