Queen Bellatrix had mentioned a white-haired girl who came from a brothel. Fifty mage-librarians looked up when she entered the library, only to see Hyran Thornfell of all people greet her at the door.
He had the patience of a guillotine and was about to teach a mute girl who didn't know her alphabet how to read.
The oldest librarian, Master Thalen, pulled a flask from his drawer and took a sip. Little did he know, in less than an hour, the flask would be empty, the floor would be open, and he'd be watching the King blame Hyran for unexpected renovations.
"This is beautiful," Serena said, in open awe at the domed ceiling and massive fireplace.
Hyran inclined his head. "Fire makes legends. Libraries make empires."
She gave him a warm smile. "Thank you for showing me."
"Can you read?" Hyran blurted out the question without any tact whatsoever.
Serena glanced at him, lips twitching. "Yes."
Hyran held up both hands. "Hey, it's a fair question. Are you fluent in more than one language?"
"Yes," Serena answered, face neutral.
She followed him up a few floors to a table scattered with books and scrolls, his cloak draped over a nearby chair.
He threw a book at her carelessly, and she caught it out of reflex.
"Show me."
He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, clearly thinking she was full of shit.
She opened the book, then glanced back at him, intrigued. "You have texts written in High Morbian."
She began to read fluently in High Morbian, unfazed. He listened for less than thirty seconds before cutting in.
"Translate."
Serena didn't look up.
"All magic diminishes with time. No enchantment..."
He took the book out of her hands mid-sentence and replaced it with another in the same motion.
She recognized the language as Aetherian, and read aloud, translating with ease.
"Aether Fabrication is the art of creating physical objects through magic."
Hyran didn't stop.
Four more books followed in rapid succession before he landed on High Orosic.
Her face fell, but not because she didn't know this language. She knew it very well and wished she didn't.
She schooled her expression and read without looking at him.
"Magical coloration is reflective of the caster's essence. Magic fueled by soul sacrifice absorbs rather than reflects, and thus manifests as black."
He cut her off, taking the book from her hand.
"How does one who speaks seven tongues, eight if we count the common tongue, end up in chains? That is not an academic question. That is an economic one."
Serena's face flushed. "That is very kind of you, Hyran."
"The only possible answer is ignorance. No one knew." His eyes sharpened. "Because if anyone in Viremont had known, questions would be asked. Is that a fair conclusion?"
She did not like the direction of the conversation, but met his gaze head on. "Fair."
"You fell from nobility. Not gently." He paused, watching her face blanch.
"You are fiercely protective," he continued. "And if the wrong people knew who you were, they would follow the trail straight to Elara. So you are silent."
Her eyes widened sharp with alarm.
"You are terrible at lying." Hyran raised a hand. "So please don't. I will not press."
His gaze flicked to her neck, where a faint rash had begun to climb. Stress-induced.
A reminder, he thought, that brilliance did not preclude fragility.
His hand hovered over a final scroll. This one was darkened with age. He glanced at her again, calculating. There was no rational reason she should be able to read it.
Then he tossed it.
"Humor me."
"This overlaps with Glac—" She cut herself off mid-word. That was a door she couldn't open.
Instead, she focused on the text in her hands.
Immediately, her eyes lit, then her hair and skin followed. The words came without effort, older than thought; she was vaguely aware of what was happening, but not in control.
The room shifted. Chairs scraped back.
Mage-librarians stepped from every shadowed corner, at least fifty of them, all wearing the same stunned expression.
"She speaks Draken-Vorah?"
"That tongue is sealed."
"Forbidden to outsiders."
"Who is she?"
Hyran did not move. His gaze locked on Serena, intrigue sharpening into something dangerous.
"Well. This just became interesting."
Serena looked up from the scroll, still glowing.
"Something is calling for you," Hyran said calmly. "Go to it."
She gave no response, but seemed to have heard him, vanishing down the stairs in a blur.
A handful of mage-librarians gasped. One clapped.
"And she moves at alpha speed," Hyran muttered, striding after her. "You are showing far too many of your cards."
Serena stopped at the gate to the restricted section, staring it down with impatience.
"Do you have permission to be in there?" asked the Master Mage-Librarian, Thalen.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Hyran snapped. "Yes. She has permission."
At his words, thirty mage-librarians turned as one and shushed him in unison.
Hyran stared at them flatly. Unimpressed.
Master Thalen fumbled through his keys. Metal clicked. The gate finally swung open.
She blurred inside, stopping at a massive rug laid before a fireplace, dragons coiled through the pattern.
She moved it without caution, as if it were not a centuries-old relic in a royal library.
Beneath it, the marble floor held gold-runes. As soon as she spoke, the runes flared to life and the library responded. Shelves rattled. Books shuddered. A drink tipped and shattered on the floor.
Hyran glanced up at the ceiling, then at the walls, then back at her.
"Do you plan on warning me before you tear down the oldest arcane library on the continent? Because if we are remodeling, I would like a significantly larger office."
