Rhia's heart was thundering in her ears. Her lungs felt heavy, and her very bones quivered. Yet, at her core, she was calm.

She'd seen pictures and videos of Aarón Guerrero before, but none of them quite did him justice. He wasn't as tall as the media made him look. But he was a hell of a lot bigger in every other way. His physique reminded her of dead-lifters. Big, bulky, and could be mistaken as overweight at first glance, but every ounce of him was pure muscle. His eyes were dark, but there was a depth to them that she hadn't expected based on all she'd heard. 

He was also afraid.

"Baja tus armas," he said slowly, then repeated in English. "Put your guns down."

One of the armed werewolves started to argue back in rapid Spanish, but Aarón repeated his order with a snarl. Slowly, the wolves lowered their pistols, though none of them lifted their fingers from the trigger or put them away.

Rhia cleared her throat. "Podría hablar español-"

"English will suffice, Great One," Aarón cut her off. "As I understand, English is your native tongue. I would prefer to avoid any unnecessary translation errors. Carmen," he glanced at the woman next to him, though never completely taking his eyes off Rhia. "Call Counsellors Shaw and Jorelle and inform them of our unexpected visitor. The rest of you, return to your posts."

"Aarón," Carmen said warningly.

"If the dragon wants me dead, there is nothing any of you can do to stop her. I'll not put any of your lives at risk."

"You can search me," Rhia offered. "I'm not armed.

"With respect, Great One," the woman responded coldly. "But who needs a gun when you can cast hellfire from your palms?"

"Fair point. On the other hand," Rhia dropped her bag at her feet and shrugged out of her jacket with a series of winces as pain flared through her arm. "It's pretty hard to command hellfire when you're pumped full of hellhound venom and painkillers."

The wolves around her started to mutter to each other. From the corner of her eye, she saw others watching from the windows, and a few braver souls standing at their doorways. This was why she had deliberately worn a tank top under her winter coat and had her hair up in a high ponytail. She wanted them to see the bruises and scrapes across her body that hadn't healed. She wanted them to see the blood seeping through the bandages and imagine how bad the injuries were that an entire limb was wrapped up in thick layers of gauze.

None of the other dragons would have done it this way, if they would even do this at all. They were too afraid to show any sort of vulnerability. It was all about the image of invincibility. But she wasn't one of them. The unbound had more sympathy for her plight than her own blood relatives. So fuck them.

Rhia dropped her coat next to her bag and raised her hands, fingers splayed, palms facing back towards her shoulders. It was the only way she could think of to show that she was not holding a weapon, not reaching for a weapon, and wasn't aiming the weapon of her own magic at them. "I just want to talk."

"Back to your posts," Aarón repeated, before looking over Rhia's head and around at the onlookers. "There is no need to be concerned. Please, go about your night as usual."

This time, the werewolf guard started to back away. The doors to the other homes closed. Aarón slowly descended the stairs, walking towards Rhia with an air of deceptive calm. The woman, Carmen, hesitated for a long minute before finally walking away, digging a cellphone out of her pocket and glancing back over her shoulder several times before disappearing.

"I'm sorry for disrupting your evening," Rhia said, lowering her hands again. "I didn't think you would be willing to see me if I tried to call ahead."

"I have been expecting this," he answered in a short, clipped tone. "I'm only surprised it has taken this long. It has been seven months since I killed Nolan Wes."

All the air came rushing out of Rhia's lungs. It was one thing to read the official statement or to hear it from someone else. But hearing those words in his voice... the storm of emotions rumbled in her heart, making it hard to think. He's not dead, she reminded herself, blinking rapidly to clear the tears gathering in her eyes. He's alive. Stay focused.

"I... I'm not here to talk about Nolan," she took a shuddering breath. "I'm not going to take sides in a conflict that has nothing to do with me and started before I was even born. And since Val... since Queen Dracula-Wes has opted for peace, it is not my place to rip open a wound that has barely begun to heal."

The only sign that Aarón was surprised by her words was the slightest tilt of his head. His nostrils flared, taking in Rhia's scent, and his eyes narrowed. And then, he let out a low chuckle and relaxed ever so slightly. "How long did you spend practicing that speech?" he asked in a much gentler and more amused tone.

"Longer than I'd like to admit," Rhia managed her own lopsided smile. "There are a lot of reasons I haven't knocked on your door sooner. The Counsel and the other dragons have all been worried about what I would do if I did. But the main reason is that there aren't really words to describe how disappointed my mom would be if I started a war over a boy."

"From what I have heard, I would believe it. Your mother's reputation precedes her, almost as much as your own. I have not had the honor of meeting Madeline Kincaid, but as she is the only topic that every politician is in agreement about, she must be an incredible person."

Rhia stared up at him for a long time before she started to laugh bitterly. "I'm sorry," she snorted. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you are the last person I expected to understand my family bullshit... yet you are the first I haven't had to explain it to."

