Gerrit caught the faint scent of something unique, completely unlike anything he’d encountered before. Once he had it in his nose, it dug in deep, notching itself into his mind. He couldn’t shake it, and as he and his guards circled closer to the wreckage, it grew stronger.

“Sir,” Swanson said, putting out a hand to stop Gerrit, “let us clear the site first.”

“Do you smell that?” Gerrit growled.

Then someone spoke from the other side of the brush in front of Gerrit’s group. He heard their voice like a bright flash of color in his mind. White. Vivid white. Pure and tasting like the scent on his tongue.

Something in his gut didn’t want his men anywhere near that scent, and not because he thought it was dangerous. He pushed past Swanson’s arm and through the foliage without checking his flanks, without looping around to make sure it wasn’t a Draqon trap. He moved on instinct. His body was reacting to something on the other side of those leaves, and he was helpless to stop it.

The large, dew-drenched leaf slapped back behind him, and he searched the burning wreckage. There was too much going on to take in.

A carcass hung from a piece of shining metal protruding from the mangled ship. The body and the ship burned, but Gerrit knew the scent of a shifter when he smelled one—and this one was a Draqon. The shifter’s eyes were hollowed out and black, his skin a smoking husk.

If the Draqon had been out here alone, he must have been an outcast, and judging by his size, he had been one of their younger ones.

Gerrit sucked in a breath. This Draqon was a trapped shifter. He’d likely never shifted back into his human form, his body incapable of the change. It had been happening more often in Gerrit’s own clan, and to see it occurring in the other clans as well terrified him.

He had to get to the Hylas for that medicine before the other clans also realized the solution and there was nothing left for his people.

From the back of the wreckage, something moved. Gerrit squinted and stepped forward, closer to the wreck, even as he scented his guards circling and checking the perimeter. Behind him, Swanson followed into the clearing.

The wind shifted and lifted the smoke. He looked through the curling tendrils and saw her. The source of that scent. The one that tugged on something deep in Gerrit’s gut and wouldn’t let go.

She was battered. Bloody. A set of Draqon claw marks was slashed across her shoulder and tanned neck, where a deeper bite oozed poison and pus. Chestnut hair tumbled loose from the bun at the nape of her neck. Her mouth was wide, her lips full beneath dark, snapping eyes. Her tight suit was torn and the ash-streaked fabric still smoked, but she lifted her chin and glared at him, ready to fight even after she’d single-handedly killed a Draqon male.

An impressive feat, even if it was a trapped juvenile.

“You next, motherfucker?”

Her threatening voice—too sweet to sound so sharp—shot straight to his heart and then down to his cock, making it twitch with a desire he hadn’t ever experienced in his entire life.

“Alpha—” Swanson began from a few paces behind Gerrit.

Gerrit cut him off with a jerk of his chin. “Stay back. Keep the area clear. I’ll deal with her.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You speak the universal language?”

“Sir,” Swanson tried again. “She’s a Falconer.”

“I can see that,” Gerrit snarled. Her Avilku-damned smell messed with his head, but he shoved it aside. If she was a Falconer, then she represented a threat to his home, his people. “Stay back,” he told Swanson. “Hold the perimeter. Others will have seen the crash. We need to move fast.”

Swanson immediately obeyed, leaving Gerrit alone with the Falconer female.

“I’m standing right here,” the woman said, though she retreated a step at the sound of his voice. “You can speak to me.”

“Did you radio your location before you crashed?” Gerrit barked the question at her.

“So what if I did?”

He strode around the fire toward her.

She fumbled backward. Her eyes skittered to the left as she clearly considered running. Gerrit growled, and she froze. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

“Don’t come any closer,” she warned, taking more stumbling steps backward until she smacked into the battered hull of her ruined ship. She held a knife angled across her body, ready to strike.

“Tell me. Now.” Gerrit stopped a few feet from her.

She craned her neck back to look up at him. “Listen,” she said. “I’m from the Zynthar International Space Station. I was dislodged from my flight path, and my radio went out before I crashed. I can’t re-establish my comms. My instructor is dead inside the ship. I need to get his body back home, and I need to let someone know where I am. I need a—”

Relief, bright and warm in his chest, flooded through him. The humans still had no idea about Kladuu’s location. His planet was safe. Now he just had to deal with her. Before she could react, he slapped her knife clear of her hand.

