“Not here,” he cautioned.

My hand wrapped around his throat and we disappeared, leaving the treehouse for the deserted high cliffs on our eastern shore. I tightened my grip on his neck, even as those green eyes surveyed me with a quiet calm.

“Why?” He didn’t answer, and I resisted the urge to squeeze harder. “Where is my queen?”

The wind whipped my hair and wings around, blowing from the wrong direction. My father used to say the island and its climate could respond to the moods of its king, but I had never believed him. As storm clouds gathered, I fought to remain calm. A massive storm could ruin our less-permanent structures, and the last thing we needed was a mudslide through our new vegetation. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

The winds abated as Kieran finally spoke. “You made her queen in her own right. No draken king has ever done that before.”

The smaller mate bond that existed between us tugged slightly, and my shoulders drooped. Wren wouldn’t want us fighting.

“It makes her safer. She will have access to every power that I do. It is important she survives and bears children, but also, I wanted to prove to her that . . . ” I cut myself off, unable to express through words how badly I had wanted to make up for the way I’d treated her. Marking her as my equal in every way had seemed like a good first step.

Kieran arched an eyebrow. “You admit she will be involved in the war then? Making decisions that—”

“Tell me where she is or I will rip your wings from your body.”

Kieran winced. “She was taken by the demon hordes, voluntarily, to find out where the witches are. To secure their alliance and win the war.”

My hands were on him again and we tumbled to the ground.

Someone was yelling, and I realized it was me.

“It was her choice!” Kieran screamed back, his fangs and claws out, but only to defend himself.

“She doesn’t understand how important she is!” I countered, “And you have committed treason by—”

“It was her idea, she ordered me to let her go, and you were unconscious, so her orders took precedence since you made her your equal.”

“I don’t care! You should have disobeyed!”

“I couldn’t thanks to you!”

“If she dies, I’ll—”

“You can’t just pick and choose which parts of her to love!”

I reared back, not expecting that. We broke apart, panting and bleeding. Kieran wiped the blood from his cheek and glared at me. “Wren is proud. Wren is strong and Wren is smart. Smart enough to realize you had no plans to honor your promises to the witches after everything they’ve done for us.”

Kieran didn’t understand. It wasn’t as easy as that. “We don’t have time to find missing witches. They’re—”

“An important asset to this war. Like Wren is an asset to this war.”

It was hard to keep the rage from overwhelming me. “If you interrupt me one more time. . . ” Kieran went silent, then knelt before me. Thunder rolled behind me, and I took another deep breath. “What are you doing?”