When Kinyi woke, her mouth tasted like Skax shit.

Groaning, she rolled over and nearly toppled straight off the narrow cot. Even though she was squinting into the darkened room, her head pounded relentlessly. She felt like she’d taken a hard blow to the head, but she couldn’t remember fighting last night.

Actually, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember much at all about last night.

She sat up on the cot and put her head in her hands so she could hold her brain still enough to think. She remembered her ship. Fuck, her ship. Those little bastards. Just thinking of their grubby masks and tiny hands had her wanting to puke. After running them off and realizing she wasn’t going home anytime soon, she’d come back to the Ball & Joint with Tane.

“Oh,” she muttered, understanding now.

Whiskey was the cause of her current state. The human alcohol had tasted sweet and spread warmth through her belly. It had reminded her of the cider brewed at the hive, and the longing to go home had been so strong she’d had to keep drinking to dim the ache.

Home. She had no way to get there. They could need her right now. War could be tearing her hive apart, killing her people, decimating her planet. And she was stuck here. On Earth. With the very humans responsible for the destruction.

A whimper lodged in the back of her throat, threatening to escape. Her eyes burned. A tremble she couldn’t stop started in her fingertips. She clenched her fists, her teeth grinding so hard she heard her teeth chipping. A tear welled in the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She glared at the floor, shaking all over, and felt the traitorous drop of liquid quivering at the edge of her chin. It fell free, and she watched it splash against the dirty concrete at her feet.

“Fuck,” she hissed, hating her situation, hating herself, hating Tane, hating Zayd. Just hating.

Because hate felt good, and she needed to feel something good.

The rage burned a clear path through her hazy head. She might not have her ship, but she could find one. She couldn’t fly it, but she could get a comm back to the hive and have the Vilkas help her program a path back to Kladuu. She could do it. She wasn’t stranded. She wasn’t.

She surged to her feet, ready to tackle the problem. Dizziness overtook her, and she barely reached the wastebasket before she puked up every bit of the whiskey and food she’d had yesterday.

When she was empty and dry-heaving, she rocked back on her heels and wiped her mouth.

The office door opened as she was catching her breath. Chance took a step inside and instantly wrinkled his nose. “Ah, man. That sucks.”

“I’m okay,” Kinyi said, blinking to clear the white spots from her vision.

“No, I mean for me. My office will smell like vomit for days.”

She slowly stood, careful to ensure she wouldn’t fall in front of the cyborg. When she was certain she had her balance, she looked up at him and tried on her best glare. “In that case, you can clean it up. Where’s Tane?”

“Wrapping up the cuts.”

Kinyi gave a sharp nod and strode toward the door, hoping she looked more stable than she felt. As she went to pass Chance, he touched her arm.

She jerked to a stop, her gaze snaking toward him.

He pointed at her face. “You might want to take care of those before you go walking around out there.”

Frowning, she ran her fingers across her face. A hard edge bit into her skin, then the cool surface of a scale.

“Shit,” she hissed, feeling at least five more up the side of her face. She dropped her hand, her attention on Chance.

He held up his hands. “Look, we don’t ask questions around here. Tane has been a good boss and friend to me. I don’t take that lightly. If you’re with him, then I’m with you. There’s a mirror across the hall in the bathroom. You’ll find a med kit in there as well.”

Kinyi stared at him a moment longer, weighing his words. But he just returned her look, his expression unchanging. She didn’t want to trust him. Every part of her body screamed he was human. He was the enemy. But her eyes trailed down to his cybernetic arm, to the metallic joints and soft glow flowing through the metal. He’d been through some shit. The remnants of it had roughened his voice and deepened the lines around his mouth.

Perhaps, just this once, she could accept the help offered. Take the kindness.

She brought her eyes back to his and nodded. She couldn’t say the words to thank him, but he seemed to get it. A warrior’s understanding. She went around him and stepped into the hall with a quick glance both ways, and hurried into the small bathroom.

After locking the door behind her, she turned on the light, which was nothing more than a bare bulb wired into the wall above a narrow vanity and a chipped mirror that hadn’t seen a cleaning substance in years. She wrinkled her nose as she scanned the stained floors, the yellowed toilet, the overflowing trashcan. It smelled like good intentions came to this bathroom to die.

Males, she thought, are so disgusting.

