Ares ran toward the human ship, catching up with Maki, who brought up the rear. “You are slow, brother,” he said by way of greeting.

“It is but a scratch,” Maki wheezed, pressing his hand against his chest. It came away bloodied. “Their claws can cut through kratok-hide, you know, not that I’m even wearing any.” His venom-tipped tail sliced the air behind him. Maki obviously no longer had the energy to keep it in its resting position.

“Need help?” Ares, on the other hand, felt better than he had since he’d set foot on this cursed destroyer. It was Calexa’s vir. It sustained him, made him powerful. It occurred to him that if he were to remain Drakhin, he would be dependent on her for the rest of his life.

“Save your energy,” Maki snapped. “I’ve suffered worse. There’s plenty of distance left in these legs, Drakhin.”

“Yes.” Ares didn’t bristle at the name. He’d moved beyond that. The longer he remained in this new scaly skin, the more comfortable he grew. As Vradhu, he’d learned to abhor anything associated with the Drakhin, but now that he was one of them, it was pointless to wallow in self-loathing, especially when he felt this good.

With Calexa’s intoxicating vir coursing through his veins, he was invincible. He’d just taken out an entire horde of Corrupted with nothing but his will, bending the ilverium into a deadly weapon.

More of the cursed things were heading in their direction, but at least Ares had bought them some time. He felt everything now; it was as if the entire ship had become an extension of his body.

Naaga were moving around. Corrupted were being purged from the walls and the floors. I don’t need them anymore. I have you now. The Hythra’s endless hunger for a suitable commander had been sated, but the sheer amount of information being fed into Ares’s mind threatened to smash his self-control into a million shards of madness.

I need to escape.

I need…

Where was Calexa? The small, angry human with the big weapon guarded the entrance to their craft, but his makivari was nowhere to be seen.

He wanted to go to her, to take her into his arms and consume her, starting with a deep, passionate kiss, but that was forbidden.

“This is where we part,” he told Maki as the Lord of the Two Clans stepped onto the boarding ramp.

“Aren’t you coming with us?”

“You know the Hythra won’t let me go. Even before, when my feet left the floor; when I boarded their ship, I instantly became weak, and she pulled me back.”

“And what of your copy?”

“In theory, if I die, my consciousness will enter the temundra-made body—if I am close enough.”

“And how exactly does one kill an ilverium-bonded Drakhin?”

“Don’t know,” Ares shrugged. “Perhaps, just like with the Corrupted, decapitation is necessary.”

Maki paused, leaning against the entrance-frame. The small human with the big weapon babbled in her odd language, pointing inside the ship.

Go inside, is what she seemed to be trying to say.

“Calexa?” Ares asked hopefully.

“Calexa blahblahblahblah,” the fierce one said. Most of what came out of her mouth was nothing more than an incomprehensible jumble of sounds.

Moments later, Calexa appeared in the doorway. A low rumble of appreciation escaped from deep within his throat as he caught sight of her lithe form. The color had returned to her cheeks, and an intoxicating golden glow surrounded her.

Although they weren’t touching, he could feel it; he swore he absorbed some of it just by being in her vicinity.

Dangerous.

He’d just returned from killing Naaga, and now he was aroused.

“What are we going to do now, Ares?” A determined look entered her eyes. “I have your other body in my quarters. He’s safe in my bed.”

His cock twitched. “Did you say that just to torture me?”

“I…” She glanced down at her feet. Her face turned the most delicious shade of pink.

There it was again, that hesitation. For some reason, the idea of intimacy made his makivari unsure of herself.

Was it his Drakhin form? Perhaps his appearance, so different to her own, made her hesitate?

No, it wasn’t that.

She proudly wore the scars of her survival and locked away her pain, but she couldn’t hide it from him.

Cursed Aethra, how he wanted to be there for her.

“You’re the one who’s torturing me,” she said quietly.

Maki glanced at Ares, raising his eyebrows in surprise, but he wisely kept silent. Ares shot him an irritated glare. “Go inside,” he mouthed in Vradhu.

Leaning heavily on his war spear, Maki shrugged a bloody shoulder. As he turned, he encountered the small human with the big gun. He raised one hand, palm outwards, to show that he meant no harm.

“Blahblahblah,” she said, and ushered him into the ship.

That left only Ares and Calexa standing face-to-face, with him going half-mad at the sight and feel of her vir.

Was this what it would always be like if he remained as Drakhin? Would he always tread a fine line between reckless temptation and rigid self-control?

He was ruined, utterly ruined. All he could think of was taking her into his arms and claiming her.

She was his fantasy made flesh. A warrior. A leader. A woman. Unlike the discerning females of his tribe, he did not need to worry about hurting her; she was unrelentingly tough.

“Calexa.” His voice cracked as he rolled her exotic name along his tongue. “I am going to go now. I will open the way to the outside, and you will leave this place and never look back. Fly to Khira. Maki and his men will take care of you. He is honorable, and he wields influence within the Two Clans. Besides, they will owe you a blood-debt.”

“What about you? What are you going to do?”

