Book 3: Focusing on War

Rafe

The feeling of being knifed in my chest is worse than death. And I should know because I died once already. Still, I’ve arranged for Scott to take care of Drake while I sort things out with Zeke. I am king of Shadowglade, and much as I’d like to go storming into Longclaw to get my mate back, I need to win a war with their troops first.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Zeke asks when I rub my chest again.

“No,” I reply. “But what else is new?” I look down at the map we’ve set up in the war room. My council is doing the same thing, muttering and murmuring over how Rallegrad is mowing through the northern towns and villages. And destroying them.

We must have caught just the edge of their main army, or I wouldn’t be here today.

“We have to stop them, Your Majesty,” a wizened old councilman says. He has a knack for stating the obvious.

“The line is holding at the Tormentian border?” I ask Zeke.

“Yes,” he says. “In fact, we’r