Imril’s vision blurred then sharpened as he dropped into a steep dive. The air rushed around him, becoming a deafening roar in his ears as he gained velocity.

It was as if he were staring down a dark tunnel, transfixed by the light at the end. All he could see was that mesmerizing vir, growing brighter and brighter, driving him completely mad as he swooped.

It was his for the taking.

At the very last moment, the creature turned and looked up, an expression of sheer horror crossing its face.

The strangest, most vivid green eyes stared back at him, widening in fear as he took a deep breath and extended his arms, preparing to grab his prize.

The Vradhu were running, their spears raised.

Blam! A blast of energy hit him in his chest, sending excruciating pain through his body, but it didn’t stop him. He was already in descent.

Imril drew on the last reserves of his strength and beat his wings. The creature tried to run, but Imril was already there, his wings whipping up a small vortex that sent small leaves and twigs flying into the air.

His feet hit the ground.

His hands closed around the creature’s waist and he inhaled its vir, absorbing just just a small taste as it radiated off the creature’s slender body.

Got you.

As tendrils of golden energy flowed into Imril’s body, he stiffened, his eyes rolling back into his head. For a brief moment, all he saw was her golden aura.

What is this?

He had never tasted vir this sweet in his entire life, and he had lived for a very long time.

Could it be…?

Powerful. Intoxicating. Dangerous… for the Source. It took all of his self-control to avoid completely draining the creature right then and there. With a single touch, he could so easily kill this fragile thing, and as hungry as he was, he knew that once he laid his hands on its bare skin, once he tapped into its vir directly, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

No, he needed to draw from it in a controlled manner, in a place where he could separate himself when he needed to, slowly, gradually, letting the Source build up its reserves between feedings.

It would take several feedings until he was back to full strength.

A soft gasp escaped the creature’s throat, and with great effort, he stayed his hand, disgust welling up inside him at his loss of control.

And he realized that his cock had gone hard, and that hadn’t happened in a very long time, and when it had, the reaction had never been as strong as this.

Control yourself. You need to get out of here first.

A strange choice lay before him. He could drain the creature completely—right here, right now—and make his escape, or he could take it with him.

A risk.

But what a reward if he pulled it off.

A vir-slave with energy so rich and potent it made him swoon. Just the tiniest taste, and he was already addicted.

Imril didn’t know how he did it, but somehow he held back from touching its light brown skin. Right now, he was so hungry for vir that he feared he might kill the creature if he fed outright.

No, he couldn’t feed here.

First, he—they—needed to get away.

He could do it without harming it. Just the tiny amount of energy he’d already taken was enough to give him the strength to get away. This creature… it was exceptional. He hadn’t tasted anything as powerful, ever.

Now all he needed to do was get them airborne…

He pulled the creature against him, and its strange clothing created the thinnest of barriers between them, preventing him from draining it completely. For that, he needed skin-to-skin contact.

Still, he inhaled what he could of its vir, reveling in the sheer purity of it as the golden energy surrounded him, giving him just enough strength to take to the skies once more.

But then the creature screamed, a shrill, piercing sound that savaged his sharp hearing. It fought, and for such a small, soft skinned being, it was surprisingly strong.

Thud!

Something pierced his calf, something sharp and heavy, sending a fresh bolt of agony through his body. His arms loosened, and the creature slipped out of his grasp.

How had he missed its approach? Clearly, he’d been far too distracted by his alluring catch.

Thud!

A body slammed into him with incredible force. He didn’t even have time to fold his wings properly before he was sent reeling, and it took all his strength to roll to one side and right himself. Grunting in pain, he spun and came face to face with a winged Vradhu.

Winged Vradhu? Impossible!

But there was no time to ask questions. Imril lunged to one side, narrowly avoiding a vicious war-spear that shot past his left cheek. The Vradhu attacked, whipping out its tail and extending its barb.

Imril growled as he danced away. Vradhu venom was bad news. “You dare attack me?” Drawing upon memories of a different time, when a Vradhu warrior wouldn’t dare attack a Drakhin at first sight, he spoke in fluent Vradhu. “Don’t you know me?”

