At least I had something else to go on when I went after him later.

  The portal widened, and Knox placed his hand on my lower back, branding me with his touch. This brand wasn’t filled with affection like it had been with Cillian. This was repulsive and rancid, making my stomach churn.

  We stepped through the portal, and the temperatures instantly dropped. My shoulders curved in on themselves. My spine ached from my muscles tensing. Hell, it was literally freezing out here.

  It wasn’t snowing, but there was fresh powder on the ground and covering the tall pines around the corner of what I assumed to be a mountain. Though, I still had no clue where we were.

  The warlock stepped through the portal to stand next to Knox, and I was suddenly intrigued about him joining us. Cillian had said only those mated to a dragon or with dragon blood could enter through the portal, so who the hell was this guy?

  “Go back to…” Knox trailed off, seemingly considering his words because of my presence, “—where you were waiting for me before. Don’t go near the academy again unless I need you to. We don’t need you getting us caught.”

  The warlock nodded. Instead of opening a portal this time, he disappeared into thin air, assumingly teleporting to where Knox had been talking about.

  It’s interesting that he never spoke, my wolf said.

  Interesting indeed.

  My body shivered and teeth chattered. The frigid air was making it hard for me to think or move, but I wasn’t completely out of it.

  Cillian wasn’t here, and there were no other footprints in the snow, meaning he hadn’t gotten here yet. He must have turned around when our connection was shattered. An understandable but frustrating fact.

  Still, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t put the pieces together once River woke. I had to leave him a sign.

  Before Knox could grab me again, I ripped a piece of my red shirt and let it drop to the ground before placing my shoe over it.

  Someone would find it, and they’d know where I was. Worse, they’d know I was bonded to a dragon.

  Fuck. The pressure on my chest—the ache there from imagining what this was doing to Cillian—nearly suffocated me.

  Knox had the portal to Drago opened and reached for me again, this time digging his fingers into my bicep. “This might hurt a little the first time.”

  Nothing would hurt me as badly as shattering the bond already had, but I merely nodded in understanding.

  He walked us into a rock that had a slight shimmer over it in the form of an oval doorway. Barely perceptive to the normal eye, but not hard to miss if you were looking for it.

  He pushed me forward, but kept a tight hold on my arm. As soon as my outreached hand touched the opening, the rest of my body was jerked forward.

  My eyes were forced closed from the unexpected jolt, and it felt as if thousands of needles were being stabbed into every inch of my body.

  Heat covered my skin, and I forced my eyes open again. They blinked several times until the world around me came into focus.

  My heart broke again for Cillian. It was so much worse than he’d described.

  There were plumes of smoke everywhere over the town that was just several miles ahead of us. The sky was dark, though it should have been the middle of the day—at least if time was similar here to back home—and the air was sweltering. It was a sharp contrast to where we’d just come from.

  My skin was already sticky from the increased temperatures, and my hair plastered to my neck and back.

  One of the taller buildings that appeared to be on fire began crumbling to the ground, and I briefly covered my mouth with my hand at the travesty, hoping like hell nobody had been inside it.

  What was once probably an enchanting realm was dying right before my eyes, and it didn’t seem as if there was a damn thing anyone could do about it.

  No wonder Cillian had been so focused on finding that spell to stop this destruction. I suddenly felt the same way.

  “This way,” Knox grumbled, grabbing me again.

  I quickened my pace, so he wouldn’t feel the need to pull on me. “Where are we going?”

  He didn’t answer, but that wasn’t going to work for me. If I was going to survive being here for any length of time without Cillian, then I needed to get something out of this whole situation.

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked with little resistance,” I said. “The least you could do is answer my questions.”

  His responding laugh was dark yet short. “The least I could do was let your friend live.”

  I’d already pointed out that his leverage with that only went so far, but I also wasn’t stupid enough to believe that his promise to let River live had any true weight to it. I wouldn’t push the dragon shifter as much as I wanted, but that didn’t mean I was giving up my quest for information.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I guess you’re okay with your mate despising you, then.”

  His lips curved into a smirk. “The line is rather blurred between love and hate. The more you hate me, the more you’re bound to love me. I’ve waited this long to get what I want. I can wait for you.”

  “And what is it that you want?” I asked as we walked east, heading toward a shadowy forest.

  “Wouldn’t you love to know,” he chided.

  I shrugged. “I don’t usually waste my time asking things I don’t care about. I’m trying not to see you as the enemy right now. Yes, you took away something precious for me, and I fucking hate you for that, but am I stubborn enough to not see I have very few options here? I can either resist the shit sandwich you’ve shoved down my throat, or I can lather it in chocolate and hope it won’t be as bad as it sounds.”

  He frowned, a deep crease forming between his brows. “You’re an odd creature.”

  “Thank you,” I replied with my own grin.

  If I could confuse the hell out of him, that just might work in my favor.

  “We’re going to our temporary home,” he finally answered. “It’s located in this forest and where I’ve lived the past thirty-five years.”

