She nodded and gathered her light brown hair at the base of her neck and wound it around her finger as she once more met his gaze. “The more people that know, the more likely your secret is told.”

“Aye.” Darius was happy she could at least see that. “For thousands of years few knew that the Fae walked this realm.”

“I don’t ever want to meet another Fae.”

“The Light are our allies. They do take humans to their beds, but only once and they doona take their souls.”

Lexi rolled her eyes. “Oh, that makes me feel better.”

Darius bit back a smile. “It should. The only ones wanting to kill your race are the Dark.”

“I want to know everything there is to know of your race.” She gave a slight shake of her head. “How can there be dragons so big around that no one sees?”

“We take to the skies at night. Few bother to look up anymore. Thunderstorms are also perfect times for flying.”

She squared her shoulders. “Tell me more.”

Since Darius knew Guy was going to wipe her memories there was no point in not telling her. “We’ve been here since the beginning of time. For millions of years dragons ruled. Then one day humans arrived.”

“Arrived?” Lexi asked with a frown. “How? From spaceships?”

Darius chuckled. He rose and uncorked a bottle of wine. He poured himself a glass and looked at Lexi. At her nod, he poured her a glass as well. Then he returned with a wineglass in each hand, handing one to her. “Nothing so grand. Your kind just appeared out of nowhere. No’ only was your race mortal, but you had no magic. You were defenseless.”

“As we are now.”

“No’ all of you.”

Lexi nodded in agreement. “That’s right. The Druids.”

“As soon as the humans appeared, every Dragon King shifted into human form to be able to communicate. From then on we were free to shift from dragon to human and back again.”

“How many Dragon Kings are we talking about?”

“As many colors as you can imagine.”

She leaned on the table. “Now I remember. When I saw you in dragon form you were purple.” Her gaze went to her wine. “Thorn was the color of the wine. Deep burgundy.”

“Just as you humans have different races, so did dragons. All sizes, all colors. The strongest dragon with the most magic was king of his race.”

Lexi took a drink of wine before she raised a brow. “All kings? What, are you prejudiced against females?”

“No’ at all. I’m sure had things continued we would’ve seen a Dragon Queen, but at that time, there were none.”

“What happened? Did you get tired of having us humans here?”

Darius swirled his wine as he looked at the claret color. “I’ll admit that I wasna exactly happy to have the mortals around, but for several centuries things were fine. It started slowly. I doona think any of us Kings thought much about it.”

“What started slowly?”

“The humans’ jealousy of our magic and the power we had.”

Lexi scrunched up her face. “That sounds like us. We always want to be the ones in charge.”

“The humans began to hunt the smaller dragons. We were shocked, but left things alone. The humans had killed a dragon here or there for food, just as a dragon had killed a human here and there for food. The dragons had never been told there was a being on this realm that wasna to be eaten.”

Lexi twisted her lips in revulsion.

“You eat nearly every animal on this planet, do you no’?”

“That’s different.”

“Hardly,” he stated.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

Lexi waved away his words. “What happened next?”

“We were betrayed.”

“By who?” Lexi asked, surprised.

Darius merely looked at her.

Then her mouth formed an O as it dawned on her. “A woman.”

“I doona think the other Kings have thought about it, but once we were able to shift, every King was drawn to mortals. Many of the Kings had women as lovers, but there was one of us who fell in love with one of you. His name was Ulrik. He was the type who never found someone he didna like, and everyone liked him in return.”

“Christina was like that,” Lexi mumbled.

“Ulrik’s best friend was Constantine. Con is the King of Kings, the one who keeps us all together. He learned of the betrayal of Ulrik’s woman and sent Ulrik away to keep him from having to deal with the situation. After Con told the rest of us, we found her and killed her.”

Lexi swallowed into the silence. “What was her betrayal?”

“Ulrik didn’t just have her as a lover. He brought her into his home and protected her and her entire family. He was going to perform the mating ceremony with her, which would make her immortal and live as long as he did.”

Lexi shifted in her chair. “I’m gathering that she didn’t just cheat on him?”

“If only she had.” Darius took a drink of the wine. “Nay, she was going to try and kill Ulrik.”

She covered her mouth with her hand. What was wrong with people? This woman had it all. Why would she do something like that?

Darius smiled sadly at her response. “You’re surprised?”

“Without a doubt,” she said after she lowered her hand. “Why would she do that?”

“I told you. The mortals didna want to allow us to stay in power. What they didna know is that we can no’ be killed by anything they possess.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing then and nothing now. No’ even one of your bombs or missiles. The only thing that can kill a Dragon King is another Dragon King.”

Lexi filed that information away. “That’s incredible. I also guess it’s something this woman didn’t know.”

“Ulrik had no reason to tell her. She assumed that he could be killed as easily as a dragon.”

“What did Ulrik do when he returned?”

Darius’s chocolate gaze looked away. “He went mad. He was furious that we had killed her, and blinded by his rage that she would betray him. He changed, seemingly overnight. His anger ruled him, and he turned it on the beings responsible.”

“Humans,” Lexi said.

Darius nodded and took another drink of wine. “Con tried to rein Ulrik in, but he was out of control. The more humans he killed, the more dragons the humans destroyed. The war was horrendous. There was death everywhere.”

Lexi cringed at the image Darius was painting.

“Kings turned against Kings as sides were taken between Con and Ulrik. Constantine proved he was the King of Kings when he gradually talked each King into rejoining him. Ulrik didna care. He continued his carnage, intending to wipe the realm of every last human.”

She drank her wine silently, loathe to interrupt Darius.

“Ulrik ignored every attempt by Con to stop, and with more dragons dying by the day, we had no choice but to take drastic action. We sent our dragons to another realm to save them. After the war, the humans couldna stand to see them. And we all knew that even if we found peace, the dragons would be in danger.”

Lexi was saddened for Thorn, Darius, and all the Dragon Kings to have sent the dragons away.

“There were four of Ulrik’s Silvers who wouldna leave his side. We Kings gathered our magic and bound Ulrik’s. We stripped him of his ability to communicate with the Silvers, banished him from our land, and sentenced him to walk the earth for eternity as a human. We then put a spell on his Silvers to make them sleep and keep them caged in a mountain.”

Lexi nearly dropped her glass. “There are still dragons here?”

“Aye. We ensure they doona wake.”

“And if they do?”

Darius issued a small shrug and met her gaze. “With the dragons gone, the Silvers hidden, and Ulrik taken care of, we returned to our land and slept away a century or two. When we woke, we discovered we had turned into legend and myth.”

“You’ve stayed hidden ever since?”

He nodded slowly. “It wasna easy during the first Fae War, and I worry that now will be impossible with as many humans as there are.”