I locked in on the witch. “What do you mean?”

“It was just a story my gran told me.” Grace’s large, very dark – almost obsidian-black eyes – were scanning the environment below. “When the dragon king was alive, he was the worst kind of dictator. If you didn’t join him, you died. Some of the races banded together, witches and fey mostly, and they decided to pool their magic and create an oasis, a sanctuary for those who needed to escape but were not powerful enough to fight.”

My gaze was drawn back to the scene below. This place certainly fit the “sanctuary oasis” brief. It looked to be divided into territories. Lands of ice, oceans of blue, forests of green, and deserts of red. Basically something to suit each and every one of the supernatural races, even those from the demi-fey.

But one thing was bothering me. “Why was I the only one who could enter the golden barrier?” Sure it had strung me up, but the others couldn’t even get in at all. “I had to show the mark. This seems to be something to do with dragon marked.”

From the side, a voice said, “You are both right and wrong. This is the created oasis, and over time it has become a dragon marked haven.” Cloaked fey was standing on a small ledge which looked to lead into a crisscrossing path down into the valley. “Now is not the time for the long history of the sanctuary. Follow me, there are dangers here for those uninitiated. Do not be tempted from this path, for now you must shadow my steps.”

“Are we near Krakov?” asked Braxton.

“No,” was all the answer we received.

I wasn’t sure about everyone else, but I was relieved to know we weren’t courting the criminals of Romania. I’d heard they held the worst of our kind. Their prison was supposedly a veritable stronghold.

Cloaked dude turned and was off again. Braxton reached out then and linked our hands together. I narrowed my eyes and he leveled his stoic expression on me before he said, “I knew the moment he said ‘Don’t be tempted off the path,’ that you’d need some help.”

A few rumbling growls rocked my chest, and my eyes got even squintier. “Are you trying to say I have a short attention span? That I can’t walk into this valley without suddenly being distracted by, say, a squirrel, and scampering my ass off the road?”

Jacob and Tyson both snorted. I whipped my head around to them. At the sight of my expression, they stemmed their laughter before clearing their throats and staring off into the sky.