He was learning to play her body, and she wasn’t sure that she minded, which confused her. She’d been raised to have control of the men she fucked. But this wasn’t a man teasing her ear with his lips. This was a dragon. And she’d quickly learned there was no telling dragons anything.

Celyn groaned against her and then his body began to shudder. She knew his climax was seconds away, which for some unknown reason, sent her spiraling into another one that had her screaming into his neck.

They orgasmed, their bodies clenched tightly together until they’d wrung each other dry.

Celyn pulled back a bit, staring down into her face, his dark eyes warm. He looked like he was about to say something when Elina turned her head to the side.

“What is it?” he immediately asked.

She pressed her ear to the ground, nodded. “Someone is coming,” she said. “And, at the moment, it is not us, dragon.”

Elina had been right. She knew long before the interlopers arrived that they were coming. So by the time the male Riders came into view, they were both dressed and armed, Elina with her bow, Celyn with everything else.

Five horsemen rode up to them, stopping their horses as soon as Elina lifted her bow in the air, raising it so that she could send her arrow high and far. As fellow Riders, they knew this, but they didn’t seem to know Elina.

They spoke in a language Celyn didn’t understand, and they all sounded angry, the words spitting out. The discussion went on for a few minutes until the Riders nodded at Elina, turned their horses, and rode off.

Celyn lowered his sword. “What just happened?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Why did they ride off? What did you say?”

“I told them who I am. Who my tribe is. And they left. What else was there to say?”

“That several-minutes-long conversation was mostly you giving them your name? And you don’t think your name is too long?”

She rolled her eyes and walked around him. “It is my name, who I am, that will keep us safe on the Steppes. Do not forget that.”

“Were any of you angry?”

She stopped in midst rolling of her bedding. “No. Why?”

“You looked angry. All of you looked angry.”

“That is just way we talk.” She finished rolling her bedding and tying it up tight.

“Well, you’ll need to let me know specifically if you’re in trouble; otherwise, I’ll just start killing everyone. And then my father will be very angry at me. He hates when the Cadwaladrs just start killing.”

Elina stood, clicked her tongue against her teeth. The horse that did not belong to her trotted to her side and stopped so that she could get him ready. “Is that problem for your people? You all just start killing?”

“Not for all of us. Just my kin.” He thought a moment. “And Annwyl. It used to be she was the worst of us. But not lately.”

“I do not see the crazed monster that you all think she is.”

“We never said she was a crazed monster.” Celyn glanced off, winced a bit. “Well, we never say it. Others say it, but not us. But normally she is quick to react. Sometimes with a good outcome . . . sometimes not so good.”

“But she has many around to help, does she not? Your father. The Reinholdt Beast. That ten-year-old boy with his mother’s heartless, cold eyes. Even you.”

“Me?”

Elina finished securing her saddle to her horse and everything else to her saddle. She faced Celyn. “You are helping her now.”

“I am?”

“You are here, with me, in the Outerplains. That is helping.”

“Is it?”

“I do not understand you, dragon.” She mounted her horse and settled in the saddle. “When you help, you do not see it. When you do nothing, you think you save world.”

Celyn almost joked about saving the world just by being who he was every day, but no one had ever told him he was helpful before. Like all Cadwaladrs, he was expected to do his job. Nothing more, nothing less. But a little appreciation was kind of a lovely thing.

He walked over to Elina and placed his arms loosely around her hips. Leaning in a bit, he kissed her. A soft, gentle kiss. Not the wild devouring from the night before.

“What was that for?” she asked when he finally—and grudgingly—pulled back.

“Because I felt like it.”

“Oh. All right then.” And, after a few seconds: “Are you going to keep staring into my eyes like thoughtful oxen or are you going to mount up and ride, so we can meet with the tribes before I die of old age?”

“You’re already kind of old—owwww! No need to start punching!”

Gavrilovich Trifonov of the Bear Hunters of the Heartless Clouds in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains rode to the territorial lines between the Outerplains and the Annaig Valley.

He was about to turn the horse and head up the line when his brother stopped him. “I think they come to talk.”

Gavrilovich had seen the mounted Annaig Valley Protectors—knights in armor who provided protection to the lands—but he saw them almost every time any of them got a little too close to the territorial lines. Yet they rarely bothered to speak to each other.

The three Protectors stopped right at the line where Outerplains became Annaig Valley. The knight in the middle raised his hand in greeting.

“Good day to you, mighty Riders,” he said in the language of Gavrilovich’s people, a big smile on his face.