“Whoa now! I don’t recall agreeing to that,” Sophea said, then suddenly turned to face the massive number of dragons who were now filling the cabin. “Your sister? Uh… hi.”

“Hello,” Bee said politely, gesturing toward the man next to her. “This is Constantine. Have you met everyone? Did you guys see a big splash of light thing, too?”

“Mate?” Constantine asked, squinting at Rowan. Suddenly, he sucked in his breath. “Christos! Am I seeing things?”

“No,” Drake said. “Your eyes do not lie. The Dragon Breaker appears to be a dragon.”

“A wyvern, in fact.” Gabriel frowned slightly. “But what sept?”

Rowan decided to take matters in his own hands. They were capable hands, good hands. Sophea liked his hands—she’d told him so. He straightened his shoulders and said in a loud, authoritative voice, “Everyone out. Go away. All of you. Except Bee. She can stay for a little bit. The rest of you, pack up the head and the talking dog, and leave.”

“You’re all dragon people?” Sophea asked, ignoring the fact that he, the lord and master of the cabin, had proclaimed an order. “So, we’re all like related? I’ve never had a family before—this is kind of neat. Why doesn’t everyone sit down so we can have a chat.”

“No one is sitting,” Rowan counter-ordered. “There will be no chatting.”

“Hi, I’m Aisling. This is Drake. We’re green dragons,” one of the women said, stepping forward to point at everyone, clearly ignoring what Rowan had just said. “Jim is my demon. I’m a Guardian, which is kind of a demon wrangler. That’s May and Gabriel, they’re silver dragons.”

“We’ve met,” Sophea said with a dark look at them.

“Go away,” Rowan said, making shooing gestures. “We are busy coping with things. Important things. We will talk to you later.”

“That’s Ysolde,” Aisling continued. “Her dragon is Baltic. He’s the one leaning against the wall looking bored. His father is the First Dragon, by the way.”

“Hence the bored expression,” Ysolde said wryly. “The First Dragon is the biggest pain in the ass… but I digress. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

“Bee and Constantine you met, and I think… yes, that’s Aoife and Kostya just coming in now.”

“Are we late? We saw the most amazing light show just as we got to the ship,” Aoife said, squeezing through the mass of bodies. Following her was a man who glared at Rowan. Rowan glared right back at him, feeling it was the only right and proper method of greeting another wyvern. “Hiya, Rowan. Bee says you’re working with a wyvern’s mate? Oh, hello, I didn’t see you because of the others in my way. I’m Aoife. I’m Rowan’s other sister. This is Kostya. He’s the one who’s scowling.”

Kostya shot Aoife a look. “If I am, it’s because you insisted we join the others. I told you that we were not needed here.”

“Kostya,” Drake said, nodding toward Rowan. “Take another look.”

“Why? It’s just the Dragon Break…” Kostya stopped, frowned even more, then raised his eyebrows in surprise. “He’s a dragon.”

“Yes,” Rowan said, flexing his fingers. He wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that they were now dragon fingers again. “And we are still coping with that fact, and would like to continue doing so in private.”

“A red dragon?” Kostya asked, glancing at Rowan’s hands.

“The red wyvern,” Gabriel said slowly. “Interesting that the First Dragon chose that sept for him.”

Rowan sighed and said to Sophea, “They aren’t listening to me. Why aren’t they listening to me?”

“You’re being rude.”

He shot her a hurt look, wanting to explain to her that foreign, intense emotions were in possession of him now, and he was doing his best to cope with them. She apparently read his expression accurately, because her gaze softened, and she patted him on the arm. “It’s okay, pumpkin. I know this is hard for you. But you might want to give them a little slack. They’re just a bit surprised. After all, they thought you were the big bad enemy, and now you’re one of them. One of us. Give them a little leeway for having the rug pulled out from under them.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want them looking at you.” He felt a moment of surprise at that. He’d never been an overly possessive man when it came to his romantic partners, and now here he was wanting to throw every single man bodily out of the cabin. And off the ship, for that matter.

“Why?” Sophea asked, looking more curious than annoyed by his statement. “You weren’t like that before… oh. It is something dragony?”

“Yes,” Baltic answered, pushing himself away from the wall. He gestured to the others. “And the former Dragon Breaker is right—we should not be here while he adapts to being a dragon. A wyvern. Such is not an easy task, and less so when he was not born to it, as we were.”

The other wyverns thought about that for a few seconds, then all nodded.

“He has a point,” Drake said.

“Not to be rude, but why, exactly, are you all here?” Sophea asked, and Rowan could have kissed her. In fact, he planned on doing that the second the annoying other dragons left.

“The First Dragon,” May and Ysolde said together.

“Ysolde said that she and May were told by the First Dragon—somehow, I’m not quite sure on whether it was a psychic thing because they both have a link to him or just an ordinary phone call—he told them that something was up and that it was important to the weyr that there be witnesses. And they told me and Aoife and Bee, and we told our men, and they complained, but because they’re smart and know we are wise to the ways of the First Dragon, they agreed we should all pop into the Underworld and see what it is the First Dragon was making such a fuss about.”

“The birth of a new sept is an important event,” Drake said, looking somewhat skeptical. “But I’m not sure it needed all the wyverns present to witness.”

“But that’s just the point, I think,” Gabriel said. “We have witnessed that the Dragon Breaker—Rowan—is now the wyvern of the red dragons, and Sophea, formerly the mate of Jian, is now his mate. We will accept them as such, and the red dragons will be reborn and thus rejoin the weyr.”