He pointed toward the center of the hold, where he’d turned the metal floor into a deadly sea. Now it was silent and cold, its metallic surface glistening under the bright lights.

Bodies of Naaga, both Corrupted and living, were scattered across the floor, along with Vradhu blood. Although all was still, he felt the beating, pulsating heart of the ship. He felt the footsteps of hundreds, no, thousands of Naaga as they approached.

“I can’t leave you, Ares.” Something appeared in her hands—a magrel weapon, one of those blast-shooters.

“This isn’t an enemy we can just shoot or cut down. I am the enemy, Calexa.”

Boom. Boom. Boom.

They were coming.

Tear them apart, Hunter. You must return us to our original state. The presence of these slaveborn creatures within my walls is an insult.

He was beginning to suspect that the Hythra was insane.

Shut up. He pushed her incessant ramblings to the back of his mind and savored the delicious appearance of his human, perhaps for the very last time. “I’m going to go now, Calexa. I am going to walk across to the center of the hold, where you conveniently left my krivera inside the body of a foolish Naaga. I am going to close my eyes and communicate with the ship. I will command her to open the entrance, and then you will go.”

“And then…?”

“If I wake up beside you inside my new body, all will be well. If I don’t, it means I will be stuck here, still bonded to the Hythra.”

“I’ll come back for you.”

“No. You will not.” There was no way he was going to doom her to a cursed existence on this floating death-trap, and he couldn’t risk keeping her close when this terrible hunger gnawed at his insides and drove him to near-madness.

He was magrel. Infiltrated with Drakhin technology and transformed from the inside out, he’d become the embodiment of everything the Vradhu despised.

But worst of all, he could kill Calexa.

No; if he couldn’t have her, he was taking down this entire fucking ship and everyone on it.

She opened her mouth to argue, but he silenced her with his eyes.

“Stubborn Vradhu,” she whispered. Before he could react, she stepped forward, surrounding him with her heady essence. The golden energy seemed to leap out of her body and flow into him.

“Wha—”

Calexa darted forward, grabbed his face with both hands and planted a searing kiss on his lips.

No!

Yes!

Her brilliant vir flooded him with ecstasy, rendering him helpless. He couldn’t break away. Primal lust shot through him and he slid his tail around her waist, drawing her close so that his erection pressed against her.

Her kiss became frantic, urgent, and all-consuming, as if it were the last kiss she would ever enjoy in her life. Her hand raked along his braided hair. Her supple body molded to his, her curves fitting perfectly against his torso.

She was made for him, and he existed for her. He knew it now, without a shadow of a doubt.

Gasping, she broke away, dropping to her knees.

Weakened. Because of him.

“Calexa,” he rasped, his hoarse voice filled with desire as her power surged through his veins. The chasm of his need gaped wide, and he lifted her toward him with his powerful tail, reaching for her neck…

To take every last drop of her vir until he was sated. To fuck her until he was utterly spent.

She didn’t resist. She was weak, his for the taking. A golden haze clouded his vision. His pulse thundered in his ears. He saw nothing but her aura, and knew nothing but his desire for her.

You’re mine.

He inhaled her scent. It drove him wild. Nothing could come between them now. Nothing. She didn’t resist. She was soft and pliant and willing…

And cold.

Growing colder with each and every breath. If he was the inferno, then she was a slow-moving glacier.

“No!” He let go, and she slid out of his grasp.

“My choice.” She smiled as she dropped to the floor, putting out a hand to break her fall. Her chest heaved up-and-down, and she trembled slightly. “Don’t beat yourself up about the vir thing. I wanted you. I took.”

Fuck. He couldn’t even go to her; couldn’t wrap his arms around her and cradle her and nurture her the way she deserved to be cared for.

All he could do was hurt her, again and again.

“You are a magnificent woman. I only wish we could have met under different circumstances.”

“But then we never would have met at all.” She squeezed his heart with a wistful smile. “And you know I’m not giving up on you yet, Vradhu.” Already, she was rising to her feet. “You know, every time we do this, I seem to recover a little bit faster. Maybe there’s hope for us yet, so do what you have to do, and come back to me.”

Come back to me.

How could he refuse such a request?

“I will.” He drew solid bands of ilverium around him, reaching deep into the core of the ship. Calexa wobbled on her feet and stepped back, farewelling him with a gentle half-wave.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said. “Don’t you dare disappoint me.” Blue eyes glistened, but her voice never wavered. Vir danced around her like the first tendrils of early morning mist, rising off the spring-fed waterplains of the Ardu-Sai.

Unable to speak, Ares nodded, his gaze lingering over her sublime form.

He could never grow tired of looking at her. Never. With great effort, he tore his gaze from her and turned away. Ares wrapped himself in skeins of golden power. Beneath him, the floor shook, reacting to his pent-up frustration.

This was it. The moment of truth. Either his half-baked theory would work, or he would lose his chance to be with the only female who could ever make him feel complete.

In the distance, his twin krivera beckoned, their hilts jutting insolently from the body of a fallen Naaga.

Calexa had put them there.

Courage, Vradhu. You are the fucking khefe, are you not? This should be nothing for you.

It was time to take them back.