“Move!” Riyah screamed at the guards blocking the doors to Vyr’s cell.

“He isn’t stopping, lady! And this place isn’t built for a Change like this!”

Riyah barely resisted the urge to flick her fingers and throw the assholes against the wall with the power that pulsed out of her. She needed to keep singing. Stay calm, keep Vyr calm.

There was a deafening roar that shook the ground beneath her feet. Shit. She was out of time. She muscled her way between them and slid her card in the reader.

“Mercer! No!”

“Fuck off, Emmitt. If I don’t stop him, who will? Not your goddamn meds! Look what good those did!”

Emmitt’s face was red as he stood over her, his hand splayed on the door.

“I can do this,” she pleaded.

Emmitt shook his head and shoved a leather pouch against her chest. “This isn’t tested, and we only have one dose, but it’s supposed to be more potent than the other meds. It could kill the dragon. Kill it before it kills everyone in here.”

Riyah wanted to puke. She wanted to puke and then crush Emmitt with her power, but she didn’t have time for angry reactions. She had to get in there. She shoved Emmitt’s arm off the door and opened it, and what she saw horrified her.

The lights were flickering on and off, buzzing with waves of power. Vyr was still partly human, but he had massive, blood-red, torn and tattered, dragon wings stretching from his back. His face was contorted in rage and anguish and was dripping with blood. He arched his head back and spewed fire at the observation windows on the opposite side of the cell. His eyes were completely vacant, as though he’d shut down completely. But she understood what pain he had to be in to be half Changed and still fighting to keep his skin like this. Fire and magma streaming from a human throat must’ve been agony. Her heart broke. It broke, simple as that. In this moment, she knew she loved him. She knew she would do anything to make his pain less.

Tears streaming down her face, Riyah ran right for him. He beat his wings, the talons on the ends scratching deep divots into the cement walls as he rounded on her, his eyes blazing silver with elongated pupils. This dragon sure didn’t look half-dead.

Terrified but determined, Riyah pushed her legs harder and faster. She heard the clicking of the Firestarter in his chest, but ignored it because she had to trust him. She had to have faith that Vyr wouldn’t burn her. That his dragon would let her live. And turning around to run would only get her hurt faster anyway.

Almost there. Almost.

Faster. Her legs were burning, but clutching the leather pouch, she jumped the last few feet and crashed into him just as he opened his mouth full of razor sharp teeth. There were faint scales on his skin and he was turning red, and she was so scared, but she wrapped herself around him and held on for dear life.

When the dragon roared, Riyah’s head rang with the sheer volume of it. “Listen. Listen,” she begged, voice shaking. “It’s me. It’s Riyah. And you said you couldn’t have me, but you can. Vyr. Red Dragon, look.”

His arms went tight around her. Too tight, and his nails dug into her back. Too sharp. He was going to crush her.

“Look!” she screamed, struggling to pull the syringe out of the pouch. “This can kill the dragon. Do you want me to kill it?”

Vyr’s face twisted in rage, but he didn’t crush her anymore. “No,” he rasped out. “Don’t kill me.”

“Stick him now!” Emmitt screamed under the flickering lights, and the clatter of weaponry sounded. Dozens of rifles clicked, metal on metal, as they were cocked and loaded. There had to be forty guards down here, ready to end Vyr. Ready to end her just for being in the way.

Vyr’s hand went to the back of her head as though he was trying to protect her as he blasted a fireball at the densest population of guards. They bolted out of the way, and walls shook with the force of the blast. Vyr’s skin was turning hot against her. Too hot.

“Stick him, or I’m giving the order!” Emmitt screamed from beside the door. He had a high-powered rifle trained on them, too.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She couldn’t. She couldn’t be the one to kill him. He’d asked her not to. One dose. One shot. Untested. Eyes burning, Riyah eased back and whispered, “Pretend…and then save me.”

The dragon’s pupils constricted, and the rage on Vyr’s face flickered away like a flame being blown out. Confusion took its place. And as she slammed the needle toward his neck, he yelled, “No!”

But Vyr was safe from her. She couldn’t hurt him to save herself. She blocked the guards view as best she could and slammed the needle into her arm, no more than an inch from his neck. “Pretend,” she pleaded.

And as she emptied that vial into herself, Vyr jerked. A long, low rumble emanated from him as his entire body tensed. With a small whimper, Riyah ripped the empty syringe from herself and dropped it on the floor.

“She did it!” Emmitt shouted. “Back off. Give them space, back off!”

“What have you done?” Vyr gritted out.

“You’re mine, and I can’t hurt you. Stop the Change. Please. Hide what I’ve done, or I can’t stay here.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Riyah.” Vyr collapsed to his knees.

