Diablo paced the kitchenette, his insides writhing. His beast, curled tight within him, raged at the danger that woman, Rebecca, presented, and the emotional and physical agony radiating off Nero. It hadn’t just been Anaea whose empathy had been slammed the moment Nero had gated into the transition suites, and now Diablo’s beast wanted a fight.

Mother, he needed to hit something, break something, release the pressure. But if the dragon who ran wherever Rebecca had been kept knew about the safe houses, they had to be dealt with immediately. It wouldn’t stop the inevitable discovery of their puzur — something Diablo was certain was one of the many worries clinging to Nero’s emotions lately — but it could put it off until they had a plan.

And he had to trust that Nero could come up with a plan, because right now the only plan Diablo could think of was the one his beast wanted. Fight and kill them all. It didn’t matter the them was his own kind or that dragons, even in their spirit state, were an endangered species.

Raven stepped out of the room Rebecca was in and headed into the room with the other intake, but stopped, her gaze jumping to him. Her eyes narrowed, the line of her jaw hardened, and his beast readied in expectation of the impending fight.

Not fucking now. And not with my sister. He mentally shoved at it but knew there wasn’t really a way to control it. Not since his best friend’s murder. Not until he managed to steady the emotions from him and everyone else churning within him, and that, without Andy’s stalwart confidence in Diablo, might never happen again.

He bit back a growl as Raven stormed toward him, half in part because she was marching and the other half because there were blood and holes in her form-fitting sweater — and even though she could heal almost as fast as he could, it still should have been him getting shot because of Nero’s mess.

“You don’t have to hang around.” She shouldered past him and opened the fridge, as if trying to disguise confronting him with getting something to drink. “I’ve got this.”

“I know you do,” he said. She was just as capable as him, even if she was now the younger sibling by a good couple hundred years. And while her emotions revealed she still didn’t fully trust her earth magic in a fight, that would disappear with a bit of time and experience.

“So?” She took a single serving bottle of orange juice from the fridge and shut the door. “What is wrong with the both of you?”

“You know what’s wrong with me.” He forced a wry smile, unable to fully commit to the lie. She only knew half of what was wrong with him — how powerful his beast was — and only knew of a fraction of the power of his empathic earth magic. That wasn’t her burden to carry.

“I said I could handle them and I will. But Nero is cleaning up in the bathroom off her bedroom and you’re still here.”

“I’m waiting on Asma to call me back and giving Terry time to pick up supplies before heading to the safe houses.”

“And you just decided to wait here?” Her tone was clear. She didn’t believe him.

“Well, what if I was hanging around to watch your back?”

She sliced a thread of wind across his cheek with a stinging snap. “Well, stop.”

Blood had oozed to his chin before the cut sealed shut, and his beast howled to be released.

“If that woman wakes and sees you, you might have to kill her. No matter what Nero wants.” Her expression darkened. Raven had seen the horrifying reality of what Zenobia’s dragons had done to those humans they’d kidnapped, and there was a chance she had two of them on her hands now, although the last time they’d talked she’d been pretty sure the young man who remained unconscious was a natural human mage. And while she hadn’t been the one to kill any of those too soul sick to save, she knew what had happened to them and knew that was a possible outcome for their new intake if he wasn’t a natural human mage, and definitely the outcome for Rebecca if Raven couldn’t pull off a miracle.

Except the emotions blasting from Nero to protect the woman were so strong even Diablo’s beast had hesitated. It was the only reason Nero’s wind had managed to deflect Diablo’s knife strike to Rebecca’s heart. The emotions weren’t even weak or concealed. They were certain and horrified, and Diablo feared them as much as Nero did. His doyen was inamorated, shockingly, suddenly, in the blink of an eye, and if they couldn’t save this human, he’d lose his mind, as well.

“You have to save this one.” As much as Diablo’s beast yearned to challenge Nero, the puzur, the Asar Nergal, and the Major Black Coterie needed its leader — and Diablo could never hope to replace Nero as doyen. He didn’t want to, either, no matter what kind of fight the beast craved.

“I don’t know if I can. I haven’t been able to save any of the others, and those have been the ones you’ve convinced to meet with me.” Raven glanced down the hall to the two open doors, where Rebecca and the new intake lay. “She doesn’t want to be here, and I’m not sure she wants to believe this or believe what happened to her was real.”

The memory of the woman’s terror and ferocious determination made him shudder. He wasn’t sure he’d want to believe those feelings were real, either. “Doesn’t matter. We save her.”

“And by we, you mean me.”

“You’re the one with the gift.” Perhaps not a proper magical gift for helping those humans with earth magic — he really didn’t know — but still something with a hint of power. Maybe because they were siblings, they both had empathy, but that wasn’t how earth magic worked. Earth magic came from the human vessel. Before the Great Scourge, dragons had a magical essence in the core of their soul that helped them communicate and, in the end, helped power the spell their Goddess had sacrificed herself to create to save them. But earth magic — controlling water, creating gates, manipulating the earth, summoning wind — that was a dormant ability within humans activated by the dragons’ more powerful souls.

His phone chimed. Someone had texted him.

“Asma or Terry?” Raven asked.

Eva. His new neighbor and… girlfriend? They’d already had coffee together earlier that night and while there was attraction in her emotions — blazingly hot attraction when she thought he wasn’t looking at her — there was also hesitation, which was completely understandable since they’d only met about a week ago. The attraction, however, was starting to burn away the hesitation, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d give in to temptation and see what other sultry emotions he could inspire within her.

But before he did that, he needed to get his God damned beast under control. If he didn’t, he risked terrifying her, or worse, hurting her.

“Oh ho! Not Asma or Terry.”

Crap. He’d stared at the phone for too long and hadn’t answered.

“The new girlfriend, I see,” Raven said.

“She’s a human. It’s a fling.” It couldn’t be anything but a fling, given how short a human’s life was.

“You’ve never had problems with flings before.”

“And I don’t have a problem with this.” So long as he controlled his beast and didn’t accidentally maim her. “But don’t call her my girlfriend and don’t expect me to bring her home for dinner to meet the family.”

Raven snorted. “You haven’t met any of mine. I wouldn’t expect to meet any of yours.”

“You have a boyfriend?”

She flashed a hint of teeth, a mix of aggression and wicked sibling playfulness. “Do you honestly think I’ve been celibate for the last two hundred years?”

“A brother can hope.” He bared his teeth back. “Of course if you’re dating, that means I get to threaten someone.” His beast loved that idea.

“You’re not going to threaten anyone.”

“Oh, come on. Isn’t that a rite of passage, for the older human brother to threaten the younger sister’s suitors?”

She rolled her eyes at him and headed back to the rooms with the mages. “They’re not called suitors anymore.”

“And I don’t have a girlfriend.” He dropped his attention back to his phone. Except he did, one he didn’t want to scare away when his beast seized control.