I want you.

The vow echoed in Kyan’s mind like a mantra. A chant.

A threat.

He fought it while he attended business meetings, stalked Syenite, and finalized plans to escape the Empress. It wriggled under his skin, tightening around his heart when he least expected it, waking him from a troubled doze. He had no time for sleep.

I want you.

He had lied.

He didn’t want her? No. He wanted her with his whole bitter-black soul.

She was something he could not have.

Being with him would only bring her pain. The terror in her eyes when they made love in his office? As long as she was with him, it would only grow. And someday, her soft, sweet tenderness would be erased. She would only gaze at him with fear.

The meeting, whose contents he couldn’t have repeated even at gunpoint, ended. His siblings filed out of the conference room.

Chrysoberyl rose from the table.

Syenite’s black shades seared Kyan as he passed, following Chrysoberyl. They left together as usual.

How to separate them?

Syenite was hiding more than eyes behind those black shades. Kyan followed, shadowing them down the hallway.

Amber stepped in front of him. “How is Laura?”

A sharp stab stole his breath.

He stopped short and tightened his control. “Fine.”

“Does she require the human wedding ceremony like Cheryl and Amy did?”

I accepted you a long time ago, you know.

He shook himself. “We are not mates.”

Amber frowned. “Go apologize.”

She assumed Laura had rejected Kyan.

He pushed past Amber. “She is safer this way.”

“What about you?”

“I do not matter.”

“Kyan.” Amber’s rising voice arrested him. “I will collect her for you.”

He spun to face her. “I do not ask for your assistance.”

“And I do not ask to lose my brother.” Smoke curled from her nostrils and her dark red hair crackled. “Act. Now. Or I will act for you.”

His hands flexed into clawed fists.

The other dragons gave them a wide circle. Managers and employees in the cubicles stood to look over their walls at the brewing fight.

It was not unusual. Siblings disagreed. But Kyan was rarely the center of the argument.

He did not want to fight his sister.

But he also would not bend. “Do not force my obedience.”

“To save your life, I will.”

His elongating incisors stabbed his lips.

“Ah, Kyan.” Alex stepped between them. “Excuse me. Do you have time?”

Amber’s inhuman gaze snapped to Alex. Her eyes narrowed to dragon slits.

Alex cleared his throat. His voice pitched too high as he fought his natural urge to run. “If you have a moment, I would like to discuss the security footage of the attack here.”

Kyan did not take his eyes off Amber. “I have time.”

She growled low.

“I’ll be waiting in your ops center.” He backed away swiftly. “Syenite, please come also.”

The security head for Carnelian Clothiers flinched. He glanced at Chrysoberyl and excused himself, striding after Alex.

Kyan turned his back on Amber and followed the other dragons. Danger prickled his back with deadly risk.

“We are not done,” Amber hissed to Kyan.

He spun once more to face her. “Laura’s shift begins in one hour. I will speak with her tomorrow.”

The smoke increased. “The final day?”

“It is how I desire to resolve this.”

Her dragon teeth pulled in and her eye slits dilated to round human pupils. “You have until tomorrow.”

“Understood.”

By this time tomorrow, he would have escaped to the icy reaches of space.

Kyan strode to the ops center, assigned two employees to secure Chrysoberyl, and joined Alex and Syenite in the inner conference room. It was the most private room in the building. Actually, now his fortress was gone, it was the most secure room on the planet.

Kyan queued the footage. Syenite sat stiffly.

“Just a moment.” Alex rested an ankle on his knee, more relaxed without a female dragon threatening his immolation. “We should drink coffee and make small talk.”

Kyan operated the espresso machine in the corner. “Small talk?”

“I believe neither of you were listening in today’s meeting. Ask me how my expedition to the silk art studio went.”

Kyan looked at Syenite.

The male turned to Alex. “How did your expedition to the silk art studio go?”

“So literal.” Alex smiled. The sharpness did not leave his two-tone eyes. “It went well. I learned to produce beautiful dyes. It is especially good timing for our launch of silk scarves.”