"The lycanthrope have been in what could be considered a fertility crisis since the death of my great ancestor. Surrogacy is a common practice, and it was well known to us that giving a child life does not automatically make a woman a mother. Giving birth is difficult in the moment. But raising a child takes a lifetime of patience and thankless hard work for a result they ultimately have no control over. It is an insult to both women and the child to assume otherwise."

Clenching her jaw tight, Rhia just shook her head and looked away for a moment. Of all the things she needed to hear over the last year, particularly over the last few months, something along those lines had been at the top of the list. And she had to hear it from this God-damned werewolf.

"You didn't come here to discuss the definition of motherhood," Aarón said, cutting through her internal frustration. "What do you want, Great One?"

"First, for you to stop calling me 'Great One'. And as for why I'm here... I want you to tell me everything you know about the Organization."

Aarón's poker face was impeccable, but there was nothing he could do to stop his heart from skipping several beats before increasing to a rapid pace. "Lord Atticus Shaw would be a better Counsellor to ask," he said stiffly. "I'm afraid I have been far too busy transitioning my people into true independence to participate in the investigation."

For the first time, Rhia finally understood what other Ancients meant when they said they could smell someone lying. If she hadn't been so tuned into him for that exact reason, she might have missed it. It was a bitter scent, almost like sweat but not quite.

"King Guerrero," she said slowly and carefully. "I already know the truth. I don't blame you for accepting their help. They used your hatred of the vampires to create a distraction big enough to get the eyes of the world off them, and it worked. I am not looking for a confession, and I'm not planning to expose you. But I need you to tell me everything you know."

"Our hatred of Nolan Wes was more than enough to drive us to seek justice," Aarón snarled, his eyes flaring red. "Despite what you might think, we were never afraid of meeting him face-to-face on the battlefield. He was the one pulling strings in the background like a coward!"

Rhia didn't flinch. The unbound she had been working with warned and prepared her for every possible reaction they could think of. Instead of answering, she crouched down to open her bag and drew out a thick, hard-cover file. "I told you," she said, stepping forward and holding it out for Aarón to take. "I'm not here because of Nolan. I'm here because of them."

"What is that?" he growled without moving.

"Surely by now you've heard about the Entity Project. Children of various Ancient breeds who were raised by the Organization to do their bidding. I'm one of them. I was raised in an underground facility until I was five, given a family until I was forcibly taken back, which resulted in the conflict in Tahoe. There's a demon girl who experienced the same thing, resulting in the near destruction of a sacred place in Ireland."

"I am well aware of all of this. What does-"

"What you might not be aware of," Rhia cut over him. "Is that we were able to get a hold of a copy of the database they kept for the project. The Organization has a success rate of less than point-five percent. There are twenty of us who survived phase one and were given designation as entities. Twenty children... of over five thousand."

This time Aarón couldn't hold back his reaction. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open in horror.

"Over five thousand children... that we know of," she continued, emphasizing the last part. "They spent every day of their lives being tortured and experimented on, all to either die or be killed before they were five years old because they couldn't tolerate the testing. Werewolves, vampires, shifters, fae, elves, demons, dragonkin... no breed has been overlooked.

"There are a few outliers. Myself, for one, but not even because I'm a dragon. It's because I had to be taken forcefully after I hatched, likely because trying to take me before that probably would have destroyed my egg. And if they knew my biological mother was pregnant, taking her by force before laying the egg wouldn't have guaranteed them a dragon hatchling either. Our kind has an unfortunate blind spot when it comes to reproduction. Viability can't be confirmed until after the egg is laid, and any number of things could go wrong during that stage of incubation.

"Given what limited information we have, the majority of the other children are all results of their mothers becoming pregnant while under the Organization's direction. Some, like in the case of the hellhounds, volunteered to give up one of their litters for the project. Most, however, we believe, were held against their wills. Males would have been forced to donate their DNA, or have it forcefully taken from them, and females would have been artificially impregnated and monitored carefully to ensure they couldn't terminate it themselves."

Aarón swallowed hard, and his dark eyes flicked down to the file in her hand. "And that," he said slowly. "I assume are the lycanthrope victims."

"These are some of the lycanthrope victims. These are the children who were fathered by one specific lycanthrope who stood out to me. Does the name Ignacio Guerrero mean anything to you?"

Aarón finally stepped forward and took the file from Rhia. Whether it was because he recognized the name or if it was the same last name, she wasn't sure. But she did know that it wasn't a coincidence. The unbound were damn good and digging up information with little more than a name. It helped that the Columbian werewolves kept impeccable records.

Ignacio Guerrero was, biologically, Aarón's older half-brother, born from his father's first mate, who died in childbirth. According to the census, or whatever the wolves called their equivalent, he died when he was fifteen, six months before Aarón had been born.

While she didn't say it to either the unbound who dug up the information or to Aarón now, Rhia had not missed that Aarón was born the exact same day that Nolan submitted his resignation to Constantine so he could attend medical school in the United States.

"In the forty-four years that Ignacio Guerrero has been in the Organization's control," she continued, pushing that little fact to the back of her head for now. "He is reported to have sired thirty-seven children for the Entity project. The last of whom, if you flip to the last part... was a success."

