The best part.
Quick-tempered and lighthearted, Edena was the very image of how her mother had looked in the bloom of her youth. Long, flaming red hair with bangs that were forever obscuring her eyes and causing her mother to chastise her for hiding their vibrant gold color from the world.
His son was strong and tall, defiant, and far too quick with his snarky comebacks for his mother’s patience and sanity. Hadyn’s hair was a deeper shade of auburn, and his skin the dark olive of Max’s. Where Edena had her mother’s porcelain skin with a bit of freckling across her nose, Hadyn had none whatsoever. Both had Max’s high cheekbones and the sharp catlike shape of their mother’s eyes. But it was Edena’s deep dimples that weakened his heart most. Like her mother, she had a smile that could light up the darkest night and weaken the sternest resolve.
May the gods have mercy on any man she ever turned that smile against.
And he was so grateful that they’d been born human. That they’d both been spared their mother’s hatred for his kind. That neither child had ever seen in Sera’s eyes the contemptuous condemnation he’d glimpsed directed toward him at times, whenever he did something too dragonesque around her.
But those days of hiding his true nature were behind him. If they wanted to tilt the dragon…
The dragon was here and he was ready for war.
Bring it, bitches.
Angling his wings down, he swooped low, following their scents until he was sure his children were near the crumbling remains of an old temple. Then he partially changed over to his human form, leaving only his wings so that he could keep a lower, yet equally lethal, profile as he scouted the entire area. A chill raised the hair on the back of his neck as he listened to the winds rustling the ground around him.
He still felt the presence of haunting evil. It caressed everything around him. But more than that, he caught the scent of something even more peculiar…
Arcadian.
What the hell?
His nose twitched at the familiar odor. It was similar to Illarion and yet entirely different. Not his child, but a relative.
Dissolving his wings, Max crept along the shadows, listening intently for any sign of his enemies.
This was a den of dragons. But not just any den… Scowling, he peered through the window at the people inside. They were both wolf and drakos. Two groups that didn’t normally associate together.
Even more peculiar, they were speaking an older dialect of medieval English. Mercian? Or Saxon? He really needed Cadegan, Illarion, or Blaise here for this. It would be right up their alley.
As it was…
He could only vaguely remember their language and pick out a few stray words that made no sense to him.
Not that it mattered. He wasn’t here for them and he didn’t care about their discussion. Closing his eyes, he used his senses to hone in on what had led him to this dark place. He felt his daughter’s presence first.
Her fiery anger that was so similar to her mother’s made him smile. Until he understood the source of her fury and why it was so intense at present.
His sight darkened instantly. Wanting blood, he headed straight for the oldest temple a few yards away, where his son and daughter were being held in a large arena that appeared to have been designed for games or events.
That alone would be enough to piss him off. But what set his blood to a boiling heat was what they were doing there. The elder males were fighting his son in an outlawed game of Prine to see who would be the first to sleep with his daughter.
With only a shield and sword for protection, Hadyn stood bleeding and beaten in the center of the arena with one leg held in place by a large chain. Even so, he didn’t give up or show his weakness. Rather, he fought them off with a gladiator’s courage.
When one of the men rushed his son, Max almost made the mistake of heading him off, and charging in to save his boy. But he was seriously outnumbered.
Not that he needed to worry.
Hadyn caught the bastard with the shield, flipped him to the dirt, and stabbed him before he turned and caught the next one who came at his back. Seraphina had trained their son well. He fought like a champion.
Taking advantage of their distraction as Hadyn cut through them, Max moved quickly to his daughter.
The moment he touched her hands, she tried to fight and attack. “Shh,” he breathed in her ear. “I’m here to save you both.”
Turning her head to look up at him over her shoulder, she widened her eyes as if she might know who he was.
Max tore apart the chains that held her to the steel post. “Can you ride?” he whispered.