And he needed to comfort Griff. The fairy was agitated, muttering about how his brain didn’t work right.

  “Griff, it’s okay,” Blaze said, choosing to focus on his bonded. “I don’t know what he is either.” He went with the gender being exhibited and hoped he didn’t screw up by doing so.

  But the strange man nodded slightly and murmured, “Very good. There’s hope for you yet.”

  Blaze was not flattered by that faint praise. He reached for Griff and pulled him into his arms. “It’s okay. You’ll remember. Or maybe you never knew what he was to begin with.”

  Griff shook his head. “No, I do. I did! It’s right there on the edge of my memory, and it’s important, I know it is! Argh!”

  “What’s the ruckus?” Grlind hollered from outside the cave. “I’ve got dinner. Are you two done bumping uglies?”

  “Bumping uglies. How quaint,” the stranger said.

  Blaze ignored that. “We have company, Grlind.”

  Grlind came storming in, shaking off water from the storm and sending it flying everywhere. He held several bloody animal carcasses in one hand and some kind of plants in the other. “Was I wrong about a critter sheltering here?” Then he stopped, the firelight casting an eerie glow on his features. “What the fuck?”

  “Exactly what I wondered,” Blaze said. “He was a woman first.”

  “Would you prefer a name?” the stranger asked. “You may call me His Highness, unless I decide to transform into my feminine side. Then of course, I am Her Highness.”

  “How about we just call you That Annoying Stuck-Up Creep?” Blaze suggested.

  “I’ll settle for Jade, if the title is too long for your little brain to remember.”

  Griff remained silent, but Grlind took another step forward, almost walking directly into the fire. “Jade… Would you be the Storm King?”

  Jade rolled his eyes. “Finally someone who knows their elven royalty.”

  “Storm King?” Blaze blinked. Even he had heard of the Storm King. He was powerful and weird and an elf. Elves weren’t as common as some people thought they were anymore. Not after all the in-fighting of the last millennia.

  Jade’s full lips curled up into a smirk. “Unless, of course, I choose to alter forms.” Which he did.

  “Oh gods, there you go with the weird again,” Blaze whined.

  Jade cupped one breast and jiggled it. “Have you something against females?”

  “No!” Blaze protested. “Whatever, whoever— It’s the whole, BOOM! I’m a man! POOF! I’m a woman! That’s what’s freaking me out!”

  “Why does the woman get the poof?” Jade asked.

  Blaze smacked himself on the forehead.

  “That’s right,” Griff said excitedly. “Elves are very progressive. They know no gender inequality.”

  “Whichever gender I am tends to be the superior one, so I wouldn’t say you are correct,” Jade sniffed. With a snap, she had her body covered in long robes. For all Blaze knew, she might not be female under them. He was going to get dizzy trying to keep track of her changes, so he decided not to bother trying.

  And why was Grlind still standing close enough to the fire to scorch his skin? Oh. That’s right. His skin is thick. Even so, Blaze hated the stench of burned flesh unless it was his dinner being cooked.

  “Grlind, could you maybe move away from the fire?”

  Jade made that purring noise again and flipped her hair over one narrow shoulder. “My beauty has entranced him.”

  Grlind’s face went dark, which Blaze supposed was a blush. “An orc would know better than to be entranced by the likes of you, Storm King. You’ve annihilated entire villages at your whim. Floods, lightning, hail, whatever you chose to rain down on innocents.”

  Jade widened her eyes. “So you choose to believe.” She looked back at Blaze and Griff. “I did enjoy watching you being taken by the fairy. A surprise, indeed, as I’d thought a dragon shifter would be the dominant one.”

  Griff spun around to face Jade. “It’s not about dominance. We are bonded.”

  “Bonded?” There went that black eyebrow again. “Impossible. There is no interspecies bonding.”

  “Looks like you aren’t the smarty-pants you thought you were,” Blaze said. He felt back on solid footing then. “We are bonded. So there.” He almost stuck his tongue out for added emphasis.

