“That was your Uncle Rene. I guess it’s official,” Drake said, as he tossed his cell phone on the dining room table between them. “They’ve agreed to let you off the hook for the deaths of the assassins and the rogue wolves if you agree to a meeting about securing a proper mate.”

The words meant nothing to him, and Etienne didn’t bother to respond. He didn’t care about absolution. In fact, he would burn down all of Europe if it would bring Taya back.

“Did he say anything else?”

“No,” Drake said with a grim shake of his head. “The Council claims they’ve been unable to locate Taya thus far.”

Etienne let out a low hiss, the relief giving him a momentary respite from the near-constant agony.

Taya.

It had been three days since he’d awoken to find her gone. She’d vanished without a trace. The only thing that had kept him from losing his mind completely was the fact that it seemed as if the Council had been as unsuccessful as he had in finding her. The thought that never stopped roiling around in his mind resurfaced with a vengeance.

What if the Council was lying?

What if she was dead?

Surely, he would have felt it. Surely, his dragon would know if its mate was no longer walking this earth.

The ache in his chest was too much to bear and he took a slug from the rocks glass of scotch clutched in his hand.

“And Mina? Has Rene heard from her?”

“No,” Drake said. “Not a word.”

“Fucking Mina.” His words were slurred, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the excess of drink or from deliriousness. He hadn’t slept a wink since that night. The last night he’d held Taya in his arms.

When he’d realized she was gone, he’d nearly lost his mind. Raging at Drake and Willa, tearing the house apart for some sign that they’d been tricked. That more assassins had gotten in while they slept, but there was nothing.

That was when he saw the folded little slip of paper sticking out from beneath her pillow.

Etienne-

I can’t let you or the people who love you risk your own lives to protect mine.

Please forgive me.

-Taya

He let out a snarl and squeezed his eyes closed, wishing he knew where to channel all the wild, directionless rage and energy that still coursed through him.

He’d spent the past three days and nights scouring every square inch of the mountain, and although he’d caught her scent down the walkway, it trailed off quickly and he’d never caught it again.

Either she’d been picked up in a vehicle of some sort, or Mina had taken her. As angry as that betrayal would make him, at least if she was with the Valkyrie, Taya had some chance of surviving.

But why hadn’t she contacted him, then? If only to let him know Taya was safe.

“Etienne, I know this is the last thing you want to consider right now, but maybe they’d be willing to negotiate with you,” Willa said softly.

He met her gaze, nearly undone by the sympathy in her red-rimmed eyes. She and Drake had been his saving grace the past few days, when he’d been on the brink of insanity. It was for that reason that he didn’t shut her down instantly, and tell her that he would just as soon cut off his own arm as meet with those bastards.

“They’re still looking for Taya because of what she knows, but if you agree to a meeting about a mate, just maybe they would consider calling the search off and letting her go. Especially if she lays low.”

“No,” he said, swallowing past the grit in his throat. “They can’t be trusted. I would never know whether or not they’d held up their end of the bargain.”

He didn’t feel the need to add that the thought of finding another mate made him physically ill.

“You need to at least consider it,” Drake said, his tone brusque as he leaned on the table with both hands and held Etienne’s gaze. “You’re being a stubborn prick because you’re hurting, but if there is even a ten percent chance that Taya can live a life that doesn’t include being hunted by these sons a bitches, what choice do you really have?”

There was no question that the other dragon was right. And maybe once he could think straight, Etienne would thank him for the tough love. But right now, it was all he could do not to rip his throat out.

He tossed the last of his drink back and slammed the glass onto the tabletop hard enough that it shattered in his hand. He stared at the blood coursing down his wrist dispassionately before shoving himself to his feet.

“I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”

He cut a path toward the front door and shoved through it with his shoulder. The sun was setting, and the sky was painted purple and orange, but it could’ve been coated in ash for all he noticed.

He strode to the edge of the rocky cliff and stared over the ledge into the abyss. How many times had he looked down? How many times had he soared to the bottom just in case Taya had turned her ankle on a rock and slipped?

How was he ever going to live the rest of his life not knowing where she was? If she was safe? If she was happy?

“Ah, god,” he groaned, the acid in his stomach coursing up his throat. He leapt wildly from the cliff and closed his eyes, relishing the free-fall. The sense that, if he chose to, he could end it all here and the pain would stop.

And like every other time, her face flashed through his mind and some little spark of hope ignited in his heart, spurring his dragon form to take over.

Taya.

The dead fall halted abruptly as his body changed, his wings catching the wind beneath them and jerking him upward.

He flapped them once and then again before sucking in a breath and exhaling, pouring every ounce of fury and heartache into a flame that lit the sky as bright as the sun.

A nearby flock of geese honked their irritation and he briefly considered eating them in one, fell swoop, but then he let them pass. Eventually he would need to eat again—could already feel his body growing weaker from the lack of sustenance—but hell if he could choke anything down.

Maybe one more turn around the mountain before nightfall. Maybe then, he’d be exhausted enough to sleep.

He rolled left and swooped toward the craggy rocks, slowing when he saw a figure standing on the cliff in the distance.

Drake, probably, checking up on him. But as he got closer, he realized it was far too small to be Drake.

Willa, maybe?

His pulse thrummed as he picked up speed, flapping his mighty wings and narrowing his tired eyes until he could just make out the voyeur.