✦✦✦
Dexmon rushed into the library, King Tiberon behind him, both wondering what the hell was going on.
Serena's scent found him immediately, and Dexmon followed it without thinking.
He found her glowing gold, her eyes locked on a painting mounted at least twenty feet above where she stood and completely unaware of him. The column of her throat was exposed where her hair had fallen to one side. His fangs ached. So did everything below his belt.
Hyran stood with his arms crossed, doing a terrible job of looking indifferent. "Let me guess. You need the one at the top."
She gave a single nod.
A mage-librarian bolted for a ladder.
Dexmon felt her through the matebond and had just enough time to realize a ladder was irrelevant.
"Serena, don't—"
She was already moving up the wall, stepping on stones that barely jutted out, ignoring gravity.
Dexmon watched her climb and lost his train of thought entirely. The view was a problem. Her training suit was a bigger one.
At the top she began to speak in Draken-Vorah.
Tiberon tore his gaze away from her and looked at Hyran. "A Truebond Veil and Draken-Vorah. What do you know that I don't?"
Hyran laughed darkly. Before he could respond, a dragon's roar echoed from above. Both of their eyes snapped back to Serena. The dragon in the painting opened its mouth, revealing a golden latch.
Without slowing, she pulled it, and every torch flared at once as the floor rumbled.
She jumped off the wall.
Dexmon read the jump before she made it and caught her mid-fall as if they'd rehearsed it. Her hands landed on his chest while his arms locked around her waist. For one breath, neither moved.
The angle was obscene. If he shifted his grip two inches lower, he'd have her exactly where his wolf had been begging him to put her since the clearing.
Heat surged through his body that made his cock ache. He couldn't stop the fantasy from forming: gripping her ass and bouncing her on his cock just like this.
Gods, he wanted her.
Then she was looking past him again, already searching for the next target.
He set her down with great reluctance.
She took off in a blur, Dexmon right behind her.
Was he enjoying this?
No. Absolutely not. Not even a little.
Then it registered. She was running at alpha speed. A trait passed exclusively through alpha bloodlines. His father's eyes met his.
Aegon: I still can't sense her wolf. And she has no idea what we are to her.
Dexmon didn't answer his wolf, following Serena as she wove between shelves of the restricted section. They stopped at a massive dragon statue on the wall that hadn't been there an hour ago. Or ever.
"When did we get a dragon statue? Did anyone order a dragon statue?"
Master Thalen stood at the end of the aisle, with a flask he had stopped pretending was tea about twenty minutes ago. "I'm choosing not to think about it."
Before Dexmon could process that a seventy-year-old librarian was day-drinking in the restricted, Serena spoke in Draken-Vorah. Ancient runes flared to life across every wall, all five towering levels igniting at once.
At that moment, Gavriel, Elara, and Hale entered the library.
"Serena," Elara hissed, already charging towards her. "Stop glowing, stop touching things, and stop moving. You have broken something historically significant every six hours since we arrived. I need a drink."
The authority in her voice was absolute. The tone of a commander scolding a first-year cadet who had managed to trigger every alarm and was still somehow alive.
A violent chorus of shushing erupted from the mage-librarians.
"These inscriptions on the stairs too!" a mage called out, pointing frantically. "Draken-Vorah. From the—"
Elara's head snapped up, brows drawing together. "How do you know this language?"
The first librarian misunderstood her question. He adjusted his spectacles. "It is forbidden to be taught to outsiders."
"She is not an outsider," Hale cut in, voice flat and final. "Neither of them are. They are pack."
At that moment, the dragon statue began to blow flame. Serena stepped forward, unflinching.
Dexmon reached for her, heart lurching.
"Serena—!"
Too late. The fire washed over her like wind. She walked straight through and placed her hand against the dragon's stone head.
The library shuddered. A deep vibration rolled through every level as torches and fireplaces flared brighter, their flames turning molten gold, matching the ceremonial flames from the day prior.
The dragon statue groaned, marble grinding as its massive body began to move. It coiled inward, spiraling down into the floor and leaving a staircase in its wake.
King Tiberon stared at the opening for a long moment. Then he turned to Hyran, his expression perfectly even.
"I am blaming you."
Serena's eyes flickered back to green. She blinked, disoriented, then startled when she realized Dexmon was right there.
He looked at her like she had just walked through fire and refused to burn.
To be fair, she had.
Her adrenaline hit him through the matebond first. Then the attraction. She wanted him. She didn't know it yet, but her body did, and his responded so fast his vision tunneled.
One step. That's all it would take. One step and he'd have her lifted again, legs locked around his waist, pressed against the dragon statue while the library still shuddered.
Aegon: Take her. Right now. Mate her.
Dexmon: We are in a library.
Aegon: I don't care.
Every instinct told him to. He didn't. But standing in that library, with her scent in his lungs and her pulse racing through the matebond, he knew with savage certainty that he would have her. Audience or not.