  Jade canted her head and glanced at Griff. “In that case, my sympathies, little fairy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eventually, Griff was able to extract from his memory the information he’d been reaching for. The Storm King was elven royalty, and elves were one of the few species that were more sexually promiscuous than Love fairies. It was the royal blood that made the Storm King able to switch genders, and he was often referred to as the Storm Queen as well. Griff felt better having remembered, and he resumed listening to the elf talk.

  “It’s just a tedious little uprising,” Jade said, having shifted back to his male form. “Nothing for me to be truly worried over.”

  “But you’re hiding out in a cave,” Blaze pointed out. “If you weren’t worried over it, truly or otherwise, why hide?”

  Jade sniffed and picked at something on his robes. “I am not hiding out. I am communing with nature, which is very important for us elves to do. Not that I’d expect a misogynistic dragon shifter to know that.”

  Blaze leapt up from where he’d been sitting by the fire. “I am not misotg—mistygen—mis—I’m not whatever that means!” he shouted, flinging his hands up in the air.

  Jade chuckled snidely. “You don’t even know what it means.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Griff muttered. Royalty or not, powerful or not, the Storm King wasn’t going to mock Blaze.

  Jade blinked, then narrowed his eyes at Griff.

  Griff braced for an insult or possibly a magic attack.

  Instead, Jade smiled suddenly and waved the whole tense moment off. “So defensive of your…bonded. It’s sweet.”

  Jade still didn’t sound like he believed in the bonding, but Griff didn’t care. It wasn’t his job to convince anyone of it. He and Blaze knew it was real.

  Blaze sat back down beside Griff and leaned his head close.

  “He accused you of hating women,” Griff explained quietly while Jade talked about himself.

  Blaze huffed, his breath hot against Griff’s ear. “I don’t hate women!” He sat up and glared at Jade. “I don’t hate women! It was just a…a thing I said! Our dragon shifter women can kick most of the men’s asses! Which is why I would rather fight someone who fights like a man,” he muttered at the end. “Less chance of losing.”

  Jade blinked, then giggled. Griff wondered if that worked for him, if people found it charming.

  “Maybe I am slightly sensitive when it comes to such sayings,” Jade said after a moment. “I’ve walked the streets in my kingdom as a woman, and the executions I had to line up after such an experience… Well, after that one time, I made sure to always present myself as royalty. Otherwise we might be hovering on the brink of extinction. Elven males can be very misogynistic. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t know that,” Griff said. “At least, I don’t think I did. I thought all elves were sexually promiscuous and, um. Yeah.” He didn’t think adding ‘vain and flighty’ would be wise.

  But Jade seemed to know what he’d held back. “Oh, we are, we are—if the elves are males. Or royalty. It’s something I want to set about changing, which—” He sighed. “Well, that is why there’s the little coup attempt, and the communing with nature.”

  “Shouldn’t you be fighting for your kingdom?” Grlind asked, looking very much like he didn’t approve of Jade at all.

  Jade turned to him. “Orc, what do you think I am? Stupid? Of course I’m fighting for it, but there are more ways to win a war than to get hurt in it. Also, what good will it do my kingdom if I die? Then I won’t be able to implement the changes I believe are necessary. Anyway, I’ve had enough of this tedious talk. Why are a dragon shifter, a fairy and an orc traveling together? It sounds like the start to a tasteless joke.”

  “You’re a snob,” Blaze observed.

  Jade twirled a few strands of his black hair. “I prefer cultured, thank you very much.”

  Griff wasn’t sure what to believe about the Storm King. He seemed too odd to pin down, so Griff stopped trying and just accepted the man for the time being.

  “Well, I was attacked from beyond the veil,” Griff began.

  Jade’s eyes widened. “You don’t say!”

  After Griff and Blaze had explained the entire tale, and Grlind had chimed in when it came to his part in it, Jade clapped his hands and beamed at them.