“I know you, Imril,” the Vradhu grated as he sank the poisonous barb into Imril’s side. “Do not think you can take whatever you want just because you are the so-called Lightbringer. Things have changed since you disappeared.”

“Oof.” Well now, that was unexpected. This warrior was fearless; a real insolent bastard. Imril gasped and wrapped his hands around the Vradhu’s tail, trying to dislodge the barb. Blood seeped through his fingers; cold, sticky, cerulean-hued—his own. After sleeping for so long in Za’s smoldering belly, he was surprised that any blood flowed through his veins at all.

Hunters closed in on him from both sides as the vir-creature scrambled backward, a look of abject terror on its face.

Careful. In his weakened state, they could do him some serious damage. He had to shake them off before they realized how weak he really was.

Screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t.

He channelled his vir. Normally, it was a raging torrent, plentiful and easy to tap into, but now it had become a trickle, probably less than a thousandth of his full power.

And that was only what he’d taken from the alien.

Because he hadn’t fed for so very long. Because the Naaga servants that once supplied him with a continuous flow of vir were no longer there.

Because the last time he’d taken the vir of a Vradhu female, he’d endured the vicious scratches of her nails across his face when he’d spurned her advances.

Because before the war, everybody had wanted to seduce the Lightbringer, yet none of them pleased him.

“You should be more cautious, Vradhu.” He took a deep breath and summoned a small ball of vir, a desperate plan forming in his mind. “You are a thousand cycles too young to be taking me on, bastard.” With a grunt, he ripped the Vradhu’s tail-barb out of his side and quickly placed his hand over the wound. “Ugh.” He hissed in pain as he released a small burst of power, cauterizing the flesh. The burn would sequester the poison and stop it from spreading into his bloodstream, where it could quickly kill him. He would have to cut out the dead flesh later—before it turned septic and gave him blood poisoning—but first he had to get out of this mess.

He might be exceptionally long-lived, but he wasn’t invincible. Far from it.

Come on. He drew upon thousands of revolutions of ancient knowledge, turning the meager trickle of power into something terrible and potent.

Thank you, sweet little thing.

It would never know it, but the strange brown-skinned creature had just saved his life.

The air around him started to crackle, and he felt the familiar warmth of his power. The Vradhu shouted warnings to their tribesmen, telling them to get back and protect the women.

They knew what was coming. They knew what he was. Oh, they knew.

He dropped to his knees and touched the ground with his palms.

Boom!

Power radiated out from his hands, throwing the Vradhu back. The fearless one that had stung him received the full brunt of the blast, and the smell of charred flesh rose into the air.

They were fortunate he wasn’t at his full power, because he would have annihilated them all.

Imril hissed as the worst kind of agony shot through his side, adding to the pain from his metal burns. Somehow, he found the strength to rise to his feet, and he channeled the last shreds of his power into his legs, propelling himself toward the vir-creature, who had also been thrown to the ground.

Boom!

A blast of energy hit him in the side, something that felt similar to his own power.

He hissed as another alien ran forward, this one possessing pale skin and a braided tail of brown hair. It had a weapon in its hand; some sort of blast-device. The alien screamed at him as it prepared to fire again, but Imril staggered forward, grunting in pain, drawing on the last reserves of his strength until he reached his original target.

His attacker hesitated.

He reached down, fighting through the agony.

Got you.

The vir-creature shrieked, waving its slender claw-less hands, an expression of horror spreading across its face. It tried to scramble backward, but Imril was there before it had a chance to rise to its feet.

He grabbed it by the waist, and only the thin fabric of its tunic prevented him from touching its skin.

It screamed. The alien with the weapon screamed too, but didn’t dare fire, obviously not wanting to harm his captive.

Now he just needed to get airborne, out of range of the Vradhu war-spears. Once he was high enough, there was nothing they could do, and it wouldn’t matter how weak he was… as long as he had his prize. With a great roar, Imril spread his wings wide, beating faster and faster, generating a powerful gust of wind that threw the Vradhu back. Before they had a chance to react, he launched himself up into the clear violet sky, clutching his prize tightly.

