Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet 2)

The Wolf Guard couldn’t roll it into the woods without alerting Damianos of our presence, but Rafes made sure to let me know what would happen if Damianos tried to take flight with Bazzi and me again.

“I don’t care who he’s carrying, I’ll have him shot down,” my cousin informed me on the drive over from the North Dakota house. “So please, Ola, don’t make next Thanksgiving awkward.”

Solid burn. To be fair though, he didn’t resort to issuing this threat until we left the house with way more entourage than he wanted for the trip.

My dads insisted on coming with us. And this time, they both had their Viking swords, ready for the fight. Aunt Myrna also brought her axe along. Not the stunt one she used for her pro-wrestler shows either. This one was a larger, sharper replica of an authentic North Wolf beard axe, from its etched blade to the Norse artwork carved into its handle.

Of course, Rafes tried to talk his wife out of coming along. But she answered, “This is a fight I will not—cannot sit out, my beloved mate. This day will I wield sword against our serpent enemy beside our brothers.”

Her declaration was so intense, that I was surprised a wind didn’t show up out of nowhere to whip through her hair. But wind or no wind, there was no way Rafes could argue against that.

And of course, he wasn’t able to talk his brothers out of coming either. They were both former Wolf Force Marines, and as Nago pointed out to Rafes, “Dude, you only got a few soldiers on you. That might not be enough.”

“And hell if I’m going to miss out on finally setting sight on this dragon fuck,” Knud added, way less nobly. “Time to light his ass up.”

As laidback as Knud’s been lately, I sometimes forgot he started out as a sharpshooter for the Wolf Force, then spent a few years as an elite assassin before transforming himself into someone who could happily settle down with a wife and kid.

I remembered his dark and dangerous past with a quickness though when Rafes wordlessly nodded to one of the soldiers and Knud received a propulsion gun like it was everyday business. He strapped it on with a grim expression that might make even a dragon think twice before messing with him.

But even that hadn’t been enough concessions to get our show on the road.

When I tried to hand Bazzi off to his uncles and leave him behind, he totally freaked out. There was a lot of yapping from Bazzi, then a lot of yelling from my uncles when he suddenly took dragon form and came flying toward me.

“Don’t!” I yelled at the soldiers who immediately raised their guns.

My dads and Aunt Myrna to their credit didn’t try to run him through, only stared at the small golden dragon bug-eyed.

“I’m not going to cooperate if you shoot him,” I warned Rafes. “And he’s obviously not going to let me walk out of here without him.”

Which was how Rafes ended up threatening to shoot my whole damn family out of the sky if we tried to fly away again.

On the tense ride over I began to rethink what I’d assumed had been simple loyalty from Eos when he not only escorted his mother back to the future but refused not to come on our mission to find Xenon.

Now that I know about Reverence, I wonder if there wasn’t something bone deep inside of dragon kids that made it impossible for them to be separated from their mothers when they sensed danger.

In any case, even though Bazzi reverted to wolf form by the time we climbed out of the car, he stays right by my side as I hike up the road toward the cabin.

Gotta be truthful here. With soldiers and Vikings creeping along the woods on either side of the path, it’s kind of hard to put any kind of real plan in place.

Not that I’m sure I would have come up with anything, even if I didn’t have a well-armed and hugely distracting entourage hidden on either side of me.

I’m more of a reactionary than a strategist. My plan as Queen of North Dakota is a relatively safe mix of keep doing what your uncles were doing with more partying thrown in—but not enough to bankrupt the kingdom.

And both my plans for dealing with Damianos—the escape plan, then the make him fall in love with me again plan—had been drawn up with the same simplicity. No Plan B

And now my mind is a spinning blank after both of those Plan As failed spectacularly.

Why is Damianos here? For Bazzi, the prince he left behind? Has he changed his mind about us splitting up? Or is this part of his ultimate revenge?

Moreover, what will he do when people start shooting at him?