  “Oh, an adventure! You must let me come. I have abilities that will help, and besides, any rending of the veil is a danger to all of us,” Jade said. “It cannot be allowed. This is something that should have been shared at the World Magic Convention. Gods, talk about a waste. What started out as an annual meeting for world leaders has turned into a mockery and a cosplay event. Though the cosplay is actually very interesting. I saw ten of me last year! Of course none of them looked as good as me, but it was cute that they tried.”

  Griff laughed and shook his head. Royalty. All of them are weird.

  But powerful, too, and that was part of the reason he had no objection to Jade joining their group.

  And it’d be interesting to see if the spark between Grlind and Jade grew into a flame.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Traveling with an elf was a pain in the ass, no question about it. Blaze and Jade sniped back and forth more often than not.

  Not even under duress would Blaze admit that the sniping was kind of fun, even if he sometimes got the feeling he wasn’t catching on to an insult. He just called Jade a stuck-up dickhead and asked him how his kingdom was doing or something along those lines.

  “Can I see the map again?” Griff asked, holding out his hand.

  Grlind strode over and gave Griff the rolled map.

  Griff opened it and frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” Blaze asked. That was definitely not a happy look.

  Griff glanced up at the sky, to the suns, back at the map, then back at the suns before growling.

  “That’s a sexy as fuck sound,” Blaze observed.

  “Ick,” Grlind commented. “No sexin’ on an empty stomach.”

  “You just ate half an hour ago!” Jade exclaimed.

  Grlind blushed a dark green. “Orcs need more food than most everyone else. We’ve a lot of muscle mass.” He curled one arm, setting off a ripple of biceps, triceps and gods only knew what else–eps.

  Griff was scowling at the map. He shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?” Blaze asked, trying to see what was causing Griff distress.

  Griff growled again.

  Blaze’s cock twitched. Maybe they should take a break and—

  “Something’s off,” Griff said. “Either Gia’s mistaken in her cartography skills, or…or the world has changed? But it can’t have changed. She must be wrong!”

  Blaze looked around them. There were the Purple Mountains to the east, more dense forest to the west, behind them, to the north, the land looked the same as when they’d passed through as far as Blaze could tell, and ahead, to the south…well, all he could really see was more gods-be-damned forest.

  “Er, what’s missing on the map? Or here?” Blaze squinted at the map.

  Griff thumped a spot on it. “We should be right here.” He had his fingertip on a spot that had squiggles beneath it.

  “Are those…” Blaze stopped. They were in a forest. He didn’t think he was wrong about those squiggles not being trees.

  “This is the Fauna and Fickle Forest.” Griff tapped another part of the map. “We are in it now. We came through here—” He traced another path.

  “Let me see that map,” Jade demanded.

  Griff ignored him. “We haven’t veered off the path at all, have we?” He sounded so worried that Blaze knew he was afraid he’d forgotten that they had taken an alternate route.

  Except, they hadn’t. “Nope. We checked the map less than an hour ago and were on course.”

  “I’d like to see the map,” Jade said again.

  Griff didn’t even glance at him. “So how are we in the forest, yet the map and the suns, the shadows they cast, all say we are here?” He tapped those squiggles again. “These are the Crosswise mountains, which are beyond the Purple Mountains. This makes no sense!”

  “Can I please see the map?” Jade asked. Well, it was still closer to a demand, but the please had come out like it was painful to say.

  Grlind snorted, but Griff must have heard Jade finally—or Jade had been close enough to polite to be acknowledged.

  “Here.” Griff turned to him and pointed at their spot on the map. “We are here, but we’re not.”

  Jade held the map closer to his face. “Your sister must suck at cartography. This is clearly incorrect.”

  Grlind moved closer and looked over the top of Jade’s head. “Oy, now, that’s rude. Don’t be an ass.”

  Jade tilted his head to one side. “I wonder how you’d like having your own personal hailstorm. Surely even an orc would get tired of being pelted after a few days.”

