“How could humans even think to fight against dragons?”
Rhys grunted. “Better than you think. They found the small dragons and slaughtered them. Hundreds upon hundreds of dragons were butchered. And with every dragon that was killed, Ulrik and his Silvers decimated human villages.”
“My God.” Lily might never have been in a war, but she saw enough news to be able to comprehend the sheer destruction that could be wrought by humans, and it wasn’t that far-fetched to think about what a dragon could do.
“No matter how many times Con pleaded with Ulrik to stop, Ulrik refused to listen. The humans then began attacking larger dragons. Kellan is King of the Bronzes who were the Bringers of Justice. Kellan stationed them around a large village to protect the humans in case Ulrik attacked. Those same humans the Bronzes were there to guard killed them.”
Lily clutched her stomach and squeezed her eyes closed. This story was too gruesome not to be real. The more she listened to Rhys, the more she began to believe him. How could she not when she looked into his eyes and saw not an ounce of deceit or falsehood?
“The Bronzes were some of the largest dragons, and yet they didna fight the humans. All because Kellan asked his dragons to protect them.”
“Stop,” Lily said feeling her eyes fill with tears.
Rhys wrapped an arm around her and brought her against him. “At that point we knew if something wasna done to put a halt to the war that the peace and happiness that coexisted would be gone. The humans refused to talk of ending the war. They wanted every dragon killed because they feared us and our magic, as well as our power. It was Con who came to the decision that we had to send our dragons away.”
Lily buried her head in Rhys’s chest. She didn’t need to look at him to know how difficult that statement was for him. She heard it in the catch in his voice, the way his words stumbled over themselves.
“We opened a dragon bridge, which is a portal to another realm and watched our beloved dragons leave. The Dragon Kings remained behind, because we were the only ones who could stop Ulrik. Despite our sending the dragons away, four of the largest Silvers remained with Ulrik. And they were wreaking havoc.”
Lily turned her head so that she could see the stream and hear the trickle of water. “What did you do?”
“We combined our magic to bind Ulrik’s. We banished him from Dreagan, forced him to wander the realm for eternity in human form, never able to shift into a dragon or fly again. We trapped his four Silvers and spelled them to sleep. The humans still were no’ satisfied. We had no choice but to put a magical border up around Dreagan and hide there for centuries until the Dragon Kings were forgotten, a tale told to frighten children. We stay in human form, blending in with you now, and only taking to the skies at night over Dreagan.”
Lily stepped out of Rhys’s arms. “Say I believe your tale, because it’s hard not to. I want to see you in dragon form.”
“I wish I could show you. Through the millennia, we kept watch over Ulrik. He was harmless, just living life as a human. It seems that somehow his magic returned, or at least some of it.”
“And?” she urged when he paused.
“Ulrik wants revenge on us. He wants to make every Dragon King pay for what we did to him, and part of that is exposing us to humans. He’s allied with MI5, who fear us. He’s also joined forces with the Dark Fae.”
Lily drew in a shaky breath. “When you say Dark, does that also mean there’s Light Fae?”
“Aye. We are amiable with the Light Fae, especially one named Rhi. I trust her completely. The Dark Fae, however, are as evil as they come. You can recognize them by their red eyes and black and silver hair.”
“And all this time I thought the only thing I needed to worry about was being invaded by aliens who wanted to drain our planet of water.” Lily put a hand to her forehead and filled her lungs with air before slowly releasing it. “Light equals good, Dark is bad. Got it.”
“It’s too much for you.”
“Yes,” she admitted and dropped her arm to her side. “But I want to hear all of it. Please. So Ulrik joined with the Dark Fae.”
Rhys rubbed a hand along his jaw and regarded her silently for a few seconds. “Aye. I was in Ireland, which the Fae have claimed as theirs, with Con and Kiril. Kiril had been captured by the Dark, and Con and I went to free him.”
“Wait,” Lily interrupted him. “Shara is Irish, and she has a large silver streak in her hair.”
“Shara comes from a powerful Dark Fae family, but just as a Light can turn to the Dark, she became Light.”
Lily digested that information, and then asked, “So is Shara Kiril’s mate?”
“She is. All the women married to someone from Dreagan are mates.”