She turned on the water and rinsed her mouth. She scrubbed her teeth with her finger until she couldn’t taste the sickness anymore. After that, she washed her face, letting the icy water blast away the last cobwebs in her mind. When she straightened and looked long and hard at her reflection, water streaming down her face, she noted the bloodshot eyes, the dark circles beneath them, and the crystal blue scales along the side of her face.

Aside from looking like complete shit, it was a reflection she recognized. Without her scales, she’d felt lost and off balance. But she felt better now. Steadier. So, it cramped her stomach to reach for the med kit and sort through the unorganized contents until she found a scalpel and tweezers. She readied a packet of gauze to clean up the blood. She knew from experience that when torn from the flesh, scales tended to leave deep wounds that could bleed for hours.

She raised the sharp, gleaming metal to her face, aligning it with the edge of the first scale. She’d cut deep enough to wedge the tweezers beneath the scale, then she’d tear it from her skin in one jerk.

It would be better than last time. Easier. Quicker. It wouldn’t hurt as much, she told herself.

It was a lie.

The door rattled behind her, and then there was a scraping noise. It swung open, and Tane stepped inside. He quickly closed the door behind him.

Kinyi swung around and looked up at him. “What the hell? I locked that!”

He held up a small metal device. “I have the key. What are you doing?”

The bathroom was far too small for both of them. She could barely breathe. His warrior’s scent took up all the extra space around her, stifling her, suffocating her with its strength. Something deep and primal in her belly tightened. He smelled right.

His eyes went from the knife in her hand to her face. The muscles along his jaw flexed. “Don’t do that.”

The anger in his voice pulled her from the train of thought his scent had sparked in her. “I have to. I can’t walk around with scales on my face.”

“It’s not right.”

Kinyi’s rage lashed like a whip. “Not right?” she growled. She closed the fractional space between them and glared up at Tane. “It’s not right? What about you? What about you being here when your people are up there fighting for their lives? Is that right? Is that okay?”

Her voice grew thicker as she spoke, and she felt that horrible, terrible, awful burning sensation in her eyes. But she would not cry in front of him. She would not.

“Kinyi—”

He reached for her, but she slapped his hand away. “You’re clearly not coming with me. I’ve already failed them enough. I have to get home. I have to help them. I have to.” Her cheeks were wet, and she tasted salt on her lips. “Maxsym obviously screwed up on the space station. Gideon is missing and likely on Kladuu. There are traitors on our planet, do you get that? He could be working with all the Hylas. And we need those relics. Kids are getting trapped in their second forms. Parents will lose their children without that medicine. And Gideon will take it all. The Hylas will sell it all. Don’t you see? We’re fucking dying, and you’re here. You’re not even trying to get home. And I’m stuck with you. I’m stuck and I can’t … I can’t … I just …” Her breathing hitched in her chest until she was panting and going dizzy from the lack of air. “I just … need to get home.”

Tane bundled her against him. Her face was crushed against his chest, and his scent enveloped her. But to be touched while she was losing it, while her breath tried to pry apart her ribs and tear through her skin, was too much. She wanted to yell and fight and punch something, but when she struggled against Tane’s hold, he only held her tighter.

He pressed his mouth against the top of her head, his breath warm. “Easy,” he murmured.

The rumble of his voice in his chest sent a shudder through her body.

“Easy.”

“I have to go,” she whispered against his chest.

“We’ll get you back.”

“But my ship—”

“Is just one ship. We’ll figure it out.”

He sounded so sure. So certain. “How?”

“It’s just going to take time—”

She tried to jerk away from him, but his hold was unrelenting. “I don’t have time!”

He ran his hand along her jaw and up her cheek, his fingers brushing her scales before tangling in her hair. He lifted her face so she was forced to look up at him. With his hold on her head, she couldn’t have looked away even if she’d wanted to. But what she saw in his eyes—the certainty and power and resolve—made it so she could have stared up at him forever.

“You’re going home,” he vowed.

She exhaled a long and steady breath, the tension unclenching inside her and releasing on the wave of air. “Okay,” she whispered.

Carefully, so gently she thought she was dreaming, Tane lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her with the softest brush of his lips. She trembled against him, and his arms tightened around her. She wrapped her hands around his thick neck, feeling the corded muscles of his neck and shoulders. His skin was smooth and velvety—the only soft thing about him. Just beneath his skin, she felt the hard muscles of his body, the tension in him, the strength. It hummed through him like an electrical current.