  Grlind grinned, which was more fearsome a look on him than not, but Jade couldn’t see his expression. “Do your worst, Storm King.” His amusement vanished, and he returned his attention to the map with a grunt. After a moment, he grunted again.

  “What is the cause of that infernal sound you keep making?” Jade snapped. “You’re breathing on the top of my head. You’ll make my hair frizz.”

  Grlind exhaled slowly.

  “How dare you—” Jade started.

  Grlind talked over him. “This map has been altered somehow. It didn’t look like this the last time we had it out, Griff.”

  “You were the one carrying it,” Jade said.

  Grlind glanced at him. “And what good would it do for me to alter it?”

  “And what would he alter it with?” Blaze added, proud of himself for his contribution.

  Jade frowned. “I don’t know. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “There are other explanations,” Griff said. “The map could be enchanted, bespelled—not by Gia. She wouldn’t do that to me. Someone else, though.”

  Blaze looked at Grlind. “Are you sure the map changed?”

  Grlind started to nod, then stopped. “Well, it had to. It’s not like the land itself could change.”

  Jade’s eyes widened as did Griff’s.

  Blaze had a very bad feeling about the whole situation. Very bad, indeed. “Then according to the map, which may or may not have changed on us, we’re…standing on a mountain, but we’re not. We’re still in the forest, right?”

  Griff nodded. “But it’s possible the map was magicked by someone. It’s impossible for the land itself to have moved.”

  Jade gave an exaggerated sigh. “If I call you a peasant, is that going to get me in trouble?”

  “No,” Griff snapped at the same time Blaze said, “Yes!”

  Grlind just guffawed at all of them.

  “Then I will refrain this time,” Jade drawled. “However, it is not impossible to open the veil between the worlds. After all, someone put it into effect thousands of years ago. It was either that, or those who dwell on the other side would have murdered every Magical One in existence. Those others, the bland, magic-less ones, have always sought to destroy what they can’t understand. And, alas.” Jade gave another exaggerated sigh. “Not every Magical One managed to cross to our side before the veil was put in place.”

  Blaze gawped at him. “You’re saying it could be someone with magic on the other side of the veil?”

  Jade lowered his lashes, almost like he was being coy. “I’m saying it could be someone on either side of the veil, or even both sides of the veil. Perhaps there is more than one person involved. Perhaps there’s a league, a…a dark league that seeks to reign through chaos and—”

  “You’re just making things up now,” Grlind said.

  “Aren’t you?” Griff asked after a moment of utter silence.

  Jade arched both thin eyebrows. “Am I?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I don’t trust him. He’s lying,” Blaze muttered. “And he’s an elf, so he could have done something to the map, or the trail, or…or this could all be an illusion.”

  Griff glanced furtively at Jade. “To what end, though?” He didn’t know whether Blaze was right or wrong, but something was definitely off. “He needs to stop doing that annoying hand flap thing and answer questions.”

  “Where are Shadnay and Eleandross?” Blaze asked, stopping and catching hold of Griff’s arm.

  Griff looked around. “They were with us earlier…”

  Blaze looked up at the foliage overhead. “When we were still on track?”

  “When we looked at the map before, yes.” Griff cocked his head and listened. The telltale lack of buzzing was disturbing. “I can’t hear them. When did I last see them?” he wondered.

  Blaze called out to Grlind, who was walking ahead of them. “Hey, Grlind!”

  Grlind stopped and turned to him. “Yes?”

  Jade kept walking, Griff noted.

  “Have you seen the dragonflies since the map check?” Blaze asked.

  Grlind opened his mouth and held one finger up. Then he frowned and closed his mouth. “Hm.”

  “What is the holdup?” Jade called back to them. “Are you all talking about me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Griff retorted. Screw the man being royalty. He was annoying as a tick in the ass crack.

  Jade sighed like he was the most put-upon man in the world. “You truly are a—”

  Griff arched a brow at the elven king.

  “Weird, wingless man,” Jade finished.