I didn’t hesitate, snatching Kieran around the neck and pulling him back down onto the bed with me. Kieran grunted, his weight crushing me wonderfully as we rolled, his back to the bed so I straddled him. He hardened immediately under me as I licked a path from his chest to his neck. He sat up and pushed me away softly, and I growled.

“Easy. We need to know what happened to your neck and shoulder.”

I frowned, not understanding. The white fire? It didn’t hurt so much now, so why did it matter? I’d been in such constant pain for weeks that I doubted I remembered what it felt like to not be injured. I glanced down at my left shoulder and jerked in surprise. Where there was once clean, white scales, now there was a black tattoo. I lost the design under my neck, but I remembered Thad’s hands tracing the pattern over my scales.

Well done, Thad.

“It . . . it looks like a dragon,” Ronan stated curiously, brushing a thumb over the top of the tattoo, where I supposed its head was. To our surprise, the tattoo moved, lifting its head and looking at Ronan, before laying itself back down across my collarbone and going stationary again.

“That’s new,” Kieran stammered while Benedict frowned.

Benedict.

I started, “I’m sorry to have worried you, but I’m not sorry about getting captured. I found the witches and they’re safe, and so is our alliance. And I couldn’t leave the children, and—”

Benedict dragged me out of Kieran’s arms, clutching me tightly to his chest. “As if I gave a shit about any of that compared to your safety.”

His voice caught, and I felt a wetness drip down onto my hair. Was Benedict crying? “Don’t ever do something like that again. I will bend the world for you, just don’t leave me again. Ask before offering yourself up as a sacrifice.”

There was an awkward pause.

“We were all extremely worried. The other drakens were also upset,” Kieran soothed, unable to help fingering the new tattoo on my skin. Benedict pulled back and studied it himself. He leaned forward and sniffed the skin. Whatever he detected made him go rigid with shock.

“Did Thad give you this?”

The shock of finding out all over again hit me.

“He’s a draken!” I choked out. Ronan and Kieran’s jaws dropped, but Benedict didn’t look the least bit surprised. Indignation welled in my chest. “You knew!” I accused, pointing a clawed finger into Benedict’s chest.

He grasped it with his hand, gently pushing it away. “I suspected he may be a half breed; half human, half draken.”

I shook my head. “Demon.”

Benedict’s face paled.

Kieran put his head in his hands, then looked up. “Hold up. The heir to Cantrada is a half breed? And not only that, but he’s also half draken, half demon?” His voice rose to an unreasonable pitch.

“You made him swear an oath, didn’t you? God I’m so stupid!” I grabbed at my hair in frustration, not sure who I was more enraged with; Benedict for keeping more secrets, or myself for not putting it together quicker. Kieran and Ronan looked dumbfounded. I balled my hands into fists and addressed Benedict again. “Enough about him. I’m still pissed. What about—”