LOGINAllissaThe room had nearly finished finding its rhythm when the herald’s staff struck the floor again, and the name he announced stopped every conversation in the hall.“King Milo and Queen Winifred.”Lyle was with them. He’d slipped out of the ballroom sometime earlier, without a word to anyone, and gone to walk his mother in himself. She stood at the top of the stairs on my brother-in-law’s arm in a gown of soft dove gray, her silvered hair dressed simply, her chin lifted by visible effort, a woman walking back into a world that she has largely been absent from. Milo stood at her other side. Lyle held the arm she leaned on, and even from across the ballroom I could see what that arm was costing him, and that he would have died before withdrawing it.
AllissaWe dressed for war more calmly than we dressed for parties.By sunset, our chambers had become a staging ground. My gown, silver over deep blue, the colors of both my bloodlines, waited on its form while two attendants fought a losing campaign against my hair. Darren stood at the mirror in his formal black suit, crown set, the moon cufflinks his daughter had selected catching the light, looking every inch the king and muttering about receiving lines like a man being sent to the gallows. Across the hall, a battle of another kind raged: Mira had rejected three gowns, accepted the fourth because it had become available to chew, while Soren submitted to his tiny formal coat with the long-suffering air of a soldier.And in the middle of everything, supervising all of it, marched Lyra in her party dress, Smoke tucked into her sash like a sword.“Absolutely not,” I said.“He’s coming.”“He’s a rock, baby.”“He’s a dragon,” she corrected, mortally offended, “and it’s his party too.”I
DarrenHeath met me in the war room an hour before dinner with the rosters, the maps, and the patient face of a captain who had answered the same questions from his king four times that week and would answer them a fifth.“Wards,” I said.“Renewed last night. Dayanara walked the full circuit herself, every stone, every threshold. She layered the nursery wing twice and complained about your stonework the entire time. Her exact words were: the castle is sound, the king is paranoid, and I want that in writing.”“Vetting.”“Every soul hired in the past two years re-screened. Every credential checked under merrow ink. Three forgeries in the serving applications, all caught at the gate, all of them
DarrenMy kitchens fell without a single blow being struck.Evette arrived before the party with one trunk, three crates of preserves, and the unstoppable momentum of a mother-in-law on a mission. By the time I came down from the morning councils, my head cook had surrendered her ladle the way a general surrenders a sword, my entire kitchen staff had defected to the invader, and the woman who once outran a royal kill order was elbow-deep in my pantry, reorganizing it by a system she declined to explain to anyone.“Darren.” She pointed a wooden spoon at me the moment I crossed the threshold. “Who ordered the eastern flour?”“I have no idea. I’m the king.”“Then the king can carry these t
AllissaWe lost the children to the gardens before lunch, which was always the plan, because no treaty ever signed could hold a candle to what our gardens did for inter-kingdom relations.The twins held court first. Ciera melted over Mira, who repaid her by seizing two fistfuls of golden hair and attempting to climb her like the aforementioned chandelier. Gunnar, the most feared sovereign on the borders, extended one cautious finger toward Soren and was caught in the iron grip of a six-month-old who then stared up at him in unblinking judgment for a full minute. The Dragon King did not move the entire time. “He’s weighing me,” Gunnar said quietly, with what I could have sworn was respect. “Let him finish.”And then there was Lyra.My daughter had sp
AllissaThree days before the party, my daughter woke the entire east wing at dawn by announcing, at full volume, that today was a Thorin day.“A what day?” Darren muttered into his pillow.“You heard her.” I was already up, peeling Lyra off the foot of our bed where she had materialized like a small determined ghost. “The dragon royals arrive this morning. She’s been counting down on her fingers for over a week.”“She only has ten fingers.”“She borrowed two of mine.”My mate dragged himself upright with the expression of a man preparing for an audit. I knew exactly what was happening behind those green eyes, because it happened every visit. Gunnar he respected. Ciera he adored, though he would phrase it as diplomatic regard. It was one of the smallest members of the delegation who turned my fearsome king into a brooding thundercloud.“Be nice,” I warned, wrestling Lyra into the blue dress she had selected four days ago for this exact occasion.“I am always nice.”“You growled at his
“Mom …” What could I say? I didn’t need to state the obvious, that I was pregnant, but this was the first time she had met Darren. She had left me with Alfred, thinking I would be taken care of there. I walked up to her, and Darren kept his arm around me as he accompanied me. After the trauma he had
Dayanara moved closer to me, and Lyle came with her, still keeping a steady hand on her. Dayanara was on high alert as she held her hand in a defensive position.Look at those eyes. There is no fear. Nothing. They know what we are and look how they stand there confidently. Dayanara’s voice entered
Holding my baby in my arms was surreal. In a moment, everything changed. Yet, here I was, holding my newborn son who had been swaddled in fire silk—a type of material that self warms.“What will you name him?” Ciera asked, as she adjusted the pillows around me.Name? Darren said he didn’t care what
We popped out not far from the others, but we were in a strange tunnel that dripped with water. Darren’s hand rested on my hip as he guided me through.“Where is your mom?” Squall asked anxiously as we came around the tunnel bend. Dayanara was beside him, obviously controlling him from going after E







