Page 1 of Meet Your Maker: Part One

Prologue

Loose Ends

— Silas —

Well, that was a shitshow. I let Roxana drop to the cavern floor—with perhaps a little more force than necessary—and start plucking bright red feathers from my lapels while I mull over the events of the last ten minutes.

Sunday survived my dragon’s fire, and that’s unfortunate. I hate leaving loose ends behind, especially ones as unpredictable as her.

In my line of work, unpredictable means dangerous. She’s everything I swore to avoid. Everything I’ve fought against. Fated mates are nothing more than a cage disguised as destiny. I saw what it did to my parents. I watched my mother waste away in a loveless bond, and now she thinks she can trap me with a fantasy of moon-blessed mates? I saw it for the sham it is before my voice dropped, before my scales came in… but my dragon doesn’t give a damn—and that’s the real problem.

After weeks of hearing about her from Roxana and listening to her brother prattle on about her in Dae, I wasn’t surprised when my dragon noticed her. And by “noticed”, I mean he mentally whipped out his diary and sparkly gel pens and began penning Mrs. Sunday Carbonis in loopy cursive over and over again—annoying, but entirely expected given her track record.

I’m not so conceited to think I’d be the one creature her twisted bond magic wouldn’t corrupt. She likes them powerfuland a little broken—and let’s be honest, those are my best qualities.

Roxana warned me about her, but a small part of me thought she was exaggerating. Perhaps more than anyone, I should understand that magic is chaotic and endlessly inventive. But it seems like a breach of natural order to give one person power like that. Where’s the balance? What’s to stop her from placing her pretty little thumb on the scale and tipping it in her favor every single time?

I have no particular fondness for the Empress, but I understand why she had to protect her mate from everyone’s favorite Southern psychopath. After all, she poisoned him rather than let him stay with the vampire he’s shared his life with for over two thousand years. She must be a narcissist of the highest order and her behavior is completely indefensible.

She collects mates the way a demon collects favors—careless of the cost and indifferent to the damage. She kidnapped a jaguar from the Texas court who wasn’t even interested in women. It didn’t matter. She wanted his magic, so she callously took him—unrepentant and unfeeling. She has no shame and perhaps she should.

And this isn’t some puritanical judgment about her promiscuity.Everyone should fuck more.No, this is about her parasitic hijacking of bonds engineered by fate. Even that prick, Volga, was all over her. My dragon rumbles, like the sap he is—he hasnoidea what he’s in for with her.

Even her brother admitted, after a few bottles ofShadowfire, that her power had always caused them problems. He shares the same gift, but at least he has some integrity. He said the stakes are different for her, that the world judges her more harshly than him. And while I admire his loyalty, all I heard was an excuse—a wrong-headed justification for her pathological behavior. Hemight wield the same magic, but somehow he manages not to ruin everything he touches.

I like Colton, and truly, I wouldn’t have enjoyed telling him that I incinerated his sister. I’m also relieved she pushed the kid out of the way—even if he had no business hanging out in front of a natural portal to Dae—I am glad we didn’t kill him.

Because we almost did.I run a hand over my face, trying to clear the heat building in my chest as the thought of it sits heavy on my soul. Just where the fuck were his parents? Did she decide she wanted a shifter baby and just take one?It certainly sounds like something she’d do.

I raise my hands and call on my sulky as fuck dragon to snap out of it. Together we flood the portal with fire until I feel the magic grow thin and see the wall appear on the other side of it. A ten-thousand-year-old portal, one of the few stable ones left, and I have to destroy it because of her. I wish she’d burned, even if it would have been somewhat inconvenient, the realms would be a safer place without her in them.

There, it’s done.

Now I need to get the Empress to a healer. I’m mentally adding, ‘made me give blood to a vampire’ to Sunday’s already lengthy list of crimes. At least, I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight and do it with the knowledge that I will never allow us to become one of her victims.

Chapter One

Safety in the Shadows

— Grayson —

Nausea churns in my gut, coating my mouth with a bitter taste. But each complaint, the pounding in my head, the bone-deep exhaustion—I welcome them all. For in this suffering, I find clarity.

Roxana’s suffocating grip on my mind is severed, torn away like a choking vine, leaving only the wreckage of her influence behind. I take a shuddering breath, releasing weeks of tension, and with every tremor, I pay the price gladly—for freedom.

The beast stirs within me, his predatory awareness rising from beneath the clearing haze of coercion. He wakes slowly, stretching like a shadow, hunger gnawing at us. He scans the room, nostrils flaring, a low growl bubbling beneath my skin. Familiar scents—Rurik, Stefan, and another, less familiar but still recognizable.No threat, these three.The beast shifts his focus, hunting for danger.

Meanwhile, my limbs are leaden, refusing to obey and a dull ache throbs from muscle to bone. My once-precise movements have grown clumsy. Panic claws at my mind.What happened?

Gaps in my memory pulse with pain—Roxana’s handiwork, no doubt. She must have staged a grand performance to leave me in such a state—made me dance at the ends of her strings for days,perhaps weeks.

A fragmented image takes shape: a bitter drink, magic burning my throat. I drop my head into my hands, fighting the poundingheadache and the nausea that rises in waves. Thunder roars in my skull as I struggle to piece it all together. The edges blur, memories slipping through my grasp like sand.

I shove the beast back, forcing him into a low growl. But even as I push him down, he coils tightly within me, ready to lash out at the first sign of weakness.

My awareness spreads—I’m still in Volterraio. The room is unfamiliar, a guest chamber, the bed unused and dust-covered. Stefan’s concern is clear as he glances to the doorway. Rurik’s gaze is shadowed with worry before he looks away. Valentine, Aiden’s peculiar little stray, watches me like I’m a puzzle to solve.

Why Valentine, but not Aiden? What happened, and how did we get here? A sliver of satisfaction cuts through the fog—Roxana’s absence means something. But a quick check of our bond reveals that it’s tepid, slack, but sadly, still intact. Roxana lives. The hag lingers somewhere, biding her time.

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