Shorter Excerpt
Lochlyn Blackmoor hated waiting.

Yet it was all he’d done for months—waiting for blowback from Serpens about their daring rescue of Caterina and Curran. For news of the rampaging basilisk he and Curran had freed from the palace dungeons. Or for the Grand Master to appear in the courtyard demanding to see his family.

Waiting to be able to shift again.

Nothing happened.

Lochlyn set his hands on the balcony’s railing, and watched the early morning activity in the castle’s courtyard. While he appreciated the calm days and nights they’d enjoyed at Dragon Ridge, retribution was inevitable. He’d insulted the king, committed several acts of treason, and set the palace on fire. King Olivar wasn’t a forgiving man; he was more likely to take Lochlyn’s head and mount it on his wall.

Still. Nothing. 

Perhaps Olivar was taking his time so Lochlyn would slowly descend into madness.

Laughter floated toward him, a bright sound that Lochlyn would know anywhere. He turned toward the gardens, and saw Rosalie walking with her sister, Caterina. They both carried baskets of flowers, but behind Rosalie’s basket was her rounded belly, and inside her belly was their child.

Their child’s birth was something else Lochlyn was waiting for, and for that he was most impatient of all.

He and Rosalie already had three adopted children, and he loved them and his nephew, Jonathan, dearly. Somehow, he found yet another measure of love in his heart for this child he’d yet to meet, a babe who would be a dragon, like him.

As the strongest of the Otherworldly creatures, Lochlyn’s own dragon blood meant the child would definitely take after him, but they wouldn’t know if the child would be able to shift until he was around a year old. While Lochlyn could attain both dragon and warrior forms, his eldest brother could only shift to warrior, and his middle brothers couldn’t shift at all.

Whether the child could shift or not didn’t matter to Lochlyn. Either way, he couldn’t wait to meet their baby. Before Rosalie fell pregnant, Lochlyn had been the last living dragon in Alessia. Now both his kind and his name would live on, thanks to his beautiful wife.

“Lochlyn,” Rosalie called from the courtyard, waving to get his attention as if he hadn’t already been entranced by her every move. “There were some daisies in bloom, and the birds spared us some blackberries.”

“And elderberries,” Caterina added, holding up her basket. “Madchen can make more of her famous wine.”

Lochlyn laughed softly; there were enough casks of Madchen’s elderberry wine in the castle’s cellar to get half of Alessia drunk. “Are you two coming in for lunch?”

Rosalie opened her mouth to reply, but whatever she said was drowned out by the thunder of a dozen hooves. Lochlyn looked toward the gate and saw three gigantic stags enter the courtyard. The central and largest stag approached Rosalie and bowed.

“Hello, Cervus,” Rosalie said as the stag’s antlers scraped the ground near her feet. “And you really don’t need to be so dramatic. Will you join us for lunch?”

Cervus raised his head, and after he glanced at the balcony, he and his two companions went toward the stables. Lochlyn watched them depart, then he returned his gaze to his wife. His leisurely afternoon with Rosalie would have to wait. As Lochlyn’s spymaster, Cervus had been in Serpens for the past three weeks, gathering information. For him to personally return to Dragon Ridge instead of sending one of his messengers, he must have learned something especially dire.

 

Longer Excerpt
The sun had barely crept over the horizon when Curran jogged down the castle steps. When he woke his blood had been rushing through his veins, and he wanted to use the sunrise as cover to shift into his phoenix form. Granted, Dragon Ridge was far from Serpens, and it was unlikely that word of a phoenix flying above the remote mountains would get back to his father. But Curran had been careless once, and that led to his and Caterina’s capture. He wouldn’t risk his princess’s safety again.

Curran walked toward the stables, intending to visit his horse, Barleymane, before he shifted. As he passed through the herb garden, he heard Rosalie’s voice. He walked toward where he’d heard her, and saw her standing in front of a thatch of dried out grasses shaking out her hand.

“Balls,” she muttered, then she blew on her fingers.