She arched up into his kiss, pressing every part of her body against him that she could. He moved away from her mouth to tenderly kiss her scales and the underside of her jaw, then continued down to her neck. Her breathing turned shallow, and it felt like her heart was beating directly under where his mouth touched her skin. He pulled back and stared at her.

His eyes were solid black. There was a hint of sulfur in the air.

“What happened in that battle?” she murmured.

A ripple rode through his body, and she pressed herself against the vanity. She knew the dangers of being nearby when a Draqon shifted, but she had no clue how dangerous it would be to be near a Draqon who’d lost his mind in his second form.

He held his breath, his body shaking even more. He squeezed his eyes closed. His lips moved quickly, murmuring something she couldn’t catch.

With a deep breath, she placed her hand on his chest. His shirt felt thin with wear, and his heart raced beneath her palm. Staring at the place where she touched him, she took another deep breath. And another and another until her relaxation moved down her arm and into her hand. She imagined she could breathe peace into him through her touch, that she could calm him with her thoughts.

When she met his eyes again, the violet irises were back and he’d stopped shaking. His breathing had steadied. He put his hand on top of hers as if he thought she might pull away.

The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind.

For a brief second, she felt him. She felt his wonder. His awe. His complete relaxation that hadn’t come from his body, but hers. Then the connection went dark.

“Was that a … a connection?”

“I don’t know,” she said just as quietly, as if they were doing something wrong.

Someone knocked on the door, and they both jumped.

“What?” Tane barked.

She pulled her hand back.

“You two need to see this,” Chance called from the other side.

“Give us five.” Tane turned his eyes back to Kinyi’s and then to her face. Her scales.

Her heart twisted. “What?”

His shoulders rose with a deep inhale. “I’ll help you.”

She was already shaking her head. “No.”

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

“I’m going to cry, and I don’t want you to see me cry.” The words were off her tongue before she could stop them.

He smiled softly at her. “Too late.” He brushed his fingers across her cheeks where her dried tears had left salty trails.

She turned her face into his wide, callused palm and kissed the skin there. “Okay,” she murmured against his hand.

He cupped her cheek and lowered his face for another quick kiss. “Okay,” he said against her mouth.

It took them longer than five minutes, and Kinyi did cry. But Tane’s hands were steady, and when he cut her, she held on to him and rode out the pain. He tore each scale from her face with deft strength, unwavering even when she whimpered. They went through six packets of gauze before the bleeding stopped. By then, she was pale and shaking, and he had to use his body to prop her up against the vanity.

He wrapped the torn scales in the bloody gauze like they were precious gems. Then he flushed them down the toilet and watched as they disappeared. His eyes were sad when he looked back at her.

“It shouldn’t bother you so much,” she said breathlessly.

“Why’s that?” he asked, but he sounded like he already knew the answer.

“If you really didn’t care about Kladuu, you wouldn’t care about my scales.”

He looked away from her, but his eyes caught on her bandaged face. “You’re a beautiful woman. I hate to see that face scarred.”

“It’s more than that, and you know it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t feel it here.” She laid her hand over his heart.

He picked up her hand and twined his fingers through hers. He didn’t respond as he opened the bathroom door and led her out. Together, hand in hand, they walked out to the main room.

On the mounted vidscreens above the bar, the news played. It showed the local military base filled to the brim with soldiers driving massive convoy trucks to a sprawling battleship that could carry thousands of soldiers and ships far into space.

On the ticker tape beneath the images, the same story repeated over and over. “Readying for war on a secret planet.”

“Thought you two should see this,” Chance said. He polished glasses beneath the screens and didn’t look up from his work.

Tane’s hand gripped Kinyi’s tighter, but she hardly noticed.

She watched the battleship, all the ships being loaded onto it, and the soldiers marching through the huge doors. It was the size of a small town.

“Kinyi, did you hear me?”

She blinked and turned to Tane. “What?”

Instead of repeating himself, he narrowed his eyes at her. She turned back to the news and the battleship. The huge vessel was no doubt on a direct path to Kladuu with thousands of soldiers and ships.

War was going to her planet. But it hadn’t left yet.

“Oh, hell no,” Tane growled.

She turned back to him and smiled.

She’d found her ride.