Cover for Aleksertac

For once I knew exactly what I wanted on the cover for "Aleksertac".  The problem was, that I could not draw a dragon worthy of publication.  Lucky for me, I know a very talented artist. I asked him if he would draw a dragon for me, and he did.  So here was the original cover:

A beautifully drawn dragon by Mike Kirsten.  I love the head and claws.  It is not exactly how I see Aleksertac, but it definitely gets the message across that this story is about a powerful dragon. The problem with this cover was that after I wrote book three:"Darkness",  I desperately wanted the three covers to have a familiarity between each book.  I had designed book three with the orbs of fire, and obviously book one ("Orbs of Fire") had the orbs of fire on it.  So naturally the best thing to do was redesign the cover for book two by adding the orbs of fire on it as well, thus giving something to help the readers know that the three books went together.   

Here is the updated cover:

Changing the dragon was not an option.  I love it too much.  Plus by adding the orbs of fire not only does it connect it to "Orbs of Fire" and "Darkness", but now the question is, is there more than one dragon.  I wanted to keep the font the same between the three books as well, so since I changed it on book one, I decided to change it on book two.  Plus, there is dragon fire in this book that changes the dynamic in Sonia's world even more.   A world that she has discovered is more than just men and women.

If you happen to get the paperback, the cover is a little different because I have the dragon across the entire cover as pictured below:

My favorite and least favorite thing about a paperback is designing the whole cover.  This one worked out really awesome, but sometimes I'm at a loss of what to do on the back.
(Go figure, me struggling with a cover.  I know)