There they were. All of them. All my friends. Dora. Everyone. They were all hanging out in the living room with bowls of popcorn being passed around as they watched a movie. He’d told me the truth. Everest told me he hadn’t killed them, and even though I trusted him, I still apparently hadn’t fully believed it. I’d been afraid to believe it. But there they were, all alive and well.

My eyes burned with unshed tears and a hot lump formed in my throat. My heart was suddenly pounding super past and hard. My ears throbbed. I bent over and focused on breathing, but the world spun a little, so I reached out and leaned my hand against the side of the house.

Rainbow mist billowed from beneath my palm instantly. It shot out in every direction, covering the house from soil to roof and everything in between. I cursed and scrambled backwards until my back crashed against a tree. My legs gave out, so I crashed to the dirt, except when my ass hit the ground, I realized the ground was cold yet the tree was hot. Like hot hot. I looked down and my heart stopped. Those weren’t tree roots.

Those were dragon talons.

With my heart in my throat, I looked up and froze. Towering over me was a brown dragon with blazing orange eyes. I’d seen this one before in Avolire. He had a spiked tail that’d done a ton of damage to the vampire team. Right now, he was just glaring down at me like I was a demon. He exhaled and a cloud of hot air slammed into my face.

I cursed and scrambled away from him on all fours, not my best look but panic did funny things to your mind. When I finally climbed to my feet and spun around—I gasped. The brown dragon was gone. In its place was a guy, though I couldn’t have said how old he was. Those orange eyes weren’t giving youthful vibes, but trauma and war had a tendency to age people. The rest of him was slim and fit enough to have been anywhere from seventeen to twenty-five. In the back of my mind, I registered he was attractive. The shaggy brown hair reminded me of the spikes on his tail.

He narrowed those orange eyes and snarled. “You shouldn’t be here.”

I held my hands up. “I mean no harm,” I said with a voice that shook too much for my liking.

“And yet . . .” he growled between clenched teeth.

My heart sank. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry. It was just killing me to not know if they were okay. But I won’t return or look for them . . . just . . . get them out of here. Please? I’m not the only one who knows they’re here. Please, take them home to Issale.”