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I gaped at my oldest brother. Could he really be such a fool?
Blaze paced the ledge, snarling like a cornered animal. “You’re a special kind of stupid, you know that?”
I mumbled my agreement. Despite what Shirina’s parents were, their daughter was absolutely perfect, and not just because of her long dark hair, moss-colored eyes that shone like jewels, flawless honey-kissed skin, or her generous curves. She was kind and compassionate. Anyone could see that by the way she cared for her nieces. Why couldn’t Drae?
“Why?” Drae spun on us both, moonlight painting the tips of his inky wings with an ethereal white glow, reminding me too much of a painting of our father that hung in the great hall. “Because I don’t want to bond with the woman whose parents murdered our parents?”
“They wronged her, too,” I reminded him. “They took her sister from her, and they were about to take her memories.”
I fought the urge to look away when thunderclouds darkened his eyes. “You realize her sister is the white witch who was prophesized to kill our queen?”
“She won’t kill our queen now,” Blaze cut in.
I cut a look to my brother. “How do you know?”
His smirk made my blood run cold. “Because we have her children.”
I turned on him with a snarl. “You can’t be serious?”
He leaned against the side of the mountain, picking grime from his nails as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Why not?”
There was no question that out of the three of us, Blaze was the most cunning. He always found a way out of impossible situations, but there were times, like now, when I worried that his schemes blurred the lines between right and wrong. “They’re children!”
Drae looked at Blaze with interest as he pinched the bridge of his bleeding nose. “We told Shirina we wouldn’t take them to Malvolia.”
“And we won’t,” Blaze answered.
Ice pricked my veins. I didn’t like the gleam in Blaze’s eyes. “What is your plan?” I asked, then held my breath, fearing his answer.
“Shirina is already angry with her parents,” he said. “It won’t take much to turn her against them and convince her to join our cause.”
Drae leaned toward him, his keen eyes homing in on him like a predator assessing his prey. “And then what?”
Blaze flashed a triumphant grin. “And then she will willingly go to Delfi and pledge her allegiance to our queen.”
And there it was—proof of my brother’s insanity.
Drae rubbed the stubble on his chin. “You know, it might work.”
“Are you both insane?” I glared at my brothers. “And let the children become pawns in this war?”
“Our queen won’t hurt them,” Blaze said, sounding far too confident.
I loved our queen, I did, but the way my older brothers practically worshipped her made my veins solidify with unease.
“How do you know?” I pressed.
“Have you ever known her to hurt children?” he asked me.
“She put a price on Flora’s head when she was pregnant, and on her unborn children,” I reminded him.
“That was different,” Blaze answered, his features hard, unmoving. “One of them was prophesized to kill her.”
I let out an exasperated breath. “They were still babies!”
“Shirina and the girls are Malvolia’s family, too,” Drae said, “and they weren’t prophesized to kill her, only the white witch.”
The white witch. Tarianya. Shirina’s twin. Ember and Aurora’s mother. Yet, my brothers spoke of her as if she was a nameless, faceless person. “We don’t know Shirina isn’t a white witch,” I cut in. Maybe they didn’t care about what happened to Tarianya, but certainly they would care about the fate of our mate.