“Something wrong?” he asked, as he stepped onto the path. “Why are you out here so early?”

“No, I . . .” She looked at her hands and frowned. “I’m trying to make my fire come when I call. It seems to have a mind of its own.”

“You’ve called your fire before.” He remembered watching her shift to warrior form when they’d been attacked by the basilisk outside the palace. She’d reminded him so much of Aurielle in that moment, her bravery on full display as her body burned brighter than the sun. “What makes you think you won’t be able to call it again?”

“Yesterday, after Lochlyn cut the lead charm out of Devlin’s neck, I tried to cauterize the wound,” she began. “But nothing happened, and I haven’t been to call it in so long. What if . . . what if my fire never comes back?”

“That won’t happen,” Curran said, then he sat on the ground. “Sit with me?”

“All right,” she agreed, sitting in front of him. “What are we doing down here?”

“We’re having a lesson,” he replied. “My fire wouldn’t come for the longest time. My mother and Auri assumed I was latent, which would be unusual being that my parents are so powerful. Mama wanted me to be patient and wait for my fire to find its own way out, but I hated waiting.”

“Me too,” Rosalie said. “How old were you when it manifested?”

“Almost eight,” he replied. “Auri would sit with me just like this, and try to coax the fire out of me. If not for her, I may never have found it.” He extended his hand. “Want to try?”

“Yes,” Rosalie said as she placed her hand in his. “What do we do?”

“Watch.” Curran lit a single flame on each of his fingers; since he and Rosalie were blood relations, his fire wouldn’t harm her. “Feel how each flame is different?”

When Rosalie nodded, he extinguished the flames, then he held up his hand with his palm toward her. “Put your hand against mine.” She did, and he lit one flame at the tip of his index finger. “Close your eyes, and feel the flame. Not just the heat, but how it’s moving between our skin.”

She let her eyes close. “It feels . . . it feels like water flowing between us. But it’s sharper than water.”

“Very good. Now search for that feeling inside yourself.”

Her brow pinched. “What if I can’t find it?”

“Then we try a different way.” Curran regarded his niece. She didn’t look very much like his sister, but Rosalie resembled Aurielle in many other ways. One of those ways was what Curran once called stubbornness.

“You’re determined like your mother,” Curran said. “Auri was one of the strongest warriors I’ve ever known, and not just physically. Her mind was just as strong as her body, and if she couldn’t defeat an obstacle one way, she would come up with a new plan and try again. Auri never would have let a few flames get the better of her, and I don’t think you will, either.”

“Mama certainly wouldn’t have let a bit of fire win,” Rosalie agreed. “I wish she was here to teach me.”

Curran grasped her hand. “I wish she were here, too. Maybe . . . maybe the best way to honor her is for you to become the phoenix she always knew you would be.”

“You think she knew,” Rosalie began, then a flame bloomed between their palms. “Curran! I did it!”

“I knew you would,” he praised, his face split by a grin. He lowered his hand, and the flame extinguished.

“That always happens,” Rosalie pouted. “Unless I’m very angry, my flames only last a few seconds.”

“Give it time,” Curran said. “The more you work with your fire, the more control you will have. After you’ve attained your warrior form a few more times, we can work on getting you to fully shift.”

“Into a full phoenix?” Rosalie traced the spot where the flame had been on her palm. “Then I could fly with Lochlyn. My mother could fully shift?”

“She could,” Curran replied. “She burned even brighter than my father.”

“That’s amazing.” A cloud passed across Rosalie’s face, and Curran worried their impromptu training session had dredged up some unpleasant memories. But the emotion passed as quickly as it appeared.

“Have you anywhere to be right now?” Rosalie asked. “Or do you have time to talk about my mother a bit more? I’d love to hear what she was like growing up.”

Curran smiled, and realized his own shift would have to wait. He had more important things to see to at the moment. “I have all the time in the world. As for what Auri was like when we were young, she was an absolute terror.”

Rosalie laughed. “She was not!”

“Oh, yes she was.”