“He’s going to win.” Jane’s hand crushed Neridia’s. “My brother’s going to win!”

Neridia was no expert at judging sword fights, but even she could see that the Knight-Commander was flagging. Though he still cut and lunged with ferocious speed, his movements didn’t flow together quite as smoothly as they had at the start at the fight. Crimson drops speckled the surface of the ice around him.

John’s torso was sheened with sweat, but still unmarked by the Knight-Commander’s blades. He moved with the unconscious, fluid grace of a hunting predator, wielding his heavy sword as if it was an extension of his own body. His calm, steady eyes never left his opponent’s.

Neridia could feel his intent focus down the mate bond. All of him—mind, body, and soul—was utterly concentrated on destroying the threat to her.

All she could do was send back her shining faith in him. Her utter certainty that he would always, always protect her.

My mate. My heart. My Champion.

Then, in an eye blink, everything changed.

One moment, the Knight-Commander and John were circling each other, swords raised defensively. The next, John was spinning away from his opponent, hurling himself straight at Neridia. His sword swept round in a great, desperate arc.

There was a loud clang of steel against steel. Neridia found herself staring at one of the Knight-Commander’s swords, point embedded deep in the ice just a few feet away from her. It was so unexpected, for a heartbeat she was at a complete loss as to how it had come to be there.

The Knight-Commander threw it…at me?

Wrenching her eyes from the quivering blade, she looked up at John. He’d had to move so fast to deflect the sword, he’d skidded to a halt close enough for her to touch. His own sword was still outstretched, point low to the ground. The mate bond vibrated with his shock.

Four inches of reddened steel protruded from the center of his chest.

Behind him, the Knight-Commander wrenched his blade free. Very slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, John sank to his knees.

“No,” Neridia whispered—and then, more loudly, echoing the scream of her inner voice, “No!”

Her former hesitation, her doubts—all were utterly washed away by the sight of her mate’s lifeblood staining the ice.

Power rose in her, unstoppable as the tide. She embraced the surging torrent, stretching out her arms, welcoming it as it filled her. She expanded, her body reshaping to match the surge of her soul.

“NO!” she roared, in a thundering chord that flattened the waves.

The Knight-Commander’s blade dropped from his hand, clattering on the ice. He turned to flee, but Neridia whipped her tail round, catching him across his back. The blow knocked him clean off the iceberg.

But not into the sea.

A huge, gaping maw surged from the water, opening wide as the gates of Hell. The Knight-Commander didn’t have time to scream, let alone shift.

The megalodon’s jaws swallowed him whole. Not so much as a drop of the traitor’s blood tainted the ocean.

“Stop!” Neridia shouted—not at the Master Shark, but at the sea dragons racing toward him.

She knew their exact positions, as she knew the exact position of every creature in the sea for miles around. She was the sea. She knew every wave and every current, as naturally as she knew her own body.

The sea dragons’ war-songs turned into discordant chords of astonishment as they broke the surface, catching sight of her. The sharks who’d been pursuing them broke off too, their bloodlust forgotten. Sea dragon and shark alike stared up at her.

“Empress.”

“The Pearl Empress.”

“The Pearl Empress!”

One by one, the sea dragons took up the whispered melody. The rising chorus strengthened, awe swelling into full-throated adulation. Beneath the sea dragons, the sharks swept in spirals of silent ecstasy.

“THE PEARL EMPRESS!” the sea dragons roared, and the whole ocean echoed their joy.

Neridia was barely aware of the deafening chorus. All she could hear was the terrible silence of John’s heart.

He’d fallen to his back, his crimson blood pooling around him. Jane, sobbing, knelt beside him, futilely trying to stem the tide with her bare hands.

We are the Pearl Empress, her inner dragon said in her soul—no longer a whisper, but a mighty voice that left no room for self-doubt. All tides must obey our will.

Nudging Jane aside, Neridia spread her claws over John’s still form. He was a sea dragon, with the sea in his veins. He was as much a part of the ocean as the waves and the tides.

He was hers to command.

Focusing her power, Neridia drew together the disrupted currents of his blood. She stopped it from spilling out onto the ice, despite the gaping rent in his chest. She forced it to move through its usual channels. She was his heart, keeping life flowing through his body.

His grey pallor warmed…but he still lay motionless, deeply unconscious. Though she could hold his death at bay, she couldn’t heal the fatal wound in his chest.

But she knew someone who could.

She reared up, turning her great horned head in the direction of the glittering lights of Brighton. Her mind quested out, rushing over the city like a tsunami.

*HUGH!* she cried out, with all the power of the sea. *Come, come now! John needs you!*

His soul touched hers, a pure brightness like silver moonlight on fresh-fallen snow. Other minds rose in answer too. Dai, a swirl of smoke and sparks; Chase, swift and unstoppable as a storm; Ash, a veiled power equal to her own, the sun to her sea. They heard her call.

They were firefighters. They knew how to respond to an emergency.

In mere minutes, Chase’s black hooves touched down beside her. Hugh slid off his back, his white hair brighter than the ice. Both the pegasus and the paramedic did a double-take at Neridia’s new form, but quickly turned their attention to John.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Hugh let out a groan as he saw John’s wound. “You bloody overgrown fish, can’t you even get injured like a normal human being?”

Neridia put out a claw to restrain Jane, as the sea dragon instinctively tried to block Hugh from her unconscious brother. *You can heal him, can’t you?*

“I can heal anything short of decapitation.” Hugh scowled irritably, his long-fingered hands already probing John’s chest. “And I swear to God, one of these days someone is going to put even that to the test. Now shut up and let me work.”

A brilliant silver glow spread out from the paramedic’s hands. It ran over John’s still form, covering him like a blanket woven out of pure moonlight.

A clean, clear scent filled the air, like lilacs, and rain, and the first leaves of spring. Despite everything, a sense of peace settled over Neridia. She had a sudden deep, powerful certainty that all would be well.

“Come on, you bastard,” Hugh muttered under his breath. “If you make me shift in front of all these people, I’ll kill you myself…”

Jaw clenching, Hugh bowed his head as if in deepest prayer. For the briefest instant, an even brighter light flared, like a star set into his forehead. Neridia had to close her eyes against the dazzling flash.

When she opened them again, she found herself looking into John’s.

She very nearly squashed poor Hugh flat, forgetting her current size and strength in her haste to reach her mate. He was still flat on his back, the ice red around him, but his wound was completely healed. Only an old, pale scar marked where it had been.

He stretched one hand up to her. She bent her head to meet him, feeling the sweet fire of his touch even through her armored hide. His spread fingers barely spanned a single one of her scales.

Pure joy filled his blue eyes. He smiled up at her.

“My Empress,” he said.