Tane lost it.

Fire licked along his scales. Kinyi’s sudden fear sliced deep through his belly. In some distant part of his mind, he heard her call his name.

The fire nestled deep in his mind like a parasite, and it blocked out almost everything else with its siren’s embrace. Every fiber of his being wanted him to unleash every flame, spark, and ember he possessed.

But in the part of him not lost to the madness, he heard Kinyi scream his name.

He dove for the Vilkas’ mountain.

He took the collision on his chest. His body raked across the flight deck, and Kinyi tumbled free of his burning body. Vilkas scattered around them. A ship landed nearby. Somebody shouted. Behind him, a pair of Draqons landed, their mates dismounting before they shifted.

Tane just lay there. His massive body heaved with uneven breaths, the fire dying out on his scales and taking its welcome heat with it. As the last flame flickered out, he felt instantly cold and hollow. Empty and more lost than ever before.

“Tane,” a voice said near his head.

His nostrils twitched around Kinyi’s scent.

She crouched beside him and placed a hand on his snout.

Tane wanted to close his eyes and sink deep into the farthest reaches of the mountain and entomb his body in darkness forever.

“Tane,” Kinyi said, quieter this time. She lowered herself next to his eye. “It’s just the madness. You’re fine. I’m fine. We made it. But you need to shift. It’s time to shift.”

Tane’s body ached too much to shift or move. His fire hadn’t burned him, but it had stolen another part of his sanity. And the taking of such a vital piece of his mind had left him exhausted and limp on the ground.

Kinyi’s stroked his snout, skimming over his scales and sending a shiver through his body.

“Come back to me,” she whispered close to his face.

Their connection pulled taut like she was jerking him back to life. It gave another great almighty heave, and a spark of energy zapped through him.

He blinked.

“There. That’s it,” she coaxed.

She reached for him again.

This time, he followed the thread pulling at his soul. His body shuddered and folded in on itself like Arakid silk. He fell limply to the ground in his human form, his naked body shivering in the cold.

“Give me your tunic,” Kinyi snapped at someone. “Did I stutter? Give it to me now.”

Fabric wrapped around his shoulders, and she pulled him upright. Her strength always shocked him. He should be better than this. He should be the strong one, not the one in a puddle of uselessness on the ground. He opened his eyes and stared at her, his beautiful ice queen.

“I almost killed you.”

She dusted off her ripped clothes with torn, dirty hands. But she wasn’t burned, at least not anywhere he could see. Somehow, she was fine. “It was just a little fire.”

He snorted weakly. He didn’t have the heart to smile.

She bowed her forehead against his and whispered with a devilish glint in her eyes, “It’s okay. You can make it up to me later.”

He pressed a kiss to her lips. He would never deserve her, not in this lifetime or a million more.

After taking a steadying breath, he lifted his head and looked around. The flight deck was a mess of rock and blasted-apart guns and metal. A ship sat across the way, whirring and steaming. Around the rocks and chunks of metal, Vilkas and Draqons stood, their faces slack, their bodies covered with various wounds that dripped blood down their skin.

A man with white-blonde hair and a severe burn scar down the side of his face, jaw, and neck strode forward with his hand extended to Tane. Beside the towering man, a small, dark-skinned woman stood smiling.

“White Horn,” the silver-haired man said.

Kinyi stood up as Tane took the man’s offered hand. He stood with help and tried not to sway too obviously.

“I’m Zayd,” the man said. “The leader of our hive. This is Niva, my mate and Queen. It’s good to have you back.”

Tane just nodded, first to the man, Zayd, and then to the hive’s Queen.

Zayd’s mouth tugged down into a frown. “That fire,” he started carefully, his eyes skimming Tane’s body. “Was that—”

“Now isn’t the time,” Kinyi interrupted. She put her hand on Tane’s arm. “The Vilkas need help. Let’s focus on that first.”

