Niva hit the ice for the countless time that morning.

The impact reverberated through her sore body. She ached in delicious, deep places; the bruises of the night before were strewn across her skin like black and blue confetti. But eclipsing the thrilling, nearly euphoric memories from last night—she had felt Zayd so deeply inside her that she imagined she’d felt his breath on her bones—was the way he’d left her.

His stricken face as he’d backed away from her turned her blood cold. And the way he’d flung himself off the cliff… She’d leaped to her feet, dragging her clothes back against her body and clutching her breath as she’d stumbled over to the edge. Then he’d gusted back up in his Draqon form, great fire-hued wings thrusting against the air, sending gusts of wind and ice pricking her skin.

Part of her had thought he wouldn’t shift. She didn’t know why. Something in his eyes as he’d turned away from her right before jumping had spoken volumes about how much he hated himself in that moment.

Only when she’d seen him soaring through the air had she let out the breath she’d been holding.

A hand appeared in front of her face. Niva blew a lock of hair out of her eyes and peered up at Grace.

“Where are you this morning?” the older Draqon asked. “Because it’s certainly not here.”

“Sorry.” Niva grimaced, taking the woman’s hand and straightening carefully on the ice. “Long night.”

Grace arched an eyebrow. “So I smell.”

Niva nearly fell back on the ice. “What?”

“No offense, but you reek of Zayd. And the western ridge isn’t that far away. Sound carries up here.”

A furious heat worked its way up the back of her neck. Her tongue sat thick in her mouth. Were there no secrets in this place? She wasn’t even a part of the hive, and she still struggled to maintain any sort of privacy.

“Oh, I…” She coughed to clear her throat. Was the air thinner up here too? It felt thinner than at the Vilkas’ mountain.

Grace winked at her. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. Honestly, we were all happy to hear it. Although, you should know, Kinyi won’t be happy about you taking her place with him.”

Niva’s stomach turned oily. She’d thought perhaps there was something between Zayd and Kinyi, especially after the Skax incident, but to actually think about it threatened to make her sick. Clearly, Zayd wasn’t shy about bedding women, which axed her theory that Sotu’s memory had contributed to his hasty, panicked departure last night.

So, if it wasn’t Sotu, was it her? Was there something about her that just drove men away?

“Niva?”

She blinked, and Grace came back into focus. “Yeah. Yes. Sorry.” She took a shaky breath. “I mean, have they been, um, together long?”

“I wouldn’t call what they do being together,” Grace scoffed. “Don’t get me wrong, it took him a while after Sotu died, and Kinyi was there, ready and eager to warm his bed. Don’t worry about it, dear. You’re far better for him than Kinyi would ever be.”

After seeing his face last night and watching him fling himself off the cliff edge, Niva doubted that. But whatever the reason for his reaction, she was still worried. “Have you seen him this morning?”

“No.” Grace’s face wrinkled in thought, but the effect did nothing to lessen her ageless beauty. “I haven’t. That’s not odd though. For all his bluster about unmated males not shifting, he tends to shift and take off for long periods of time.”

“Why is it such a big deal? With the unmated males?”

Grace started moving across the ice again, and Niva followed without thinking. They parried and feigned in almost slow motion, moving with complete control, each flex of a muscle precise and efficient.

“It’s their minds. In their second form, there’s no filter between them and the other members of the hive. It’s a constant vibrating thread of energy. It can drive a male mad without a mate to concentrate the energy on.”

Niva’s worry doubled. To her, it sounded like a special sort of heaven to be constantly, inescapably connected to everyone around her. But for someone like Zayd, who’d been saved from madness by a mate, only to lose her? That had to be the worst kind of hell.

“Do you think he’s okay?” she asked, her voice warbling with fear. “Has he been gone this long before?”

“Don’t worry. He can take care of himself. He’s stronger than the other males at staying in control.”

Niva bit her lip. After last night, she wasn’t so certain. He’d hardly looked in control. But who was she to question someone’s sanity? As much as she wanted it, she wasn’t part of this hive. These weren’t her people. And most importantly, Zayd wasn’t hers to worry about. He wasn’t any of her concern.

For the rest of her training session with Grace, she held her tongue and shoved down her worries. Zayd had been fine for years before she knew him, and he would be fine now. She hadn’t broken him last night. It wasn’t her fault he’d run from her, horrified. To assume anything more would be vain.

He was fine, she told herself. He was fine.

The midday meal came and went without a glimpse of him. She went about her work helping prepare the evening meal with a feverish focus to keep her thoughts from wondering, but more times than not, she caught herself staring up at the sky, waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Where was he?

By early afternoon, she couldn’t pretend to work anymore. She went in search of Maxsym. If anyone would know where Zayd was, it would be his best friend and Swarm Master.

It didn’t take her long to find him. She may not be as connected to the movements of the hive as a Draqon, but she already knew Maxsym well enough to know he’d be at the center of the hive, in the midst of the people, holding court like a prince.