The creature pummeled him in the chest with its small fists, kicking wildly, fighting him with every fiber of its being. A sharp elbow landed in his side where the Vradhu barb had stuck him, and Imril hissed in pain.

Still, he didn’t stop moving his wings. That he could do in his sleep. Flying was as natural to him as breathing.

Higher they went, higher and higher, until the Vradhu were small specks in the wild landscape below, powerless to do anything but stare up at Imril as he escaped with his catch.

And the higher they went, the less the brown-skinned alien fought. Perhaps it understood that one wrong move could make him let go, sending it plummeting to the ground below.

Still, it gave one last defiant kick as he broke through a bank of wispy clouds, and if he weren’t half-dead and exhausted, he might have summoned the energy to be irritated.

But how could he be annoyed when he was surrounded by the blissful, intoxicating cloud of its vir? Instead of growling, Imril wrapped his arms and legs around its body to stop it from flailing.

“Stop,” he whispered in his native Drakhin, and to his relief, the creature ceased.

If it had continued to fight, he would have been at risk of dropping it—he was that weak.

Instead, it froze in his arms, staring at the terrain below as the trees and waterways and undulating hills grew smaller and smaller.

Fear gave its vir a bitter tinge. Of course, it made sense that a land-dwelling creature would be so afraid of flying. Imril couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be wingless.

To be stripped of the ability to fly was a fate worse than death. Even when he was so weak he could barely walk, he could still fly.

For as long as he drew breath, he would fly.

They soared over mountain ranges and lakes and wide grass-plains, and all the while, Imril absorbed just the tiniest amount of its golden energy; the vir that naturally radiated from its body. Gradually, the creature relaxed, its limbs losing some of their stiffness as it became used to the sensation. With the cool wind rushing past his ears and the creature’s warm, slender body held tightly against him, Imril was almost lulled into a state of contentment.

But still, he was exhausted, and each wingbeat was getting harder and harder, reducing in amplitude as he tried to ignore the pain in his side. Perhaps a little of the Vradhu poison was working its way into his system.

Imril had no choice. Simply inhaling her vir wasn’t enough. He was going to have to tap into that glorious energy, and the only way to do that was to touch its bare skin. Careful. He was going to have to exercise the greatest amount of self control to avoid killing it.

Make it quick. Not too much.

He just needed to take enough strength to get out of the Ardu-Sai, away from Vradhu and the ever-present threat of the vicious, deadly kratok.

Now he recalled why the Drakhin hadn’t really bothered with this remote wilderness.

Kratok were a serious pain-in-the-ass, and if they encountered one right now, they were dead.

Slowly, he snaked one hand through the creature’s intricately knotted hair until he reached the elegant curve of its neck. Taking a deep breath, he extended his fingers and touched its bare skin for the very first time.

Boom.

What he felt beneath his fingertips blew his ancient mind.

This Source… so rich, so pure it almost terrified him. This kind of perfection should not exist.

“Sweet thing. Where did you come from?” he murmured as its vir flowed into him, filling him with euphoria… and power.

And then it struck him.

This incredible creature was female.

What species it was, he had no idea, but she was definitely not of this world.

Yes, even Imril the Lightbringer could still be surprised from time to time.

He absorbed her essence hungrily, desperately, forgetting self-control, not caring that she whimpered in horror, her cries growing weaker and weaker as he made her golden energy his own. He was a long way from being back to full strength, but as he tapped into her vir, his wingbeats became stronger, his flight smoother, his vision clearer.

He broke through a bank of thick white clouds, exulting in the feeling of pure freedom.

But like all things, the feeling was only temporary.

She grew limp in his arms, whimpering softly.

Shit.

He’d drained her almost to the point of unconsciousness, and the air up here was thinner, less oxygenated.

Stop.

He had to stop, but it was oh-so hard. She was a drug, this soft, sweet, otherworldly creature, and now that he’d had his first taste, he wondered if anything else would ever feel as good.

Don’t kill her, idiot!

He was on the edge now, dancing between salvation and the darkness of his cursed ancestry.