Zayd’s eyebrows spiked above his dark eyes. “Since when do you give a shit—”

“Kinyi is right.” The Queen, Niva, smiled at Kinyi. Beside him, Kinyi stiffened, her scent changing. “We need to help the Vilkas with their wounded. And … and …” Her smile slipped, and her tone grew weary. “And then there’s Caj to deal with.”

“Caj? That fucker is still alive?” Kinyi growled. She spun in a circle, searching the flight deck.

“He brought the fleet to the mountain,” Niva explained. “He attempted to overthrow Gerrit’s position as Alpha. They got out a distress comm, but by the time we got here, the humans had already done so much damage.” Her wide green eyes landed on Tane. “Thank you so much for taking down that Falconer. If the humans had stuck around much longer, I don’t know if we could have stopped them from taking the mountain.”

Tane gritted his teeth. He hated her appreciation, but he wouldn’t show disrespect to the hive’s Queen. “Who is Caj and why was he trying to take the Alpha’s spot here?”

“Let’s just ask him since we caught the slippery bastard,” a dark-haired male with purple and green scales on his chest and a beautiful mate at his side said. He nodded to Tane. “I’m Maxsym. Good to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Tane raised his eyebrows but nodded back.

Maxsym’s mate stuck her hand out to Kinyi. “I’m Veronica, but you can call me Ronnie.”

Kinyi didn’t take her offered hand. She just glanced around the flight deck at her gathering people and said, “So, is everybody mating humans these days?”

“Says the female whose mating scent is choking off everyone’s air.” Maxsym patted Tane on the arm. “Sorry you got saddled with that one, man. Some guys have all the bad luck.”

“Fuck off, Maxsym,” Kinyi snarled. She turned to Zayd. “Where’s Caj?”

“They took him down to their prison cells to wait while the wounded were cared for. His trial will happen tonight.”

“Gerrit is giving him a trial?” Kinyi asked.

Zayd shrugged. “Moral justice or some shit. You know these Vilkas and their fucking ‘codes.’”

“They should throw him off the mountain like we do with our criminals. Or better yet, straight into a lava pit. Let’s get this over with, then. It won’t be pretty.”

The Draqons, including Maxsym, his mate, and Niva, went into the mountain’s interior through a massive sliding metal door. Before Kinyi and Tane could follow, Zayd stopped them with an outstretched hand.

“That fire,” he started again, and when he met Tane’s eyes, Tane knew the hive’s leader had guessed. “It’s your madness, right?”

Tane nodded.

Zayd’s jaw clenched. “That day on the battlefield …”

“I lost control.” The memory of that day was all too real after what had just happened and what he’d nearly done to Kinyi. “I killed them all.”

The silver-haired leader raked a hand over his scarred face. He swore. But he didn’t cut Tane down where he stood or throw him over the mountain like he deserved. Did the Draqons not even care what he’d done? Most of the time, males weren’t punished when they lost themselves to the madness, but no one had ever killed as many of their own has Tane had.

“So, you can’t control yourself at all? But you flew with Kinyi.”

Kinyi took Tane’s hand. “I got distracted after we downed the Falconer, but I can control him.”

He opened his mouth to argue, to explain it wasn’t Kinyi’s fault that he’d nearly burnt them all, but her hand tightened around his in warning.

“We need you,” Zayd said after he’d processed Kinyi’s words. “Even if you can’t always control your fire, we still need that power. The humans have a bastion of ships guarding the Vydal.”

“We know,” Tane said, speaking up for the first time. “We just came from there.”

Zayd frowned. “How?”

“We hid away on the battleship.” Kinyi casually examined her fingernails, strategically not mentioning why they’d had to stowaway on the human’s ship.

“Right,” Zayd said, drawing out the word, his eyes narrowing on her. He knew her all too well. “Well, Gideon is in the Vydal. No doubt about it. But we need to get through the ships surrounding it.” He glanced back at the door where the others had disappeared and lowered his voice. “But just the few they sent to help Caj take his throne was enough to put us on our knees. We can’t take on an entire fleet. We don’t have the manpower.”

