Kinyi stuck to the shadows, which wasn’t hard.

The city was made entirely of shadows. Hidden alleys and roads that suddenly dead-ended created a labyrinthine mecca of bars, strip clubs, burger joints, and cynker parts shops. Even though she knew the sun had already risen, the upper city, where the upper-crust elite dwelled, blocked the light from trickling down into the lower city, the one sinking into the ground as the ocean slowly swallowed it.

The rich lived on the backs of the poor, and it disgusted her. As a member of a hive, she was accustomed to resources being shared and advantages being given to those who most needed them, not to those who kept others down. Equality and collective good were the driving principles she’d grown up with. This place was the opposite, a cesspool of degradation and oppression.

Her steps were nearly silent on the cobblestone road. She kept her hands in her pockets, her head bowed, and her scent downwind. Ahead of her, Tane walked home. His trench coat twisted at his calves, his stride naturally long and purposeful. His shoulders were relaxed, his breathing deep and even. He was perfectly comfortable on these gritty streets, stepping through a mass of gritty people. He dipped his chin at the homeless and dumped handfuls of credits into their bent metal cups. Vendors called out to him as he passed, and he waved back, stopping only twice to buy a thermos of coffee and a sandwich made of animal fat and gooey cheese. He ate and drank as he walked, and Kinyi smelled his contentedness even from thirty paces behind him.

A hollow ache built in her stomach the farther they walked. When Zayd had challenged her with this assignment, she’d assumed she’d bring the White Horn home. Failure had never been part of her vocabulary. But watching Tane, it dawned on her that she might not be able to convince him. Kladuu wasn’t his home anymore. Why the hell would he care what happened to it?

Lost in her thoughts for longer than she’d realized, she glanced around, searching for Tane’s dark coat and worn boots. They’d passed the street vendors and come to a quiet stretch of road. He should have been ahead of her at the next corner.

But he wasn’t there.

Kinyi stopped and looked behind her. His scent had faded from the air, and all she smelled now was Cyn City’s perfume of mold and decay.

She’d lost him. Like some adolescent male bumbling about in the sky, she hadn’t been paying attention, and she’d lost her prey.

“Son of a bitch,” she hissed, fisting her hands. She wanted to punch something. Hard.

She turned to slam her hand against a nearby brick wall.

Two violet eyes stared back at her from the dark alley’s entrance. A pair of hands reached out and jerked her into the darkness.

Her body was swung through the air, and she grunted, fumbling to find some purchase to mount a defense. She hit the alley wall hard and bit her tongue. Her body, already bruised and battered from the fight, screeched in protest. A heavy, solid, immovable weight settled against her hips and thighs, pinning her to the wall. One callused hand bound her wrists above her head.

She twisted and fought, but she wasn’t going anywhere. With a growl building in her throat, she went still and stared up at him.

“What the fuck, White Horn?” she spat.

“You were following me.” His violet eyes blinked down at her, completely unperturbed by her efforts to free herself from his grasp. It didn’t look like it cost him any effort at all to restrain her.

“No shit.”

“Why were you following me?”

She threw her weight into a hip twist but barely moved an inch off the cold, wet wall behind her.

Tane didn’t even budge at her effort.

She sighed. “Because we need to talk.”

“We’ve already talked. And I told you to fuck”—he leaned in close, bringing his mouth within in an inch of hers—“off.”

No one had ever spoken to her that way and lived. Especially not with such promised violence contained in the rough, rumbling quality of their voice. It made her heart buck, and beneath the thin material of her dress, her nipples hardened against his chest. Without a conscious thought, she arched into him. Her nerve endings sang with dizzying force at the contact. His scent curled around her cellular membranes and rooted itself firmly in her mind forever.

His nostrils flared, no doubt smelling her arousal.

She smirked up at him, waiting for him to kiss her.

But he only smirked back. He wasn’t even hard. And normally, just the smell of her desire drove unmated males into a frenzy.

She frowned.

“Don’t pout,” he said, still grinning. He was mocking her. “It’ll give you wrinkles.”

“I don’t pout, and I do not have wrinkles.” She threw her strength into ripping her hands away from his single-handed hold. She tried to bring a knee up to smash his stupid, stoic balls, but she hardly even moved. Huffing, she sagged back against the wall.