Kyan set a black espresso in front of Alex, a chai latte in front of Syenite, and settled into his own seat with a vanilla-flavored espresso.

Alex regarded Syenite’s drink with interest. “Do you enjoy that?”

Syenite looked down at the chai latte. “Yes.”

“I don’t suppose he has ever made it for you before?”

“No.”

“Good observation, Kyan.”

Irritation needled his skin. He did not have time for Alex’s game. He still had to arrange the final events to ensure his seamless escape. “The footage is queued.”

“Of course.” Alex leaned forward. “Go ahead.”

They watched Chrysoberyl lounge in his suite, Syenite hand him coffee, and Kyan walk to the luggage. The bomb rose above the luggage. Syenite shot and detonated it.

“Stop there.” Alex leaned forward, addressing Syenite. “Will you remove your tactical shades?”

Syenite stilled.

Kyan tensed. Had Alex discovered how to trap Syenite? He should have given Kyan warning. A male this unpredictable could only be taken down with caution. Not by backing him into a private conference room where no noise could emerge.

“Please,” Alex said, unbothered by the delay.

Syenite’s hand paused over his shades. “You are not my superior.”

“I can contact Pyro.”

The male’s nostrils flared. Anger. And then another emotion. One both familiar and jarring.

Self-loathing.

“Please,” Alex repeated. “Your dark shades make it difficult for even our most talented to understand you.”

Syenite removed his shades, folded them, and set them on the table in front of him with a click.

Then he looked up.

Muddy, distractingly ugly irises made Kyan’s stomach flip. No wonder he wore shades so black they disguised all color.

And how ironic that a male as disgustingly ugly as Kyan could feel the same disgust at another similarly cursed.

Perhaps Syenite was unluckier. He had been a pure blooded aristocrat once. And his ugliness was natural.

His nostrils flared and every muscle in his body tensed. He hovered a hand over his folded shades. “I will put them back on.”

“Do not.”

His palm flexed into a fist. “It is … distracting.”

“From now on, please remove your shades when you enter the Onyx Corporation.”

His head jerked up. “But I will disgust you!”

Alex raised one brow. “Have you not heard? We are low caste bastards who reject the Empress and surround ourselves with human trash. We will soon become accustomed to your imperfections, too.”

Syenite grimaced at the table. His claws emerged and disappeared but he did not otherwise protest.

Kyan struggled to piece together this new revelation.

Could this male’s cursed eyes have caused him to hate and destroy the more attractively colored Chrysoberyl? Or did he wish humans to fall under Draconis military rule because he had been treated badly on Earth?

“Now, to business.” Alex straightened and pointed at the frozen screen. “You shot the bomb. Why?”

Syenite grimaced again. Without the mask of his shades, his emotions spilled out. Shame, guilt, anger. And again, self-loathing. “I was stupid.”

“No, I don’t think you were.”

“I made a mistake.”

“What was your mistake?”

He gritted his teeth. “I shot before I identified my target.”

“Are you sure?”

Long seconds ticked by.

“Are you familiar with this?” Alex set a small ball on the table. It was slightly larger than the bomb and decorated with iridescent scales.

Syenite nodded.

“I am not,” Kyan said.

“Of course you wouldn’t be. Syenite, will you operate it?”

He pressed the scale on the top.

The ball rose in the air and exploded.

Kyan flinched for a weapon. But the others watched calmly and so he remained still.

Shiny powder poofed in an iridescent cloud and brimstone candy clattered on the table.

“It is a celebration popper.” Alex rubbed his ears. “Common in aristocratic households for birthdays and graduations.”

He scooped up the ball and rested it on the table. The scales had fallen off. Yellow lights gleamed around the outside exactly like a wrongly colored shrapnel bomb.

The bag Kyan had pulled the bomb from had been filled with iridescent powder and brimstone candy.

“I reacted to a celebration popper?” Kyan struggled to control his voice. Why had no one explained? How foolish. “Filled with brimstone candy?”