“Tane isn’t your bomb,” Kinyi growled. Her scent sparked like wildfire in a desert. Her grip on his hand turned bone-crushingly tight.

Zayd ignored her, his eyes on Tane. “You can’t control it at all?”

“Not alone.” Tane shook his head. “The first time I even came close was with Kinyi today, and it didn’t last long. And it wasn’t because she was distracted.”

Kinyi hissed. “That’s bull—”

“Even uncontrolled,” Zayd interrupted, speaking to Tane, “that fire could take out half the ships. We could fly in after you. Pull you out. Get you back to safety. But we need someone to blast a path for us to Gideon.”

“You didn’t see this battleship,” Tane said. “They have thousands of ships. The Vydal was swarming with humans. I can fly in and blow them up, but you’ll need someone to blast open the castle. You can’t go in from the ground.”

“Your fire can spread to all the ships and bring down the Vydal?”

Sadness, deep and swooping like a low flight above calm waters, filled his gut. “It can.”

“And you can keep it from spreading to your back? So Kinyi can ride you?”

“Yes,” Kinyi said before Tane could reply. “He can. We’ll take down those ships and get you a clear path to the Vydal.”

“Good.” Zayd gave a sharp nod. He turned to Kinyi. “We’re lucky to have you two back.”

Zayd turned to go inside the mountain, and Tane felt Kinyi’s instant relief and pride at the hive leader’s approval through their connection. Of course, she showed nothing on her face, but he sensed it inside her.

But there was no way in hell she was getting on his back during that final battle. Thankfully, she was so focused on her happy glow from Zayd’s words she didn’t notice his quiet resolve.

Because he would be flying alone when he went to blow up the humans’ ships.

When it came to unleashing his most powerful flames, the ones that burned pure blazing blue, there was no such thing as control. Not even with a rider as strong as Kinyi.

He would go in alone, and he would die alone.

* * *

Tane had only ever known the Vilkas as enemies. Under his Queen’s rule, the hive’s Queen before Sotu, a Vilkan shifter would have been killed on sight.

Yet here he was, walking through the Vilkan city without violence, without even a growl or the aggressive looks he’d expected. But when he passed the Vilkas, they smiled and nodded at him. Some even thanked him and the other Draqons for their help today.

The Vilkas were gracious hosts, and even though they were tending to their wounded and beginning temporary repairs to their home, they still made sure all the Draqons had fresh clothes, hot food, and good shoes for navigating the rocky paths of the mountain’s interior.

It all made him very uncomfortable, and he ached for the casual cruelty of Cyn City.

Apparently, Kinyi didn’t feel much better about the situation, because she prowled beside Tane with eyes that followed every nearby Vilka, her movements catlike and predatory.

The Vilkas gave her a wide berth as she walked by.

Tane noticed little of his surroundings as the Vilkan Beta named Rayner led them to the arena where Caj’s trial would be held. His bones felt hollow, his blood limpid and watery, after his shift. The ache to feel the fire again was so strong he tasted smoke in the back of his mouth.

Every now and then, Kinyi glanced up at him with concern.

“I’m fine,” he whispered when she looked again.

“You don’t smell fine.”

He gave her what he hoped was a convincing grin. “You shouldn’t tell someone they smell.”

“You know what I mean.”

He didn’t say anything. They approached the arena, and already the air inside the mountain was turning frenetic and wild. The Vilkas gathered for the trial let out a clamor of noise that echoed off the rock.

“These things can get loud,” Rayner called back to the group of Draqons, but his face was drawn and worried.

They followed him around the outskirts of the arena as he led them to a position of honor with the Alpha. Tane just wanted to lie down. He had no emotional investment in this Caj traitor everyone hated so much, but Kinyi wanted to see him dead, and the other in their group mirrored her bloodlust.

They took their seats in the Alpha’s section, where purple Arakid silk was draped about and the chairs were thickly cushioned. Tane expected servants to be bustling around, offering drinks—which he wouldn’t have turned down—but he saw none. At least none that stood out in their scraps of clothing he knew was the customary garb of the Vilkas’ lower class.

