this to make it up to my mother. It’ll require you to change.”
Froston sighed. “She’ll want me to take a step back. To prove that her wishes and desires mean more to me than my own.”
I looked at him doubtfully. “Do they?”
Froston looked off into the distance. “Before? No.” He swallowed before speaking again. “My intention was to keep her safe, but I made a mistake in treating her as a possession, not a person.”
A seagull gave a lonely cry and then dove down into the water as we watched.
“Now,” Froston continued after a minute. “I’ve experienced what it’s like to lose the one person I’ve ever loved. I’ve learned how empty an eternity can be. How political games and power plays are a diversion that can’t fill an empty hole in my heart.”
I looked over at Froston to see raw honesty reflected in his eyes.
“Everything happens for a reason,” I said softly. “Maybe you needed that experience to make you into a man she could love.”
Froston took a deep breath. “Perhaps. Or I’ll always ache for her, but never deserve to have her. A punishment for everything I’ve done in my life. Giving a starving man a bite of a feast, only to lock him on the other side of a glass wall so that he can see what he can never have.”
“Be better,” I said with a lift of my chin. “Earn her forgiveness and become deserving of her love.”
Froston glanced behind us to where the women were guiding the pups into his island mansion. “I’ll get to my post. Give me thirty minutes to seal it completely before you move.”
I nodded, but neither of us said anything else as he opened a gateway to the Arctic and stepped through. Froston was conflicted, but I could only hope that I wasn’t making a mistake in trusting him.
Austin found me a moment later. “Do you want to say goodbye?” he asked. “Before…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence, because there was so much on the other side of it. Before we went into battle, before it’s too late, before we walk to our deaths…
I didn’t say any of that, I just smiled at him and took his hand as we walked down the beach. This was probably the last moment of peace we’d have.
I blinked at the sight of a pair of dragons flying through the air above us. One was ice blue, the other black, but both were larger than any living creature I’d seen before. I swallowed nervously.
“Do you think we can trust them?” I asked Austin softly.
“We have to,” Austin answered with a sigh. “Leaving the little ones in Seaside isn’t an option, and if we split our forces, we risk losing everything.”
“Agreed,” I said solemnly. “But I want to meet them first and see for myself.”
Austin smiled. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Chapter 31
Anna
Austin and I continued up the beach to where the others in our pack were gathered. Those who were staying here were already tucked away into the mansion, hopefully safe until we returned for them. I looked around at the wolves we would be taking into battle. How many of us would come back to retrieve our loved ones?
“The house seems safe,” James grumbled as he squinted his eyes against the bright sun.
I nodded in agreement. “The magical wards are well done. I’d have a difficult time breaking through them, but they also keep the island hidden. Unless you already know it’s here, you won’t be able to find it.”
“Do we know where ‘here’ is?” Cody asked. “I can’t get Caleb on the sat phone.”
“The magic probably is interfering with the signal,” I said as I looped my arm through his. “The wards block magic and technology. We wouldn’t want this place showing up on a satellite map.”
“I guess not,” Cody agreed with a frown.
A strong wind ruffled my hair, and I looked up. The dragons who had been circling above the island were now descending, the flaps of their strong wings causing sand and wind to fly everywhere. I threw up a barrier around my guys to protect us – just in case.
The obsidian dragon landed first, a loud thud shaking the ground beneath our feet. He shook out his wings before folding them back, and I couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the sunlight sparkling off his dark scales. Despite his size, the dragon was agile and quick on his feet. The blue dragon landed behind him, and then both