“All of them?” Nya repeated her question, even though she had heard Slate loud and clear. He said that all of the sacrifices were here, inside of this cave. She didn’t know how that could be possible, but if it were true, then that meant that Gavin was here somewhere.She stepped up to the railing, her eyes frantically searching the faces below her. It was far enough away that she couldn’t quite make out the details, but she knew she’d recognize Gavin’s gait anywhere if she saw him walking around below her. She didn’t see him anywhere.“Yes, they’re all here,” Slate was saying as Nya continued to scan the crowd. “It was never my intention to eat any of them.” He said the word “eat” like it was

The place where Gavin had been living for the last year was pretty remarkable to Nya. Carved out of the top of a mountain, the village looked normal to Nya, except for a few key points. First of all, there was absolutely no vegetation whatsoever. No grass, no plants, no bushes grew anywhere within the village. Nya wondered if any of the people here ever ate any vegetables. For that matter, she wondered what they ate at all.The entire town was lit by a soft red glow that emanated from a ring of glowing embers around the top of the hollowed out area in the mountaintop. As Slate led Nya and Gavin toward what he referred to as his home, she couldn’t help but look up in awe at the entire scene around her. The houses were all built of rock, which made sense considering their location, but other than that, they resembled the villages she’d seen in her own kingdom. Even the building they were clearly

The silence between them was deafening, but Nya didn’t want to be the first to speak. She wanted Slate to say something first, to tell her that she was right to be upset, that she was right to feel tricked into coming there, not realizing that he intended to keep her in his mountain kingdom until he was able to get the Heart of Magic back from the king who had stolen it from him. But Slate wasn’t talking either, so the two of them sat there, awkwardly, not looking at one another, until Nya could hardly stand it anymore.She turned her head and looked at him, studying him for a moment. He was probably the most attractive man she’d ever laid eyes on, but she couldn’t let that affect her. After all, he wasn’t really a man, was he? He was a shifter. Part dragon, part man, all deceitful. How could someone who could conceal such a huge beast within himself not be deceptive in one wa

The warm water soaked into her aching muscles as Nya sank deeper and deeper into the heat of the tub. The servants had graciously filled the basin with steaming hot water that smelled of lilacs and rose petals, and when Nya had climbed in, she’d sank up to her chin. It was delightful to be so completely consumed by the warmth of the floral scented water. Not only did her muscles feel soothed, she felt her mind clearing as well.She hadn’t been completely honest with Slate about what she’d seen. But then… this newfound ability of hers, to see the future. It wasn’t necessarily one hundred percent accurate. After all, she’d just realized she had it a few months ago. Even then, she wasn’t sure she was actually seeing the future. The only times it had really served her had been when she’d been fighting those idiots in the military barracks and when she’d ta

“Gator, this is Nya,” Slate, the dragon king, said as Nya followed him over to where the others were training. The fellow in question, a ginormous man, only an inch or so shorter than Slate himself, with massive, bulging muscles, was dressed all in black, a similar outfit to the one Slate always wore, except there were no red accents.Gator eyed Nya for a moment, his eyes traveling from her head to her toes and then back again. He nodded, his dark, shoulder-length hair swaying slightly with the movement of his head. “Nya?” he questioned.“Yes. That’s me,” she said, taking a deep breath and brushing her own hair over her shoulder. She was dressed in the same outfit she’d worn when she arrived but it had been cleaned. She knew she could move in it well since it was what she’d worn to ambush Slate. Still, fight