“I don’t think we’ve met.” Tane glanced up to see a tall, muscular young man with striking blue eyes and ashy hair standing beside a very pregnant human. “I’m Gerrit, and this is my mate, Jude. We’re grateful to have you. And thank you for taking down that Falconer today.”

Tane stood. He shook the man’s hand and nodded to his wife. “You’re the Alpha?”

Gerrit dipped his chin. “So they tell me.”

He didn’t smile at the joke. His face looked just as wan as his Beta’s had.

“Sorry about your brother,” Tane offered, his voice soft.

A beat of surprise flickered across Gerrit’s face. He clearly wasn’t used to people saying those words when it came to Caj, but Tane understood the weight of past wrongs.

“Thank you.” Gerrit nodded again, and his mate smiled sadly at Tane before they took their seats by the front of the section.

Rayner called the crowd to attention, but his voice droned on in the back of Tane’s mind. He should probably care more about the political goings-on within Kladian clans, but Kladuu hadn’t been his home for years, and though it felt familiar, it still wasn’t. Somehow, that grungy bar in Cyn City had become the place where he belonged.

He only wished he would live long enough to return.

Rayner turned the trial over to Gerrit, who ran down a list of Caj’s crimes. It was a long list. No wonder the Alpha had seemed so surprised when Tane had offered his condolences. When he finally finished, they brought the traitor out, and the crowd erupted.

Guards pulled a tall, willowy young man out through the side doors. His uniform was torn and bloodied, his blond hair dirty. But he grinned up at Gerrit, the expression wild. Even with a collar around his neck to stop him from shifting, he moved like a beast prowled just beneath his skin, ready to tear free at any moment.

But it was his eyes that unnerved Tane the most. He was staring at a man who had nothing to lose because he’d already lost it all. He stared up at Gerrit and never looked away, never even blinked.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself and your actions, Caj?” Gerrit called down to his younger brother.

A hush fell over the crowd. Everyone leaned forward in their seats, even Tane.

“I would have looked better standing up there than you, especially next to your delicious mate.”

Gerrit’s fists clenched at his sides. His mate, Jude, leaned in and whispered something in his ear, her hand on his back.

Gerrit took a deep breath before he said, “Father would have been so disappointed to see what you’ve become. You’ve brought war to Kladuu, but you stand there and mock me. You’re a disgrace to our kind. I sentence you to death.”

The crowd roared their approval. Tane’s gaze went from Caj, whose smile hadn’t faltered even upon hearing his fate, to Gerrit, who’d turned pale. He leaned closer to his mate as if he needed to absorb some of the strength that kept her spine so straight and her jaw so hard.

“Normally, the Vilkas would do an Omega Selection as their worst punishment,” Kinyi explained, her voice hot against his ear. She pressed closer against him. “But that didn’t go so well last time, I heard. And I think Caj used up any mercy the clan had left.”

The guards each took one of Caj’s arms. Another stood behind him and pushed him to his knees before the crowd, his back to Gerrit. When the glint of a blade appeared, Tane stood.

“What’s wrong?” Kinyi frowned up at him. “We’re just getting to the good part.”

He’d drawn the attention of the other Draqons, including Zayd and Niva, who watched him with steady eyes.

“I can’t watch this,” he said to Kinyi, voice quiet.

The crowd chanted, and the air thickened with feverish excitement. They wanted blood. They wanted death. The Draqons had always had a reputation for brutality because they used fire and acid to kill, but the Vilkas were truly the most brutal. They craved blood like a cynker craved rust-free metal.

It turned Tane’s stomach.

How easily could it have been him down in that pit with a blade to his throat and a crowd of Draqons chanting for his execution? If he’d returned to the hive after that battle, if his Queen had known the truth of his crimes, he could have been sentenced to death. It wasn’t a stretch. He was a murderer. A killer. Just like Caj.

He left the arena right as a blade sang through the air, connecting with a hollow thunk.

The crowd’s roar blossomed like blood across a white tunic.