Uthman rushed into the room hours later. Surah took one look at his tight face and agitated wings and knew.

“Malin found you so quickly?” Her brow rose. “Please tell me you had a Plan B.”

He strode forward and backhanded her. Surah didn’t fight the blow. She needed him to take her out of this room, needed to get to where there was space to maneuver, and if he was pissed off he wouldn’t be thinking clearly. Uthman was a terrible fighter when his temper was riled–or when he was excited. In melees, his plans were rushed due to his push to get to the goal. She knew from listening to Malin and Nikolau discuss training exercises she’d been excluded from. And recalled how acerbic Malin’s tongue could be. He’d mellowed over the last ten years.

He probably wasn’t feeling too mellow right now.

Surah smiled, ignoring the swollen heat in her lip. Uthman grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the room. “Try anything,” he hissed, “And I’ll disembowel you with my claws. I don’t need you for anything but a hostage anymore.”

So his plans, such as they were, were unraveling. If Malin was approaching and Uthman’s only option was evacuation, then he’d thrown all his dice in a turn that had failed.

“Poor Uthman,” she murmured.

“What?” he snapped, and shook her.

She was getting tired of being manhandled. Surah took a deep breath, exhaled. Patience. Wait until the best time to use her wit, speed and whatever weapons were at hand to make her escape. The narrow hall wasn’t an option–there wasn’t even a picture on the walls she could lunge for and shatter in order to use the glass as a blade–which would be stupid anyway, without something to wrap around her hand to avoid slitting her own palms. The best revenged was patience–Uthman was a dead man.

They emerged from the hall into a mudroom. She realized that this was a ranch style home–unusual for gargoyles who preferred height. But Uthman was on a poor branch of the Mogren family. Unless he’d brought her to a safe house or barracks for human staff. That made more sense. The door to the mudroom opened into a garage with several vehicles, both ground and aerial. She heard the loud thuds of feet hitting the roof and knew gargoyles were landing.

“You're more fucking trouble than you're worth,” Uthman snarled. “Always causing fucking issues.”

“Excuse me–I didn’t tell you to kidnap me. If you're stupid enough to get involved in Lavinia's schemes while she's all snug in a jail cell—”

He turned on her. Surah dove, rolled and continued to play whack a mole. She inhaled and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Malin!”

It was undignified–but she remembered very well one of Kausar's lessons to her when she'd been young, after just getting her face beat into the mud during a spar.

“You don’t have the luxury of fighting honorably, Princess,” he'd said. “Or being worried about looking graceful. You’re shorter, weaker and you can't fly. Do what you have to do to survive in a fight–even if you have to grovel at an enemy’s feet to buy yourself a few minutes to think or wait on allies.”

She'd protested. “But—”

Kausar fixed her with a gimlet eye. “What is more important? Your life or your dignity? Your dignity is gone if you're dead, girl.”

True that.

So decades later, she had no compunction against screaming her head off like a toddler if it would get her allies to her quickly. Her one goal narrowed in on not letting Uthman get her into a transport. She was lucky Malin had found her so quickly–and that luck was likely due to Uthman's impatience to get to ground and get them married.

She shuddered, dodging another swipe as clawed hands tried to catch her, rolling underneath a sedan and flattening herself on the cold cement floor. Married. She had a husband. Malin would be so pissed.

A loud boom sounded on the garage door, followed rapidly by another then another. “In here!” she shouted.

Uthman cursed, his boots disappearing across the room. She shimmied to the edge of the car in time to see the garage ceiling peeling away. Surah stared in disbelief. What a moron. Was this really the best Lavinia could come up with at the last moment?

He took off and she scrambled out from under the car, looking up to see him gain height rapidly. The thumping on the garage door stopped and there was snarl and shout as a guttural voice issued an order. A moment later the shadows of several pursing gargoyles followed Uthman into the night.

She trotted to the wall panel where the controls to the garage were and pressed another button randomly. Lights flooded the area and she winced, eyes far more comfortable with the natural darkness. The surussh of wings warned her and she turned, looking up as Malin landed with a hard thud, several hairline cracks appearing at the edge of his boots. He was in full gargoyle form, a tall, heavy beast with tangled skeins of dark hair streaming over massive shoulders, eyes red with rage.

“Surah,” he said.

She crossed her arms, cocking her hip. “You're late. I'm a married woman now.” She probably shouldn’t have teased him, but she tended to default to really tasteless humor when stressed.

“What did you say?”

She hadn’t thought it possible, but his shoulders swelled even more. “Uh….”

“Come here.”

She wouldn’t dare toy with him when he used that tone. The tone of a man barely hanging onto sanity. Surah approached, walking casually at first then ending in a flat out run as she threw herself into his arms.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “No one hurt me. No one touched me.”

She repeated the words over and over again until she felt some of the tension leave him. He lifted her into his arms and took off. Surah clenched her teeth against the knowledge of the kind of energy and strength he had to expend to complete a vertical takeoff in dead air with the added weight of another person. All gargoyles used a touch of magic to fly...but just a touch. Either his rage was fueling him or the serum was working overtime. Either way, she knew once he came down from the high, he'd pay for it for days.