“It could be filled with anything. Actual shrapnel is a common prank. It is significantly weaker than a real bomb but can still cause injury. Detonating one in the air is not a bad method of defusing it.” Alex turned on Syenite. “I ask you again. Why did you shoot it?”

Syenite grimaced. “I did not see the device. I reacted.”

And if it had been a different type of bomb, no one would be having this conversation now.

“You saw it,” Alex insisted. “Perhaps not consciously, but you correctly defused a ‘prank’ shrapnel-filled popper.”

“What about the flechette grenade in the hospital?” Kyan pointed out. “You defused it with a demagnetizing wand.”

Syenite regarded Kyan blankly. “And?”

“That is not an ordinary object to carry.”

“Not for a head of security?”

“Not for anyone.”

Syenite frowned. “That’s why you’ve been following me?”

Alex interrupted. “Syenite. Go get your coat.”

He exited the room and returned a moment later wearing the bulky jacket. Alex made him spread it across the table. The demagnetizing wand, along with a hundred other security devices, was hooked or sewn to the interior.

“Pyro told me you had been wearing a customized jacket.” Alex flipped up the collar. Needles filled with counter-poisons and salves hid inside. Alex flipped it back down. “You have only started wearing it since the Onyx Corporation merger.”

“That is not true.” Syenite grimaced again. “I am not an experienced security officer. When Sard Carnelian took pity on my … situation … and invited me to Earth, I researched what threats I might encounter.”

“Flechette grenades are common in the Colony Wars,” Kyan said. “Not on Earth.”

“I researched threats on planets with a weak dragon presence.”

Which would certainly include planets under dispute in the Colony Wars.

“The coat restricts movement. I stopped wearing it.”

“Until a historic merger threatened the bedrock of dragon society,” Alex said.

“And because I did not want to show a true security officer my inexperience.” Syenite looked away.

Some devices in his coat were common. Others were obscure. So, he had been carrying the rare wand because he wanted to appear experienced in front of Kyan?

It had worked. Kyan had credited him with well above his experience level. Multiple times.

“I wear the most common devices in something my girlfriend designed called a ‘utility belt.’ It is less bulky. She can lift it herself.”

Kyan blinked.

Girlfriend?

Carnelian dragons courted local females, but he had never seen Syenite in their company. “Human?”

Syenite nodded. “She doesn’t mind my…” He gestured at his eyes. “I have not seen her since the merger. I have not left Chrysoberyl’s side. She grows dissatisfied with my absence.”

That matched Kyan’s understanding of human females. Laura had become extremely dissatisfied after not seeing him for sixty hours.

And it also removed several of Syenite’s possible motives for the attack. He would not wish his girlfriend’s planet to fall under military rule. She had accepted his eyes. He would not hate the humans.

Had Kyan misread him?

Alex grinned without mirth. “Let’s solve this mystery so you can leave Chrysoberyl’s side and meet her.”

Syenite nodded.

“We must identify the source of the flechette grenade,” Kyan said. “That is no ordinary weapon.”

“Collectors exist amongst aristocrats. Perhaps the grenade was the only one in our attacker’s arsenal.”

“What of the distress calls to the Gnashing Teeth? And the post identifying Laura to the cultists?” Human police had been unable to trace its origin.

Alex leaned on his elbows. “You now know it is not the other attempting to start a war.”

Kyan met Syenite’s eyes. The meshed colors no longer forced him to flinch or look away.

The fallen aristocrat stared Kyan in the face. He’d long ago lost his discomfort with Kyan’s scars.

They still did not trust each other, but much had changed. There was hope of trust in the future.

“Good.” Alex stood. “Then, if you agree to share your information, my work here is done.”

They worked together in fits and starts. Trying out ideas that fit the facts and then discovering more facts to make new theories. They worked through the night and reached an impasse.

Kyan checked the time.

Laura would be ending her shift soon. Even though he shouldn’t, he reviewed her tracker location.