Her dress had ridden up her thighs, revealing a peak of the black lace underwear. If Tane noticed, he didn’t show it. The bastard.

“It looked like you were pouting.”

Abruptly, he released her. She stumbled and nearly fell into a puddle. Of course, Tane didn’t move to catch her. He would have let her fall into the scummy water and laughed.

Fire and acid sang in her blood. As a female Draqon, she couldn’t shift, not even partially, but she felt it. She felt her Draqon spitting and hissing fire inside her. Claws pressed up beneath her nails. She wanted to eviscerate this cocky asshole.

“We’re going to talk about Kladuu whether you want to or not. Commander Gideon’s forces attacked us. Blew the hive to pieces. Killed nearly thirty Draqons. Sparklings. Females. And he’s no doubt coming back. He’ll take the planet and pillage it for every relic he can find. There won’t be anything left. There won’t be any of us left.”

Tane rocked back on his heels and settled his hands into his coat pockets. “Sounds like a real pickle.”

Kinyi rubbed her aching wrists. She would have even more bruises now. “First of all, stop using stupid human phrases. It makes you sound like an inbred Hyla. Second, we need your help. What aren’t you getting about that? Zayd and your queen sent me here to find you—”

“I have no Queen.” His eyes sparked, threatening to turn completely black. “And I already told you that if you and your people knew what really happened that day, you wouldn’t want my help. There’s a reason no one knows the truth besides me. They’re all dead.”

Something slimy coiled in Kinyi’s belly. He was right. No one actually knew what had happened during that battle with the Arakids far out in the southern reach of the mountains where they bordered the vast desert lands. The fight’s remnants had been nothing but charred mountainside. There hadn’t even been bones to collect aside from a few castaway Arakid legs left to rot in the sun.

But the battle had ended the war with the Arakids. After that, they’d surrendered their claim on the southern mountains and retreated back to the desert. It had been a victory, even though so many mated pairs and warriors had been lost. The tale was that the White Horn had been the last one left, and he’d single-handedly taken on the vast Arakid army.

He was the reason the Arakids’ numbers were so low. Why they guarded their young like precious jewels. He’d almost wiped out an entire species on Kladuu. He’d ended the war.

But what if he hadn’t? The thought wormed into Kinyi’s mind, and she couldn’t shake it. What had really happened out there on that burnt mountain?

“You don’t need me,” Tane said, pulling her back to the present. He stepped back, watching her as if he knew where her thoughts had gone. “You don’t want me up there fighting. Trust me.”

He started to walk away, but Kinyi stepped in front of him, blocking the alley’s entrance. She was cornering a bull. “Is it your madness that scares you? Is that why you’re down here? You’re not the first. Males go mad. We deal with it—”

“Don’t,” he snarled. There was plenty of space between them, but Kinyi felt as if he’d reached out and grabbed her throat, cutting off her air with a single word. “Don’t speak to me like I left because I was simply afraid. I did not leave because I was weak or ashamed or scared. It’s easy for you to be righteous, but you’ve never felt your mind turn against you. Your body turn against you. You’ve never known true madness, and you never will, no matter how many times you see it happen to a male. There’s a reason they turn into shells of their former selves. There’s a good fucking reason, and I didn’t want that to be me. I left, Kinyi, and I’m not going back.”

He started toward her, and this time, she stepped aside, letting him pass. He walked out into the faint lighting of the street, his shoulders hunched beneath his jacket, his dark skin gleaming in the few rays of sunlight.

“They’re going to die,” Kinyi said quietly after him.

He paused but didn’t turn back.

“The humans will take everything, but before they do, they’ll have to kill us all, because Zayd won’t surrender. The Vilkas’ Alpha won’t surrender. The Katu won’t either. We’re ready to fight together. For the first time, we’re united as Kladians, and no one is willing to back down.”

He glanced back, his violet eyes finding hers.

She lifted a shoulder. “So, we’re all going to die.”

For a second, his eyes glimmered, and she knew he was thinking of home—his true home. She imagined he was transported back to the mountains and the cool air, the steam of the springs, and the laughter of the hive. Perhaps, deep inside him, he felt the residual hum of the others’ minds in his. Of course, she couldn’t know for sure, and in the next moment, he blinked the look away.

Her hope died with it.

“I can’t help you, Kinyi,” he said, turning back to the street. “Don’t follow me again. This is your last warning.”