He didn’t fly far. Once they’d cleared the house by a mile he set back down, gargoyles–some she recognized, some she didn’t–landing around him in a scatter pattern, far enough away to give them privacy. A few hovered in the night sky, aerial scouts. Everyone had a blade in their hand.

“I don’t like being the damsel in distress,” Surah said in his ear. “It’s humiliating.”

Malin glanced down at her. “You are their Princess, and mother to the next ruling Prince. It’s their honor to fight for you.”

“I’m half-human.”

“No one cares but you, Surah.” He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “Those who claim you are unfit are jealous of your brilliance, beauty, and power.” His brows drew down in a scowl. “Why do you think members of the court scorn you? Because they know they could never match you.”

He was sweet. Surah filed his words away to take out and dust off when she was feeling down, but took them with a grain of salt. He loved her, so of course he would see it that way. She was more practical.

Uthman was dragged out of the sky several moments later, escorted back by the pair Malin had dispatched to retrieve him. She squinted until she recognized Kausar and Nikolau. They held him by either arm, throwing him to the ground at Malin's feet once they were a man's height from landing. Surah didn’t feel sorry for Uthman, but the contempt of throwing a fellow gargoyle into the dirt like trash...stung.

“Get up,” Malin said, voice chilly.

Uthman rose to his feet, a sneer on his face. “You touch what doesn’t belong to you. She is my wife.”

Niko crossed his arms, looking bored as Kausar simply stood, impassive.

Malin laughed. “She will be your widow. Because you didn’t rape her, I'll grant you a warrior’s death. Give him back his blade.”

Kausar handed Uthman the sword, hilt first, then he and Niko backed away, giving Malin and Uthman space.

Malin ran a hand down her hair. “Join our teacher, my love. It's time for me to play.”

Surah joined the pair, though reluctantly. Her phantom claws ached, hand clenching as if there was a sword at her side. If she'd been armed, she might have pushed Malin aside. She glanced at Niko, eyeing the weapon he held.

“I don't suppose.…”

He glanced at her. “No. This isn’t a training exercise.”

She sucked in a breath. “I can fight just as well as—”

Kausar touched her shoulder. “Allow our Prince the honor of avenging you and your child, Princess.”

“He'll be hell to live with for the next month,” she said with a sigh.

“You chose to mate a warrior,” Niko said. “This is what you get. Women. Always whining. If he didn’t defend you, you would accuse him of not caring. But when he—”

“What do you know about it? When's the last time you—”

“Garlings,” Kausar said. “Pay attention or I'll see you both on the training field tomorrow evening.”

She shut her mouth. When the former weapons master used that tone of voice, not a single warrior he trained did anything but shut up. Immediately.

The moon flashed on steel, reflecting light with a jewel like intensity. Both warriors closed their wings tight to their bodies, circling each other with the calculated bloodlust of professional killers.

Malin's blade sang, cutting through the air as he feigned. Uthman moved aside, countering with a bright clang of metal. The first few steps in the dance were exploratory, and then Malin attacked.

Watching him fight was like watching the composition of a song. He flowed as if his old strength and grace had never left him. Uthman's eyes widened slightly, an unforgivable lazy tell. But no one had expected Malin to fight so well, not when he'd moved like a middle-aged human for the last several years.

“You've cured him,” Niko said in a hushed voice.

“No. But...I think we're close.”

“I didn’t believe you could do it.” Nikolau stared at Malin with disbelief, then turned and looked at Surah, face intent. "If you can cure the Ioveanu's, every gargoyle will honor your name.”

Surah ignored him, a little shaken by the open astonishment in his face. What did he think she'd spent years training as a scientist for? But soon her attention refocused on the fight. The males launched into the air, abandoning ground for flight like true gargoyle warriors. Uthman was no match for Malin. He'd always been an emotional, sloppy student. Which was why Lavinia had been able to use him–he didn’t think, and he was expendable. Which meant sacrificing him on a feint like this wouldn’t hurt her real plans.

“Is Lavinia still secure?” she asked Kausar.

He nodded curtly. “Geza is interrogating her security detail himself, or he would be here.”

She grimaced. She knew what her younger brother was capable of, and even though sometimes his treatment of her was piss poor, he would eviscerate anyone else who thought to usurp that privilege. Brothers.

She continued to watch the fight, feeling her cheeks pale. “He's playing with him.”

Uthman's defense was becoming increasingly erratic, no doubt fueled by desperation. Grim amusement on Malin's face, and a set to his shoulders proclaimed he was fully in control. The warriors all looked on, varying degrees of satisfaction on their faces. Her heart sank. This was likely the core of the faction to oust Geza. And now they had even more justification. If their former Prince was now fully healed and hale, why suffer the younger, wilder brother on the throne?

“Malin, end it,” she said, hands in fists. Not that she objected to the violence, but toying with a man who knew he was about to die was cruel. And a side of her mate she didn’t want to see. She placed a hand over her abdomen and the tiny spark of life cradled inside. She hadn’t even booked an appointment with an obstetrician yet. Everything had happened so fast the last several days–weeks.

Malin's sword flicked, and blood burst into the air, a brilliant red against the backdrop of the night. She didn't know how humans saw colors at night–but she'd learned over the years that it wasn’t the way gargoyles experienced colors.

Uthman gargled, blade falling to the ground as his wings crumpled.