Mina.

The fog of exhaustion melted away as his brain registered what he was seeing.

Fuck all if Mina wasn’t standing there on his cliff, arms crossed over her chest, her face a mask of impatience.

He landed on the ground and shifted back to human form the second his feet touched gravel.

“Where is she?” he bit out through gritted teeth, half of him wanting to ring her neck but the other half so humbled and full of desperate hope that he could barely restrain himself from dropping to his knees. “Tell me she’s safe, Mina. Please, just tell me she’s safe.”

Her blue eyes were suspiciously glassy in spite of her defensive stance, and a bolt of sheer terror shot through him.

“Jesus, no,” he muttered, his vision going dark as he stumbled, the emotional blow feeling like a physical attack.

“No, no!” she said, rushing to his side and reaching out with a steadying hand. “I’m not teary because of Taya. I’m teary because of you. You look like shit, Etienne,” she said thickly.

He straightened and met her gaze as she swiped at her eyes.

“I’m sorry for putting you through that. But Taya is fine,” she said, squeezing his arm for emphasis. “Better than fine. She’s perfectly healthy.”

The words fell on him like rain in the midst of the desert and he let them soak in, replenishing his soul.

“Thank god,” he muttered.

But he couldn’t stop himself from peering around to reaffirm once again that Mina, was indeed, alone. He tried to push past the pain that came along with the realization. Even five minutes earlier, he would’ve traded his life just to know that Taya was still breathing and his prayers had been answered.

She was alive and well and that had to be enough for him.

“Thank you for protecting her, Mina. I’m in your debt.”

She shrugged and gave his arm a shove.

“Don’t thank me. It was no big. I’m just sorry I couldn’t let you know what was going on. We were afraid that the Council was watching and might even have tapped your phones. I couldn’t take the chance that they would find her, especially in her weakened condition.”

“Weakened?” Etienne asked, narrowing his gaze on Mina’s face. “I thought you said she was okay?”

“She is,” she reassured him. “Now. But it was touch and go the first couple of days.”

Touch and go?

The first couple of days?

He was a second from snapping at her and demanding answers, when something caused him to stop short. He sniffed the air and stiffened.

A scent assailed him, filling his senses. It was warm and sweet and so familiar, yet not.

Like Taya, only different. Deeper. Richer.

“Hello, Etienne.”

His whole body tensed as that voice washed over him. He wheeled around and sucked in a breath.

There she stood, on the very edge of the forest just a few yards away, her fit form dappled in fading sunlight.

His woman.

His love.

His one true mate, decked out in faded jeans, a black tank top, and a pair of royal blue wings, a crowning glory behind her. The lush, gleaming, feathers stood on display like jewels.

She stepped toward him slowly, hesitantly, her face a mask of regret and trepidation, and it was all he could do not to run to her and haul her into his arms.

“I’ll give you two some time,” Mina’s soft voice trailed off behind him and he felt the breeze of her takeoff on his naked shoulders.

Taya stepped toward him slowly, her eyes searching his as if gauging his reaction. “I’m sorry for running away. I just wanted to protect you,” she said, stopping just a few feet in front of him.

His brain was still trying to catch up with his emotions. Relief at the knowledge that she was all right. Elation at seeing her standing in front of him, like something out of a dream. And shock as the realization of what had happened finally sunk in.

Mina had turned Taya into a Valkyrie.

He must have been staring, jaw agape, because Taya began to wring her hands as she shifted her gaze away.

“Mina figured out that I was planning to run away. She caught me before I got past the driveway,” she admitted, her cheeks going pink as she let out a nervous laugh. “She told me I wouldn’t make it a day without you guys protecting me, and she was right. And that’s when she told me that, although dragons were born and not made, the same wasn’t true for the Valkyrie, and the best way to protect me was to turn me.”

The ramifications of all she was telling him crashed over him like a tidal wave.

Taya would be much stronger now, but more than that, now she had as much to lose by spilling shifter secrets as the rest of them did. Added to the fact that she was a shifter, and would some day soon be hearty enough to bear his child?

It was a near guarantee that the Council would not only let her live, but also give the two of them their blessing once they finished blustering for show.

By turning her, Mina had effectively cloaked Taya in a bulletproof vest.

His mate wet her full lips with the tip of her tongue before looking away.

“Um, I don’t want you to think just because I’m a shifter now that you’re stuck with me. You can change your mind if you want to.”

She let out a gasp as he dove at her, dragging her into his arms and slanting his mouth over hers, pouring every ounce of love and need into his kiss.

When he finally pulled away, her breath was coming in short pants, her eyes glazed with desire.

“So does that mean you still want me, then?” she asked in a husky voice.

He let out a low growl and nipped at her chin before pulling back to look down into her face again.

“I felt like I was split in two when you left. Don’t ever fucking do that to me again.”

She smiled up at him and slipped her arms around his waist. “Deal.”

She rolled up on her toes and planted a kiss on his jaw before stepping back and leveling him with a wicked grin.

“So you want to see me fly now, or what?”

He nodded, and then nearly had a heart attack when she bolted for the cliff side, leaping off it with reckless abandon. Her wings splayed out behind her as the breeze caught her and she took to the air like she’d been there her whole life.

“You coming?” she shouted.

He closed his eyes and said one last prayer of thanks as his dragon overtook him, and he joined his mate in flight.