  “By yourself?”

  His silence was answer enough. He hadn’t been alone, but who had been with him and why didn’t Cillian know he had a brother?

  Maybe he knew Knox existed, just not the relation. I didn’t know, but I was going to figure out as much as possible. I couldn’t take being around this piece of shit much longer.

  We got to the tree line, and as soon as we stepped into the darkness, the previously scorching heat was cut down. Not as freezing as the mountains had been, but my skin pebbled with gooseflesh and I shook my shoulders out as my body adjusted to the changing climate.

  The air was thinner here, as if we’d risen in elevation. The treetops were so thick that the further into the forest we walked, the less light there was.

  The leaves were a dark blue instead of the normal green I was used to, and the branches were a dark charcoal color. I heard no animals skittering about, but there were some sort of lightning bugs that glowed inside the trees. At least, that’s what I was telling myself those lights were.

  “How far do we have to walk?” I asked quietly, yet my voice still felt like it carried through the dark forest… Wait, dark forest? Cillian had talked about this place, but we hadn’t gotten to continue the conversation because we’d been in public. This had to be the same one he referenced.

  It would have certainly been creepy enough to keep me out as a child.

  “Are you scared?” he asked haughtily.

  Playing the damsel could make him underestimate me, but I didn’t have it in me to keep my mouth shut.

  “I’m an alpha wolf,” I deadpanned. “Very little scares me.”

  He made an odd noise, keeping his eyes directed ahead. “I’ll remember that.”

  Chapter Three

  CILLIAN

  It had been over an hour since the connection I’d felt to Dawsyn had disappeared. My fingers were numb from holding the steering wheel so tightly, and my head was raging. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find back at the academy, and I knew there would be little chance of forgiving myself for leaving my mate, but I had to get to her.

  My phone finally rang, and I recognized Justine’s number from when she’d texted earlier. “Did you find her?

  “No, but I have River,” she replied. “He was beaten pretty badly and said Dawsyn was indeed taken.”

  The growl that echoed around the cab of the truck wasn’t intentional, but also couldn’t be helped. “Does he know by who or where they took her?”

  “He’s not really coherent yet, but he said ‘someone like Cillian’ and something about how only you could find her,” she said. “Does he mean another hybrid took her?”

  Fuck. No, he didn’t, and I’ve just wasted hours turning around. Again.

  “And you caught no scent of her anywhere?” I asked before I made a U-turn on the highway for what felt like the hundredth that day. I assumed River meant Dawsyn had been taken to Drago, but if she had been, then that meant… I couldn’t even think about what that meant when combined with the fact that our bond no longer thrummed inside my chest.

  “Nothing that was fresh once I left Baker House,” she answered.

  I was going to lose my damned mind. I didn’t know who had come here or how they knew about my connection to Dawsyn, but I was going to fucking kill whoever took my mate.

  It didn’t matter that the tether between us had been reduced to ash. Dawsyn Chase was still mine, and I would get her back. No matter the cost.

  “I’m not coming back to the academy,” I said. “Have River call me when he can talk more.”

  I wouldn’t be able to answer once I was in Drago, but hopefully he’d recover from whatever they’d done to him by the time I got to the portal.

  What made me most furious was that I could have caught them. If I understood what little River had said, I could have been at the entry point at the same time if only I’d stayed on my path.

  Everything inside me burned brightly with a fury unlike anything I’d ever known, but this news had also put me into an odd sense of calm. I knew I had to keep my shit together for Dawsyn. She needed me now and I would find her. The rest we could figure out later.

  Whatever had happened, I at least knew her heart. She’d told me what she wanted, which was me. I believed her.

  That was what I needed to focus on. That was what would help me find her again.

  Too much later, I was at the entry point to Drago and the scent of Dawsyn was nearly overwhelming. She’d been here and not that long ago. She had to have been. Or I was going crazy. Honestly, that possibility might not have been too far off.

  It was snowing here, but there were still faint imprints in the ground—three sets of footsteps that didn’t start until further up the mountain. So far up that they would have had to teleport in to make that happen. Whoever took Dawsyn was working with a witch.

  I really fucking needed River to wake up and tell me everything he knew.

  A flash of red caught my eye, and I bent down to the ground, wiping the snow away. My stomach sank and scales pushed closer to the surface.

  Dawsyn’s shirt.

  The footprints in the snow didn’t look as if anyone had been fighting, which meant she’d left this for someone to find. Hopefully for me.

  She was cooperating with whoever took her, but that didn’t mean she’d gone with them willingly.

  From everything Justine had told me, someone must have used River to get to her. He was her family. I could understand why she’d leave, but who would want to bond with her? There were very few dragon shifters in our realm that had anything nice to say about the other supernatural races.

  What would they have to gain by stealing my mate?

  I didn’t know, but I was going to fucking find out.

  I pressed my hand onto the mountain surface, and the familiar shimmer of the portal door opened. Its energy wrapped around me, testing me before welcoming me back home.