Aarón looked up sharply, then quickly flipped the file over to the stack of bound pages at the back. A photo of a young boy in a school uniform was paperclipped to the front page.

"His name is Ángel Moreno. He's eight years old and was living in Madrid with the Organization operatives responsible for raising him, attending one of the top private schools in Spain. They call him Tango."

"Tango?"

"All the entities are given a designation according to the NATO phonetic alphabet. Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, and so on. Ángel is Tango. He's also currently the most recent child to survive phase one and be given a designation. However, he was not enrolled for this school year, and, according to the neighbors, they have not seen the family since August. The Moreno's have a vacation home in Barcellona, but there have been no signs of them there either. At this moment, we have no idea where he is. All signs are pointing to the Organization purging the program, but we have no way of knowing for sure.

"Personally, I don't think they're going to kill him. If I'm right, Ángel, like you, carries the blood and the magic of the first werewolf in his veins. The same power that you are using to liberate your people is in the hands of the Organization. The ability to shift at will alone is too valuable to give up, and God only knows what else they've done to him. All done in the background while claiming to help you in your war against the vampires.

"I'm not here to avenge Nolan, King Guerrero. I'm here to ask you for help. Help me so I can help Ángel and Ignacio. So that no one else has to suffer the way we did."

Silence fell around them, and Rhia waited. When waiting made her itch, she bit her tongue to keep herself from babbling. All she could do was hope that the case she and the unbound had carefully put together was enough to convince him. Because if it didn't... there was nothing left. There were no more leads. This was the end of the line.

Slowly, Aarón closed the file and wrapped the elastic back around it to keep it all together. "May I hold on to these?" he asked.

"Keep them. I have copies."

He nodded and his chest expanded in a deep breath. His eyes were narrowed, and his mouth was twisted in obvious conflict. Then he finally looked up and met Rhia's gaze and hesitated. Aarón's heart stuttered again in his chest, and the enormous man in front of her suddenly resembled a child. "I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, Great One," he said slowly, and Rhia's heart sank. "But I'm afraid I cannot give you what you came here for."

"But-"

"Please understand," this time his voice was so quiet that even Rhia's draconic hearing could barely pick up on his words. "I would help you if I could. I am not afraid of the Organization, and with this information you've given me, I have even more reasons to hate them than before. But they are not the only players in this game. As much as I would like to help you and Ángel, and the other entities... I will not risk the extinction of my people for them."

With that, he turned and started back towards the house. "King Guerrero," Rhia stammered desperately. "Please, wait..."

"Aarón?"

The door opened when Aarón was at the bottom of the steps, and a young, purple-haired woman stood at the entrance. Rhia stared up at her. She recognized her but couldn't figure out why at first. The girl stared back at Rhia, and all the color drained from her face. She looked at the woman, then at Aarón, then back at her. Their scents mingled together in a unique way that only bonded mates could.

"Get back inside, Danika!" Aarón snapped.

Danika Schell.

It all clicked, and Rhia's vision went white. "Traitor!" she screamed. "Nolan trusted you!"

She launched herself towards Danika, shifting into her dragon skin without thinking. So focused on her target, she didn't even consider the massive werewolf standing between them. Aarón was only halfway through his own shift, but he was bigger than her in all forms. He caught Rhia around the middle and threw her back and away from the house. His roaring howl was loud enough to summon the pack from every corner of Paris, and she responded with the shriek of a dragon.

All hell broke loose around her, but she couldn't comprehend any of it. The werewolves came running, responding to their King's call, and the unbound appeared from the shadows to meet them. Aarón roared a challenge towards her but was cut off when a lyndwerm descended from a rooftop and plowed into him, clearing the way for Rhia to break through the door.

There was a flash of purple to the left. Rhia's claws tore into the hard wood as she changed directions towards the stairs. Another door slammed shut just as she reached the landing. It fared no better than the last, and it exploded into tiny splinters under the force of her weight. Danika was already on the balcony with one leg over the railing. Her hesitation gave Rhia all the time she needed to cross the room and slam into the woman, knocking her over the ledge and sending them both plummeting headfirst towards the concrete below.

Something hit Rhia hard in the side and she was ripped away from Danika. She opened her jaws to bite or spit acid at whatever was keeping her from her prey, but a pair of hands wrapped around her snout and slammed her mouth shut again.

She landed hard on her right side, but even as her injured limb crumpled under the force, she still didn't feel any pain. "What the hell are you doing, Rhiannon?" she heard Nekros's voice, and she looked up at the person holding her back to meet those piercing green eyes. With Rhia's diminutive size, Nekros didn't even need to be in his dragon skin to overpower her.

Hatred she had never known in her life overwhelmed her common sense and blocked out all of her pain. Spreading her wings wide and digging her talons into the ground, she jerked her head back as hard as she could. He followed her, spitting curses and demanding she calm down, but never losing his grip, instead twisting them around so he was practically on top of her.

Suddenly the whole world shook, and Luna's familiar piercing cry filled the air.

She was out of time.

~