Dragon watched the array of emotions playing on Jade’s face, and wanted nothing else but for Valerian to disappear. He knew that if he took her in his arms now, she would let him. And her arms would rise of their own volition and her long fingers would hook at the nape of his neck. Her body would press against his when he leaned away, because she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He saw how her eyes softened when the fight left her. Desire pulsated in her obsidian gaze, a yearning he needed to stoke and guide.

“This is a mistake,” Valerian reminded him.

His friend was right. Freeing an assassin was as idiotic as it was kissing her and letting his imagination run wild with all the positions he could have her in. The countless ways he could mold her slender body under his—

But would his beautiful mercenary betray him at the first occasion?

He had never thought himself prone to gambling, yet the woman on the bed pushed him to embrace a wilder, darker side where he bet on his life without a second thought.

His hand trailed away from her ankle, and he was pleased by the fleeting look of disappointment that passed across her face.

Dragon pushed himself off the bed and looked down at her. “Your replacement is coming. Are you ready?”

Jade tilted her chin to meet his gaze before nodding. She straightened on the mattress and stretched her limbs and neck. One moment later, she unfurled. Her long, lithe limbs moved with the grace of a ballerina, and the precision of a martial artist. She never lost eye contact as she slowly stood in front of him. Like one of the mountain phoenix-panthers that proliferated in the crevices of the northern regions, his assassin was beautiful and lethal. One could never master those proud creatures, but they sometimes lived for a time with the few elected humans they chose not to kill.

Would she choose Dragon?

From the terrace, Contessa and Carellian flapped their wings and roared, alarming Dragon. A third winged creature shadowed the draglets. Valerian unsheathed his scimitar, while Dragon reached for the holster and grabbed his dagger.

Dragon’s first thought was to shield Jade from danger, then he caught a sideway glimpse of her and remembered she was an assassin.

She stood at the ready, her body taut and her face a determined mask. Pure energy emanated from her body. His admiration for her grew. She might be planning how to kill him, but he still couldn’t bring himself to send her out to her demise. Insanity possessed him, and he didn’t mind if the result of his lack of judgment was that they would end up in a tangle of limbs later in the night.

With a violent war roar, Valerian burst onto the terrace as the draglets fought the intruder.

Dragon spared a moment to give his mercenary one last look, and she regaled him with a naked, unguarded small smile that lit her face.

No matter what happened tonight, Jade would be the end of him.

Dragon ran outside, his own war cries tearing through the nocturnal air as he charged the assassin flapping his clockwork wings at the edge of the terrace.

The draglets shrieked and bellowed when flashes of orange and blue colored the sky. The large bulge of the mercenary silhouetted against the backdrop. The Academy had sent a man this time. A heavily armed mercenary who didn’t have any moral restraint when it came to hurting animals.

Silent as the predators he had compared her to, Jade slid to his side. Her body tightened when the winged man’s face came into view.

“Do you know him?” he asked.

“Antoine—” She dipped her head in the slightest of nods. “His weapon of choice is firearms. His right side is his weakness,” she answered his implicit question. “And flying is his strength.”

“Hear that?” Dragon called to Valerian, who was engaging the mercenary and shielding the draglets from another firearm blast.

Valerian’s head swiveled toward Dragon, confirming that his shifter ears had caught Jade’s words. He immediately lunged forward, forcing the man to expose his right side, but his wing shielded his flank and caught the hit.

Dragon joined the fray, slashing his dagger at the membranous fabric of the mechanical wing, aiming for the clockwork cartilage that whirred with every powerful stroke.

A subtle whoosh of air ruffled Dragon’s mane when Jade ran past him and jumped off the edge, propelling her legs forward. His arm automatically shot up, reaching for her, but it was too late. She had already landed on the mercenary, her limbs securing her hold as she circled her legs tightly around his waist and her hands around his throat. When the man pulled his wings higher, the two of them spiraled in a vicious fight.

Amidst the draglets’ cries and the frantic flapping of wings, Dragon held his arm out to stop Valerian’s scimitar from completing its descending arc and potentially hit Jade. His lieutenant stopped the blade a hairbreadth from severing Dragon’s wrist.

The assassin’s hands were at Jade’s throat, mirroring her stance. The man’s big fingers easily circled the base of her neck, pressing deeply into her flesh, reddening her skin as her face started changing color.

Dragon tried to reach for the man’s spinning wings with the intention of pulling him closer to the edge. Once on the terrace, he and Valerian would neutralize the assassin, but as long as he was in the air, there was nothing that could be done to stop him without hurting Jade in the process.

Valerian shot him an enraged look, brandishing his scimitar high.

Dragon shook his head. He wouldn’t risk Jade’s safety.

A heartbeat later, the decision was taken away from him. A shot, then a silver glimmer flashed in the night, followed by the acrid stench of gunpowder. For a moment, time froze, and Dragon locked eyes with Jade’s as she looked at him from behind the assassin. Her gaze held a note of regret before she blinked away moisture.

A second flash exploded, and both she and the assassin disappeared under the terrace’s edge when the clockwork wings plummeted down, toward the abyss below.