Maybe because of the all the hardships they’d endured, eking out a living in a harsh and unforgiving land, which I guessed could create a bond. Or maybe because of all the centuries he’d spent telling them that they were better than everybody else, that their unpolluted blood gave them the right to rule over all of Faerie, that they had been denied their rightful place and he was the only one who could restore it to them. Or maybe because he was a psycho and they were afraid of him.

Or, as with the other, maybe all three.

Either way, they had proven extremely uncooperative, ever since their king’s defeat. That had included ambushing the troops that Caedmon, the light fey king currently in control of Aeslinn’s capital, had put in place; hiding and provisioning Aeslinn’s soldiers; and responding to questions with either stony faced silence, extremely rude fey curses, or outrageous lies. It had made holding the country difficult, and tracing all of the fleeing bands of soldiers impossible.

But not as impossible as what I’d just seen.

Because Aeslinn wasn’t part dark fey. Mircea’s daughter, Dorina, had a friend who was half dragonkind, and she’d brought her into the Senate one day to give us the Dragons for Dummies talk. I’d found it really interesting, especially when she’d ended the presentation with a bang, transforming right in front of us.

That was when I’d learned two important lessons: there are definitely things that scare the hell out of high-level vampires, and half dragons can often still transform.

Only Aeslinn wasn’t a half dragon. Aeslinn was very proud of his heritage, which if the rumors were right, was half light fey and half god. It was kind of his whole reason for being in the war: wanting to keep the power structure in Faerie the way it was, with the light fey firmly at the top and his family foremost among them. He and the whole Svarestri people seemed to hate the dark fey, and any of their light fey kin who intermarried with them, presumably because it diluted the bloodline.

So, what the hell was Aeslinn doing, running around as a dragon?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

You didn’t know he could do that?” Gertie asked, watching my face.

“No. But I didn’t know he could turn into a giant, either.”

And then I remembered something.

“Can you move this thing downward?” I asked, gesturing at the viewport.

“How far down?”

“To the river—over there.”

I guessed the answer was yes, because the image we were looking at slowly began to pan down. It took me a minute to get my bearings, because we were still pretty far away. But then, what I was looking for was pretty big.

“There. Right there.” I pointed at the river. “Can you zoom in?”

“Zoom?”

“Get us closer.”