Dizzy, she adjusted the sleeve of her white blouse and scrambled away from Vyr as his body shook with power. The air was heavy, full of smoke, and it was getting hard to see, but Vyr looked at her, locked gazes with her, and clenched his teeth. He was on his knees. He blasted his fists against the cement floor as agony roiled in his eyes. His wings stretched the length of the room, his nostrils flared as he heaved breath, and every muscle on his naked torso rippled with tension.

“Sing,” he murmured. He rolled his eyes closed, and she picked up where she left off on “Baby Got Back,” but softly, her lips barely moving, the words hardly scratching up her raw throat. The smoke made her want to cough, but she resisted the urge so she could continue the song.

And slowly, slowly, Vyr furled his wings and drew them back into his body. The look of pain on his face was heartbreaking. The crimson color left his skin, the scales faded, and as he gritted his teeth in pain, they lost their razor sharpness and turned to blunt human teeth once again. His face softened from the harsh angles and, body shaking, he heaved an exhausted sigh, relaxed back on his bent legs, opened his eyes, and looked down his nose at her. “You need to go home. I’m here, Riyah. You’re gonna get sick from those meds. You need to go. Drink as much water as you can. Call my mom. Get some help at your house. I want someone there with you until this is done.”

“Until what’s done?” she whispered.

But the guards rushed Vyr so he couldn’t answer her. They yanked his arms behind his back and dragged him away. And then they took her away, too. Away from the man who made her feel safe. From the man who cared enough about her to stop the Red Dragon mid-Change.

“Until what’s done?” she asked louder.

Vyr’s eyes were haunted as he watched her until she was pulled through the door. He never answered, not even in her head.

And as another dizzy spell took her, she couldn’t feel him in her head at all.

Baffled, she watched the guards running this way and that, guns shouldered, focus on their faces. Her blood was boiling, chilling, boiling then chilling, and she swallowed over and over so she wouldn’t retch. Vyr was right. She needed to go home. Right now.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, attempting to yank her arm out of a guard’s unforgiving grasp.

When she looked up, it was that shifter Vyr had told her to stay away from. Hank Butte. He was staring at her inner bicep with a frown. “Smells like blood,” he said in an empty voice. “Looks like it, too.”

Indeed, there was a single red drop on the sleeve of her white silk blouse where she’d stabbed herself with the syringe. “Let go of me, asshole,” she said as she jerked out of his grasp. She glared over her shoulder as she walked away, just to make sure he wasn’t following her. He stood there in the middle of the mayhem watching her leave with a suspicious frown and his head cocked to the side. His eyes were narrowed to glowing blue slits, and chills rippled up her arms. Oh, he knew.

Forcing herself to watch where she was going, she gave that animal her back and quickened her pace. God, she wished she could rip these shoes off and run. She bolted for a trashcan and got sick. She felt awful, could barely think straight, and her head was pounding, but not because Vyr was in there. But because of the medicine running through her veins. She had spells for this. She hadn’t practiced them in years, but desperate times and measures. She just needed to get home to those spell books.

But with each step she took trying to escape the prison, nodding to the guards, trying to look like she wasn’t in severe pain, it became crystal clear that she wasn’t safe to drive home. She made her way through all the security stations, but the last two stopped her and asked if she was all right, probably because she was swaying and had broken out in a sweat. The medicine was to kill a shifter animal, but she was human, so she had no idea what it was doing to her.

She forced a smile, nodded to the guards in the parking lot, and then scrambled into her SUV and fumbled for the burner phone in her glove compartment. She dialed the phone number and groaned as she sped out of the parking lot.

“Are they there?” Clara asked.

“Wh-who?” Riyah stammered weakly.

“Nox and Torren. Riyah, are you okay?”

“No. No, I’m not. I took this medicine I was supposed to give to Vyr, but I couldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t hurt him, and now I don’t feel… Clara I’m gonna pass out soon.” She wasn’t going to make it much farther. On the long stretch of road outside of the prison grounds, she pulled over in a rush as her skin went clammy and her stomach rolled with another wave of nausea.

“Riyah, put your car in park.”

She fumbled to think clear enough to put it in park, but her hand wasn’t working right. “I can’t.”

“Riyah, yes you can, hon. Put it in park, and then it’s okay to go to sleep. I’m getting help to you right now.” There was static on the phone and in a muffled voice, Clara told someone to, “Send the girls in. Riyah needs help right now. Right now. I don’t give a shit. Send them in right now.” More static and then in a clear voice, Clara said, “Riyah, are you parked?”

“I think I am,” she whispered, melting against the seat. “Tell Vyr I’m sorry. Tell Vyr I’m sorry.”

“You did nothing wrong, and you can tell him anything you want tomorrow. Everything is going to be okay.”

“He left.” Riyah’s shoulders sagged, and a sob worked its way up her throat. “I can’t feel him.”

Clara was still talking, but Riyah couldn’t understand what she was saying. And as the edges of her vision shattered inward, she heaved a long sigh, and then Riyah was in the dark, once again.