“My fault? You started it!”

“I started it? If you’d kept your c**k tucked—”

“This again? Real y?”

“Yeah! Real y!”

“Let me assure you, cousin, that everything I did with Izzy the Dangerous was at her explicit consent!” They were chest to chest again, Éibhear enjoying the fact he stood quite a bit tal er than his cousin since his last few growth spurts.

“I know I don’t hear more arguing. . . .” Rhona’s voice cal ed from outside the chamber. “I know I don’t hear that.” Austel the Red rushed in and pushed his way between the pair. “No, no,” he yel ed out. “You don’t hear anything.” He shoved the pair apart as Rhona had. “Not a thing.”

Austel , a fel ow soldier and friend to both Éibhear and Celyn, scowled at each dragon. “What is wrong with you two? This fighting has to stop.”

“It’s this prat’s fault,” Celyn snapped.

“My fault?”

“Go.” Austel pushed Celyn away. “Just go.”

“I’ve got watch anyway,” he said, stomping off.

“Don’t die a tragic death while you’re out there,” Éibhear cal ed after him.

“Fuck you.”

Austel shook his head. “Cousins shouldn’t fight like this.”

“It’s his fault.”

“Over a woman.”

“She’s an innocent.”

Austel shrugged. “Not from what I’ve heard.”

And Éibhear had his friend by the throat and slammed up against the wal before either even realized it.

“At what point,” Austel asked once he’d pried Éibhear’s claw off his throat, “are you going to admit how you feel about—”

“She’s my niece.”

“Not by blood.” He patted Éibhear’s shoulder. “Just be smart, friend. There’s no female in the world worth fighting over.”

“I’m not fighting over anyone. I’m merely protecting one of my own.”

“Do you real y believe your own ox shit?”

Éibhear sighed and headed off to get something to eat. “Usual y.”

Vateria, eldest daughter in the House of Atia Flominia, walked into the room where her younger sisters prepared for their night out. There was a monthlong worth of games being thrown by the sons of the human ruler of these lands, Laudaricus, and Vateria’s family would be blessing them with their presence on the royal dais. Family members would be going in their human forms as they often did, although they never al owed their human pets to forget who or what they were.

For they were the true rulers of these lands. The ruling Imperium of the Quintilian Sovereigns for the last six hundred years. The Iron dragons.

At one time, the Iron dragons were part of the dragons of the Dark Plains. But Vateria’s grandfather grew bored at being ruled by another, so he and his al ies moved their families far past the Western and Aricia Mountains and into what was the Quintilian Province. Unlike the Dark Plains dragons, Grandfather refused to hide his true form from the humans. Instead, he presented the smal ruling body of Quintilian humans with a choice: Accept the Iron dragons as your rulers or watch your men burn and your women and children enslaved to the dragon’s wil . Weak, like most humans, the rulers quickly agreed. In their minds, they thought they’d let their invaders get comfortable in their underground cave homes and then go about destroying them.

But Vateria’s grandfather had been much too smart for that. From the beginning he worked to make the Quintilian Province his own, without question. He kept actual kil ing to a minimum—he needed the humans as farmers, herders, and general labor—while using the threat of kil ing and much worse as the sword he used. When a senator dared question one of his decisions, the senator’s children were taken and turned into slaves, his wife or wives turned into whores, his land burned to embers. The senator in question, however, was kept alive, so that al could see him, day after day, wandering the streets without a home and penniless. His enslaved family sometimes passing him on the way to do their duty, their bodies covered in whip marks, their faces seared with their owner’s brand. Sometimes several brands if they were sold more than once.

By the time Grandfather handed over rule to his eldest son and Vateria’s father, Thracius, the Irons’ rule of Quintilian was without question and without chal enge. That’s when Thracius captured the mate of Adienna, the Southland Dragon Queen of that time, during the Great Battle of Aricia and took him back to Quintilian. While the queen sent messengers with offers of treaties and promises of no retribution for the safe return of her mate, Thracius held public games in his father’s honor with the highlight being the crucifixion of the Dragon Queen’s mate.

Once dead, the queen’s mate was cut into pieces, boxed, and returned to Her Majesty. At the time, it was rumored the queen was planning an al -

out assault on Quintilian, something Thracius hoped for since they’d be fighting on his territory rather than on hers. But that confrontation was put on hold for the queen had another problem—barbarian dragons from the north, the Lightnings. It had crossed Thracius’s mind to attack Dark Plains then, but he didn’t trust that the barbarians would automatical y side with him. For enough gold or females to breed with—both of which the Southlanders had in abundance—the Lightnings could easily be bought. Besides, there was much to the west of the province that held his interest and Thracius had never been one to rush.