She lunged to the side, ducking beneath the tail of her ship and crab-crawling toward the other side. A small thrill surged through Gerrit at the thought of chasing her, fighting her to the ground, and pressing his body down against hers, but he shoved it down. What the hell was wrong with him?

He jumped atop her ship and climbed over it, chasing after her.

She moved fast, but he was faster.

Clearing the ship’s underbelly, she surged up, ready to race away, but slammed straight into his chest and fell back onto her ass.

She spat blood on his leather-booted feet. “Asshole,” she hissed, struggling to her feet. “If you’re going to kill me …” She swayed, blinking slowly. “Then just do it already.”

Her gaze drifted to her shoulder, where the bite oozed with poison.

Gerrit crossed his arms and waited her out.

“I don’t feel so …” She groaned, slumping to the side.

He caught her easily and swung her over his shoulder.

“Time to move, sir,” Swanson said, coming back into the clearing. “We’ve got company.”

Gerrit nodded, refusing to think about the softness of her body and the smell of her skin. “Make sure her ship isn’t sending any transmissions and then let’s go.”

Swanson made quick work of the ship, ripping out the communications panel and disconnecting any long-range radio transmitters, and they took off back into the jungle. The other guards folded in behind them, taking their positions. They moved through the dripping foliage in a half run, half crouch. Their footsteps fell silently on the moss-covered ground.

Gerrit leaped over a small stream. The pilot bounced against his shoulder.

She groaned in pain.

He slid to a stop with a growl. His guards folded in around him, closing ranks. He dropped the pilot into his arms, holding her to his chest, and slapped his hand over her mouth. He looked up, scanning the sky.

She struggled in his arms.

A low whine echoed from his right. He glanced over and saw Swanson’s eyes on the sky. Gerrit didn’t have to strain to hear the approaching beat of wings. A Draqon patrol had caught their scent.

Swanson’s eyes met his. He signaled toward the pilot that she was too loud.

Gerrit leaned down and pressed his lips against her ear. He shushed her as his fingers clamped her nose.

Eyes wide, she bucked against his grip, but he easily held her still.

She thought he was killing her, and he saw the rage in her eyes. He held her tighter and looked away.

Above them, the wings came closer, rustling the jungle canopy. A roar filled the sky.

The pilot went limp in his arms.

The others were staring at him, waiting. He knew what they were all thinking.

Leave her. Just leave her. Let her die.

He motioned for everyone to tighten up. They moved on silent feet, their hearing almost as good as a Draqon’s.

“They’re staying south, near the mountain pass. They think we’re running back there,” Thompson whispered.

Gerrit nodded. “Get some water. I need to stop her bleeding. Then we’ll move.”

“Sir—” Swanson started.

Gerrit growled. All protests died off instantly. With a hand signal, he sent out a guard to keep watch. The others hovered around him and the pilot, who he not so delicately sprawled onto the damp moss beneath them.

Her hair had fallen down and wet locks stuck to the side of her neck. The flight suit she wore was torn and much too thin. Not to mention that Gerrit could see more of her tanned, toned flesh than actual material. Blood caked a bite wound on her shoulder, which oozed poisonous saliva. Already the poison was flushing her cheeks with fever.

Thompson reached forward, his fingertip brushing down a bit of her exposed arm. Gerrit growled, the noise more of a rumble through his chest than an actual sound, but Thompson jerked his hand back just the same. Swanson rolled his eyes at the curious guard, but Gerrit didn’t blame them.

Until recently, some had only seen a human in passing, but all that had changed when his uncle, Savas, had kidnapped a group of young women from a space station near Earth. Gerrit and Rayner, his father’s Beta and now Gerrit’s Beta, had secured the women positions and rights within the Vilkan mountain, but they could do nothing about the open-mouthed shock and awe that had followed the beautiful young women around wherever they went. Rayner had even mated—truly mated—to one named Vera, a fiery redhead with a penchant for grease and ship parts. The rest, aside from one of Vera’s close friends, had returned to Earth in a secret mission none of his clan had known about, save for Nestan and Rayner.

And now they would have yet another human to deal with.

Gerrit growled again. Thinking it was their proximity vexing their Alpha, his guards shrank farther back. Instantly, Gerrit relaxed, which only confused him more. Why did their closeness to her bother him so much? He was out of sorts, out of time, and already disrespectfully late for the meeting with the Hylas.

