“Crime?” Conrad’s expression darkened. “They have taken over a dozen dragons hostage in the past six months.”
“What?” That was an unfamiliar voice—Lana realized that it was one of Seth’s wolves who’d spoken, a woman with dark red hair and a murderous expression on her face despite the razor-sharp talon that was being held to her throat.
“Elza,” Seth said, his tone worried. “Please.”
“You’re going to let them lie like that?” the wolf snapped. “You’re going to let them accuse us of what they’ve been doing? Of all the bald-faced, arrogant—”
“How dare you!” One of the dragons behind Conrad surged forward, his pale green eyes narrowed with fury. “You took my soulmate, you worthless—”
“You took mine!”
“Silence,” Conrad roared, his voice echoing across the Plateau. Both groups subsided, but Lana could see that neither was going to remain quiet for long. “I will not tolerate childish name-calling. I will not tolerate disrespect in front of our—” And then Lana blinked again. The word he’d used definitely meant ‘monarch’—and he’d looked at her when he’d said it. Was it really possible she was misremembering the language this badly? No time to worry about that. She’d spent enough of her life in bars across the world to know how to tell when a brawl was brewing—whatever misunderstanding had sparked this one, it was fairly clear that Conrad wasn’t going to be doing anything about it. That left her—definitely the least informed person present—to try to get to the bottom of why these wolves and dragons were at each other’s throats. Great. Perfect.
“What, exactly, is happening?” she demanded, raising her voice enough to be heard over the growing muttering from the dragons. To her surprise, they all fell silent at once, their eyes swiveling attentively to her. Conrad cleared his throat.
“My apologies,” he said softly. “I can brief you thoroughly once this situation is under control.”
“Now,” she said, wishing she knew how to sound a little less rude. But the one-word instruction was effective, to her surprise.
“Dragons have been disappearing,” Conrad explained, and she could tell by the creases that appeared on his brow that this matter had been weighing heavily on him. “For six months now, we’ve been frightened to leave the peak to hunt in case we’re ambushed by a wolf pack.”
“Who’s doing the ambushing here?” one of Seth’s wolves demanded, her voice thick with fury—and Lana heard Seth rebuke her, quietly but firmly. Despite the rage in her body, the wolf nodded and subsided.
“Prince Conrad,” Seth said levelly, his voice surprisingly calm given the razor-sharp talon that was still inches from his throat. “I ask your permission to speak.”
Conrad looked at Lana. She looked back at him. A long, confusing moment passed—then the dragon lowered its talon and Seth stepped forward, murmuring his gratitude to the dragons who parted to let him through. Alpha and Prince regarded each other on the plateau, the tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife. Lana held her breath, sensing somehow that this wasn’t the point to interfere. If these two communities were going to make some kind of peace, it was going to need to start with a conversation.
“You said dragons have been going missing,” Seth said finally, his voice low. “For six months?”
“Yes.” Conrad’s jaw was tight. “I presume you came here to deliver your demands?”
“Quite the opposite. We came to deliver Lana,” Seth said, his eyes flicking up to meet hers for a moment that sent an odd shock down her spine. He told the story quickly but thoroughly—finding her in the Fog, chasing off the monstrosity that had been trying to devour her, finding her a place to rest and then escorting her up here to the Plateau. None of the dragons seemed to bat an eye at the news that monsters lived in the Fog a few miles beyond their doorstep. Where the hellwasshe?
“We have no hostages,” Seth concluded, and only now did a trace of frustration sound in his voice. “We have sustained considerable losses ourselves these last few months.”
“And you thought dragons were responsible, is that correct?” Lana interjected, unable to stop herself. “That was why you were asking me about it.”
“Yes,” Seth acknowledged.
“Do I understand this?” She took a breath, trying to organize her thoughts in the rusty language. “Dragons live in this mountain. Wolves live in the valley. You know about each other. When do you—have meetings? Talk to each other?” Conrad and Seth exchanged glances with each other, then looked away. Language barrier or not, Lana knew avoidance when she saw it. “You are telling me you do not speak to each other? Even when your people are going missing?”
Seth mumbled something under his breath about tradition, and Lana fought the urge to shake him. She was already well and truly overstepping her position here as a weird visitor, and the more she got to understand the political situation here, the more she realized that the handsome wolf who’d saved her life was quite an important man. She looked at Conrad, instead, whose serene expression was just a little troubled. She knew that expression very well—it was one she’d often seen on her father’s face when they argued. It was the expression of a man who didn’t want to let on that he’d been operating under a lot of assumptions that had just been proven false.
“Let the wolves go,” Lana said gently. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”
She’d half expected Conrad to refuse. She certainly hadn’t expected him to incline his head to her like a subject receiving an order from his Queen. The dragons who were holding Seth’s wolves lowered their talons, and the group hastened to his side, their silver eyes full of anger. Lana exhaled with dismay as she spotted several deep wounds on the wolves’ shoulders and backs, where talons had clearly sliced through cloth and skin alike. “You’re hurt. They’re hurt,” she added, wheeling on Conrad.
“My apologies,” he said stiffly.
“You both need to talk about this,” Lana said, looking back and forth between the wolves and the dragons in the ruddy light of sunset. “Properly. At last. You’re a Prince, is that right? You’ve got a palace?” Conrad nodded, looking a little worried. “Good. Then we can come and stay.” She gestured to the wolves and herself. Conrad’s expression was difficult to read.
“Are you certain?” he asked her, looking troubled. “It would be extremely unorthodox—”
“You’ve both got people going missing. You need to share your information, find out what’s actually happening. And it’s getting dark.Andthese wolves were injured by your guards,” she added darkly, gesturing at Elza, who grimaced and tried to cover the deep wound in her shoulder with one hand. “Bring us inside.”
“As you wish,” Conrad said solemnly. This time, he actually bowed to her. The confusion she felt was nothing compared to the look on Seth’s face as the dragons shifted back into their winged forms. After some discussion, the uneasy-looking wolf pack was each seated astride a dragon’s back, hanging on for dear life as the dragons readied themselves to take off.
Conrad shifted too, then lowered his belly to the rock, offering his foreleg for her to climb up astride his sinuous neck. For a moment, she hesitated, wondering whether it would be a mistake to let this dragon prince take her to his mountaintop palace. Ever since she’d woken up last night, every decision she’d made had brought her deeper and deeper into confusion and chaos.