The hospital.

In a few hours, Amber would confront him. Rather than executing his plans to escape the Empress, he was still here, working together with his former prime suspect.

His mind wandered.

“Why ‘girlfriend’?” he asked Syenite. The human term had no equivalent in dragon culture. “Has she not accepted your claim?”

Syenite looked up. His startling eyes caught Kyan by surprise but he looked at the table quickly as though too-aware of his impact. “She has.”

“Why are you not engaged?”

“She says both parties must date for at least a year or else a marriage won’t last. Therefore, in seventy-six days I will propose. She will accept.”

“You know how?”

“She has accepted me.”

“You believe her?”

“I have chosen to believe.” He fixed Kyan with a hard look. “She is worthy of my faith.”

She is worthy of my faith.

By refusing Laura, Kyan protected himself — and declared her unworthy.

She was worthy.

He was the unworthy one.

She had proved over and over that her heart was larger, more open, and more generous than his would ever be. She accepted him with both arms open. Loving him with her entire soul.

How could she?

Life mated to him would be impossible. She might be targeted by crazed cultists or a mastermind bomber. His new lair might be compromised. She would never be safe.

But as this investigation had proved, he was not Flint.

He’d been wrong about Syenite. He’d been wrong about his “impenetrable” lair. He’d been wrong about the control and integrity consistently demonstrated by the fallen aristocrats at Carnelian Clothiers.

Perhaps he was also wrong about himself.

He might be worthy of her love.

Keeping close might protect her.

Their life together might be difficult. Not impossible.

And her presence might just save him. Not from the Empress’s marriage proposal. From a lifetime of fighting the wrong wars against himself.

“What are we missing?” Syenite asked, focused on the investigation. He had a human girlfriend he wished to see. The sooner the better.

Kyan suddenly felt the same way.

“Maybe the obvious.” Kyan leaned forward, energized. “I assumed our bomber was a mastermind. But perhaps he is an amateur. His first ‘attack’ was an empty celebration popper I triggered.”

No. That was wrong.

“There was a delay between my touching the popper and its explosion.”

“They can be activated remotely,” Syenite said. “The remote detonation device is a small, black ball on a loop. It is unmistakable.”

“Then the flechette grenade in the hospital placed too late to strike a dragon target. Improper reconnaissance?”

“Wasting such a rare weapon would not be the work of an amateur,” Syenite said. “That would be total incompetence.”

Total incompetence?

Yet it had resulted in him taking the worst of a flechette grenade, later losing his lair, and nearly losing Laura along with it. Only her determination to heal an injured pilot had saved her life.

Luck. It all came down to luck.

And that was unacceptable.

He checked her location again. Obsessively.

Still the hospital.

“What if the luck was in the attack’s success?” Syenite asked. “First, hurting you. Then in giving a description to the warship that happened to match your lair.”

Reviewing the attacks through the lens of total incompetence rather than a diabolical game, a new suspect began to form.

Kyan reviewed the distress calls to the Gnashing Teeth. They had originated in the Onyx Corporation offices and traveled across dragon networks. He’d assumed the criminals had ghosted his network. No one would be so stupid as to use their personal terminals.

But the perpetrator had.

Syenite stared at his conclusion, then flicked his sober gaze to Kyan. “There is one other aspect you are not considering.”

Kyan prepared to confront his new prime suspect. “What?”

“If the attacker is this incompetent, he might not have realized the flechette grenade would only be activated by dragon stellarium.”

“How stupid…” But he couldn’t complete the sentence. A new nightmare was beginning.

The suspect had slipped his surveillance.

Syenite continued. “The target of the flechette grenade then would not have been a dragon. It would have been a human.”

He checked his trackers. Everyone was where they were supposed to be. His siblings were on their way to the office for the morning. Laura was still at the hospital.

Odd.

How many hours since her shift had ended?

“And there is only one human who could have been the flechette grenade’s target.” Syenite spoke the words that shredded Kyan’s heart. “Laura.”