He didn’t need the distraction of some human woman right now. He should have left her for the Draqons to eat, but she wouldn’t be safe running around Kladuu, setting fires to whatever she could, on her own. If it wasn’t the Katu, Draqons, or Arakids who captured her, it would be Savas and his new loyalist pack. They would sell her into the Deep Market, and Gerrit wouldn’t wish that horrible fate on anyone.

No, he had to take her, he told himself. He’d made the pragmatic decision. His choice had nothing to do with the fact that her scent was calling to some primal, instinctual part of him or that he wanted to strip her bare and search her skin for any other cut or bruise, no matter how small.

Blessed Avilku, what was wrong with him?

He turned his attention to the bite on her shoulder. Through the torn material, he could tell the wound was deep. But it had missed her clavicle, which meant no broken bones, just deeply punctured flesh. Gerrit leaned down closer and sniffed.

The scent hit him again, all at once, just as blinding. He reared back, scrubbing at his nose and shaking his head. The other guards took notice of his reaction and leaned forward to smell. Thompson, risking Gerrit’s ire again, leaned closest to the bite. He took a good long sniff before leaning back and shrugging at Gerrit.

He hadn’t smelled anything.

But Gerrit had taken in everything. The scent in that bite did something to his head. Turned him fuzzy and inside out. It was like his mind went blank and he could sit here, staring down at this female for ages. Like he could scoop her up and run straight back to the mountain without ever stopping just to know she was safe.

He hated it. He fought against it with everything he had.

He signaled for a water canteen.

Thompson passed it up from one of the other guards.

Gerrit uncapped it and, with his hand over the pilot’s mouth, doused the wound with the ice-cold water. She stirred but didn’t completely wake. Gerrit kept pouring until the water ran clear over her skin, the blood and dirt washed out. The poison would be deeper set, but a coating of humir would draw it out, especially since the Draqon had been merely a juvenile.

Before he could even ask, Swanson supplied him with a tin of humir and an Arakid silk bandage. It was more loosely woven than the clothes they wore, which would allow for airflow but no contaminants while the humir did its work against the poison.

Gerrit gritted his teeth against the scent and wrapped an arm around the pilot’s neck. He lifted her off the ground, and she slumped against his chest, her head lolling into the crook of his neck.

His skin prickled. His heart hammered deep in his chest. He turned his face away from her hair and worked to wrap up her shoulder quickly. He tightened the bandage with short, quick jerks, perhaps tighter than he needed to, but it wouldn’t budge anytime soon. He finished the wrap with a solid knot.

Behind the pilot, one of the guards gestured silently at Gerrit. He pointed to the pilot’s back. Gerrit leaned around the female and glanced down.

Along her lower back, her suit was trashed. She’d been clawed there too. How had she even been standing? How in the moons had she fought back against him?

Gerrit’s arm tightened around her before he realized what he was doing. He forced himself to relax and breathe through his mouth. Regaining enough composure, he nodded at Thompson.

Together, with Gerrit holding the pilot against his chest, they cleaned out her back wound and bandaged it with the last of their silk wraps. When she was bandaged up as best as they could manage while on the run, he rocked back on his heels and looked around at the others.

“What now, sir?” Swanson whispered.

Gerrit clenched his fists, but in his heart, he knew what he had to do. “We make a run for the mountain pass and head back home. We’ll drop her off and explain to the Hylas about the delay. Hopefully, they’ll let us come back.”

“We could bring her with us.” Swanson’s words were carefully offered up so as not to be taken as him doubting his Alpha, but Gerrit understood. He questioned his own decision even as he made it.

There was nothing he didn’t doubt these days.

But the human would slow them down and distract everyone. They needed to be clearheaded when negotiating with the Hylas. Too much depended on this trade deal. On the medicine. Swanson, with his young son, understood that better than most.

“We take her back. Then we’ll get that medicine. I vow it.”

They nodded back at him, grim-mouthed but ready. Even though he was a new Alpha and as young as they were, they respected him. It was respect he hadn’t earned, but he would. On his father’s legacy, he would deserve it.

A surge of pride welled in his heart. This was what mattered: his duty to his Vilkas. This was better than any fuzzy-headed, warm feeling in his gut.

No matter how much his instincts screamed at him otherwise.