So Elina secured her traveling pack on her shoulders and picked up her spear. And that was when the dragon’s long black tail suddenly whipped out and wrapped itself around her waist, pinning her arms to her body.

Shocked, Elina didn’t even yell, didn’t fight, though the spear was still clutched in her hand. And the dragon walked on with Elina securely tucked into his tail . . . and he was humming.

She had to admit, she found the humming annoying.

Celyn the Charming of the Cadwaladr Clan loved his job! As far as he was concerned, he had the best job in the queendom.

Though he’d admit, his siblings mocked him. While they went off to battle, spending months in muck and killing every bloody thing, every bloody day, Celyn was one of Her Majesty’s Personal Guards. He trained every day just like his siblings. Lived the life of a military dragon just like his siblings. And he killed when necessary—unlike his siblings, who killed whenever they felt like it.

And yet few of them took Celyn seriously because he wasn’t face-first in the blood and brains of a battle. But he didn’t need to be. Because he had the best job ever!

He glanced back at the human female he had trapped with his tail. He hadn’t seen a human who looked like her before. Such interesting features. Long, white-blond hair that reached down her back and framed an oval face. Pale skin covered razor-sharp cheekbones beneath bright, bright blue eyes that were narrow like a house cat’s. Full pink lips and a cleft chin rounded out that face. She was definitely someone Celyn would take the time to chat up if he’d met her at the local pub. But he hadn’t. Instead, she’d been at the top of Devenallt Mountain. The queen’s mountain.

Devenallt Mountain was the seat of power of the Southland Dragon Queen, Rhiannon the White, and the only humans who came here were ones who were invited by Her Majesty or were brought here to be eaten. A practice they’d stopped when the queen’s offspring—and Celyn’s royal cousins—began mating with humans. To the queen, it seemed tacky to eat the brethren of those her children loved. Celyn, however, didn’t have a preference. He was just as happy with a good cow, and there was always more meat on those bones anyway.

Still, having a human show up and openly admit she was there to kill the queen . . . that was unusual. But Celyn liked unusual.

Celyn had known the woman was climbing the mountains for days. All the guards had. It was their job to protect the queen, and that meant knowing who was in the queen’s territory at all times. Yet after she hadn’t fallen to her death the first day, all the guards had wanted to see how far the human would get. They had bets going. Celyn had been certain, though, that she’d make it as soon as he’d watched her set up that tent against the mountainside and spend her first night there—so they’d left her alone . . . and waited. He had been on duty when she’d reached the top, so he’d confronted her first. Softly. No need to blast her with flames or unleash a roar of rage to make her piss herself. He left that sort of thing to his siblings. Celyn preferred a gentler approach.

Yet he’d never expected her to admit that she was here to kill his queen. Again, his siblings would have killed her right then. But Celyn knew his queen. She was his aunt-by-mating and they amused each other. She loved to be entertained.

And he was very certain this woman was going to be the best entertainment his queen got today.

The White Dragon Queen sat on her stone throne, her massive head resting on the talons of her left claw, the elbow of her forearm resting against the arm of the stone throne she sat upon. One talon on her right claw tapped against the other arm of the throne. Her excessively long tail snaked around the back of the throne to the front, where the tip tapped against the stone floor in time with the talon on her right claw.

Studying Elina, the queen finally asked, “Could you . . . repeat that?”

Elina blew out a breath and gripped her spear a little tighter. The spear the black dragon had allowed her to keep. She’d thought he was being foolish until she’d seen the size of the Dragon Queen . . . and all the other dragons standing around her court . . . staring. Gods, Elina had never seen beings so big before—or known there were so many.

“I am here to . . .” She cleared her throat. “. . . take your life, queen of the dragons, and bring your head back to my noble people.”

The white dragoness nodded slowly. “Aye. That’s what I thought you said.”

A deadly silence followed, and Elina prepared herself to meet with her ancestors on the other side. But then one of the old dragons standing behind the queen suddenly snorted. And once he snorted, the rest of the dragons burst into hysterical laughter, while the Dragon Queen waved at the old dragon behind her.

“Elder Clesek!” she said around her incessant giggles.

“I’m sorry, my queen. I just . . . I can’t . . .” He burst into further laughter and the rest of the Queen’s Court laughed with him.

Elina glanced behind her, but the black dragon who’d brought her in was gone. After a whispered conversation with the queen, he’d deserted Elina. Not that she blamed him. Perhaps he didn’t want to view her messy death.

“My dearest girl,” the queen said around the others’ laughter, “who hates you so much that they’d send you here . . . to face me?”

“It is a quest of honor.”

“One you thought of yourself?” she asked. And when Elina did not answer, the queen nodded. “If you’d thought of all this yourself, it would have been bloody stupid. But for someone to send you to me? It’s just cruel. Someone clearly wants you dead.”