Master of Dragons by Angela Knight

come, so she closed her dry mouth and shrugged.
    â€œI’m sorry.” He stepped inside and closed the door, compassion clear in his eyes as he studied her. “You must have been very young.”
    â€œSeventeen. Old enough to know better.”
    â€œAren’t you being a bit hard on yourself? Seventeen is young—even by human standards. And you’re Sidhe. You’re not even a century old yet.”
    â€œI’m half human. Besides, do I look like a kid to you?”
    The look he gave her in return was thoroughly male—and thoroughly approving. “No, thank Cachamwri.”
    Not sure how she felt about the warmth in his gaze, Nineva turned and pretended to study their surroundings. Her brows flew upward as it all sank in. “Wow.”
    They were standing in a grand marble foyer with a ceiling that soared three stories overhead. More marble shone underfoot in alternating black and white tiles, and immense columns stood like gleaming white trees, their tops supporting the ceiling’s gilded buttresses.
    But what drew her attention was the bronze statue that occupied the center of the atrium. Nineva moved toward it and stopped to stare.
    A bearded, long-haired man in crude leather armor knelt before a slender, robed youth and a delicate girl. The contrast between the warrior’s massive strength and the couple’s slender elegance was striking. So was the awe in the man’s expression as he reached a big, scarred hand for the goblet the boy offered to him.
    Nineva moved around for a better look at the couple—and gasped. Instead of the bronze eyes she’d expected, their eye sockets were filled with swirls of magic, vast and infinite and glowing. It was hypnotic, like looking into endless space.
    â€œWho are they?” Her voice emerged as a strangled whisper.
    â€œArthur, Merlin, and Nimue.”
    She turned to blink at him, astonished. In Arthurian legend, Nimue had been Merlin’s witch lover who had imprisoned him in a crystal cave. “I thought Merlin was supposed to be an old guy with a beard.”
    Kel snorted. “The legends got it wrong—along with about ninety-nine percent of everything else.”
    She realized the cup they held was glowing. “What’s that supposed to be—the Holy Grail?”
    â€œI wouldn’t exactly call it ‘holy.’ It wasn’t the Cup of Christ—that’s another thing the legends got wrong.”
    Nineva dragged her attention away from the cup to study his face. “So what was it?”
    â€œDamned if I know.”
    She found herself grinning at his cheerful tone. “You’re a big help.”
    â€œI try.” He flashed her a teasing male grin. “I can tell you what it did, though.”
    He’s flirting with me. “And what was that?”
    â€œIt altered the genetic structure of everyone who earned the right to drink from it.”
    Nineva’s jaw dropped. “In 500 A.D. ?”
    He shrugged. “Merlin wasn’t exactly a sixth-century man.”
    â€œWhat the hell was he, then? Sidhe?”
    â€œNope. You’re close, though. He and Nimue were aliens from somewhere in the Mageverse.”
    She recoiled. “They were Dark Ones?”
    â€œDifferent aliens. He and Nimue were members of a race called the Fae…”
    â€œIsn’t that another word for Sidhe?”
    â€œThe Celts got confused.” He shrugged. “Two races of magical people. They got ’em mixed up.”
    â€œI sympathize.” Nineva was more than a little confused herself. “So why did Merlin and Nimue come to Earth?”
    Kel turned and studied the statue, hesitating as if searching for the right words. Finally he said, “The Fae had seen a lot of intelligent races commit mass suicide. Seems humanity doesn’t have a patent on stupidity. War, self-inflicted environmental disasters, bioengineered disease—there are lots of ways for a