  I glanced back one more time, double-checking there wasn’t anything else I was missing. It wasn’t until then that I realized the third set of footprints didn’t come to the entry point. They’d appeared and, two steps later, disappeared.

  Someone had brought them here and then left, but I couldn’t scent anything other than Dawsyn, meaning the others had been cloaked.

  I checked my phone again. With no news from Justine or River, I stepped into the portal.

  The energy sucked me in, dousing me in darkness for the briefest of moments before depositing me just outside of the main town of Drago.

  Fucking hell.

  This was so much worse than Nannio had described. Wind whipped around me, sending smoke through the sky and out toward the trees and mountains. Any hope I’d had of following a scent trail from Dawsyn as soon as I arrived was dashed in that moment.

  The sun was nowhere to be seen, but the heat was almost unbearable. From this far away, it seemed as if half the buildings in town were on fire. Yet, there was very little noise. It was almost as if everyone had abandoned their homes and businesses, but where had they run to? Why hadn’t my grandmother or uncle responded to my many attempts at contact?

  That last question really only had one sensible answer, but it wasn’t one I was willing to accept just yet.

  My family couldn’t be dead. Things couldn’t have gone to complete shit so fast that nobody would have called me home.

  Deciding not to let myself wallow in what-ifs, I shifted for the first time in much too long. Instead of the steady transition I was used to, this was hard and fast and painful as fuck. Much like my day.

  My skin stretched until I was certain it was going to rip into shreds just before my body elongated into its dragon form.

  Earthy, golden-brown scales with splashes of blue covered my body. Claws dug into the dying ground and my wings expanded, flapping abruptly at our sides.

  Better? I asked him, even though I knew I wouldn’t get a response. At least, not a verbal one.

  He huffed and scraped his feet into the dirt, then let out a loud rumble. Smoke puffed out of his nostrils, and rage filled our shared mind.

  If you can sense her, go, I said, and he thrashed his head around, confirming what I already suspected.

  We knew Dawsyn was here but had no fucking clue where to start looking.

  Nannio’s first, I said.

  If we were going to find our mate quickly, we needed help.

  My dragon didn’t disagree. As he took flight, sparks of lightning enclosed our expansive size, growing stronger as we rose further into the air.

  I watched our surroundings, careful not to draw too much attention, but also looking for anyone who might still be around and could tell me what the hell had happened here.

  It was one thing for there to be an attack, but for every single dragon to flee? That didn’t make a bit of sense.

  Within five minutes, my dragon was soaring back to the ground and toward a small cottage just outside of the main part of town. It was the place I’d grown up after losing my parents and still considered home, even if I didn’t sleep there at night.

  The windows were dark, and I couldn’t scent any recent activity. My dragon was slightly resistant to shifting back, but it only took me pointing out that he couldn’t fit through the front door for him to relent.

  Changing from beast to man was still uncomfortable, mostly because my muscles hadn’t had time to heal from the previous ravenous shift, but it at least went smoother.

  I entered my grandmother’s house cautiously, my eyes first scanning the living room where there was a fireplace full of dull ash, blankets tossed about, and books left on the coffee table. I then looked to the kitchen where a plate with food on it still sat on the table and pots and pans were left on the stove.

  “Fuck.” She’d never purposely leave her home in this state.

  Unlocked and a mess.

  I continued, stopping at my old room and peeking in. From what I could quickly tell, everything there was in its place. Then I moved on to her room.

  Drawers were left open, hangers on the ground, the bed unmade. At least it seemed as if she’d packed for wherever she’d gone and hadn’t been taken. Though, she’d still clearly left in a hurry and likely a panic.

  Nannio? I tried the mind link for the hundredth time.

  Silence was my only response, just as it had been the last week.

  I exited her house, not expecting her to have left me a note, and decided it was time to check on my uncles.

  As soon as my feet touched the earth outside, I sensed my dragon pushing forward.

  Easy this time, I warned, stepping further away from the house. I didn’t want to be completely useless when we found Dawsyn.

  This shift, while still swift, wasn’t as forced, and my body didn’t ache as much as before. Our wings extended once again and we were back in the air within seconds.

  Uncle Jerome and his mate Fennec were my only other family. I hadn’t spoken to either of them since I’d left Drago. That thought wasn’t sitting well with me.

  Their house was a five-minute flight from Nannio’s, giving us just enough time to stretch our wings and get a better look over the town.

  Fires still smoldered inside the crumbling buildings. Bodies lay in the street, some alone, some clinging to their loved ones.

  My chest filled with ire, not only because of the lost lives, but because I hadn’t been here to help protect them. I wasn’t in charge by any means, but the people in this town… I considered them all family in some way.

  Our realm wasn’t huge. Our clans were close. And none of this was fucking okay.

  My dragon settled down in front of my uncle’s house in the city neighborhood. At first glance, nothing seemed off. The house hadn’t been struck with lightning like some of the surrounding ones had, and there were no signs of a fight in the yard.

  Before shifting back to my human form, my stomach began to churn with ferocity.