He sat in the centermost and deepest spring with a throng of people surrounding him, reclining against the toned, tanned legs of a beautiful female Draqon with auburn hair and violet eyes.

Everyone looked up and went quiet as Niva approached.

She cleared her throat. All eyes were on her. The air was most certainly thinner up here. “I’m worr—” She bit off the word. Who was she to be worried about him? Instead, she asked, “Has anyone seen Zayd?”

Of course, as the words left her mouth, she recalled Grace explaining that the entire hive knew exactly what had happened last night between them.

Her blush returned, and if she could have summoned the mountain to open beneath her and gobble her up, she would have. Better to die boiled in lava than from the current blush heating up her face.

When Maxsym turned his crooked, devilish smirk on her, his light-colored eyes gleamed. “Zayd? No, can’t say I’ve seen him lately. Figured after last night you would be the one seeing the most of him.”

The harem of women around him chittered with laughter. The one whose legs he laid against stroked a hand down his muscled chest, her eyes locked on Niva’s.

Niva held her ground and gritted her teeth before speaking. “Can I speak to you privately?”

She doubted he had ever done anything private in his life, but shocking her completely, his expression softened, and, with a nod, he stood, completely nude. He preened in front of her for a moment until she rolled her eyes.

After Maxsym put on a pair of dry leathers, they drifted a safe distance away from the Draqons’ capable hearing.

“You look worried,” he said when they stopped beside a bridge. A glimmer returned to his eyes. “Did Zayd not—”

“I’m asking if you’ve seen him this morning,” she said, nearly growling. “He shifted and vanished last night. I’m worried. He wasn’t…” She steeled herself. Maxsym needed to know. He was Zayd’s best friend. “He wasn’t okay. Something was wrong.”

Maxsym’s expression instantly changed, like a slip of ice falling from a mountain peak to reveal a swath of pale, virgin snow beneath. “What do you mean he vanished? You haven’t seen him since?”

She shook her head. “Something happened. He should be back by now.”

“Fuck,” he growled. His scales rippled beneath the sunlight, prickling and spiking like a dog’s fur before a fight. “When will that bastard ever stop punishing himself?”

“What is he punishing himself for?”

“Sotu’s death. He blames himself. But it was a fucking accident. Could have happened to anyone.”

Before she could ask more questions, Maxsym strode back to the group. Even though they hadn’t heard the exchange, the other Draqons reacted to his tension as he approached. Barely slowing, he instructed, “Get the battle pairs. I want to be in the air in—”

A high-pitched keen echoed down the mountain pass. A warning call—Niva knew enough about the Draqons to recognize that sound by now. It meant nothing good. And she instantly knew it was from Zayd.

Apparently, so did everyone else. Some shifted and flew, while others ran. As Maxsym raced by, still in his two-legged form, he grabbed Niva’s arm and hauled her along after him.

A slash of pain slivered across her belly, taking her breath away.

A crowd gathered around the central springs. The steam hung heavy in the air, thick and foggy. Wings rustled, and the scraping of scales hissed, echoing in Niva’s ears. The keen came again, right above her and crashing faster with every second, but the mist was too dense to see clearly.

Something struck her back, sharp and pointed. Deep. She reached around but found nothing there, but the sensation intensified under her flesh the louder the beating wings became.

The other Draqons surrounded her, their bodies appearing through the fog. Everyone looked up.

As Niva turned her attention skyward, she caught a flash of red and orange. Maxsym had just enough time to jerk her out of the way.

Then Zayd hit the ground.

Hard enough to crack the mountain’s rock.

Hard enough to rattle her bones.

To shake her soul loose with a gasp of pain, a hollow echo she felt deep within her body.

The pain. Bright across her vision. Slashes. Bright red.

She staggered and nearly fell to her knees as Zayd shifted in a heap of scales and fire.

Maxsym was the only thing keeping her standing, and that was by sheer force as he nearly dislocated her shoulder.

Blood pooled beneath Zayd. For a beat, no one moved. Then everyone did at once.

They surged toward him the way blood pumped back through a body’s veins to its center, its heart. Maxsym, dragging Niva behind him, pushed through, shouldering past the whimpering Draqons.

In the center, Zayd staggered to his feet, his glorious body naked but covered in blood and seeping wounds. Niva felt each wound etched into her own flesh.

His pain, in that moment, was hers.

It was like he was inside her again. Like she was on his back again. Like they were one body.

He lifted his head. Silver-blonde hair streaked with red fell over his scarred face, and his smoke-colored eyes locked on hers.

He knew it too.

He felt her too.

“Zayd,” she whispered.

The word cut through all else, and he recoiled from her like she’d struck him. He straightened to his full height and snarled, sending his people scattering away from him. Only she and Maxsym stayed close.

“What happened—” Maxsym started.

“Get the Vilkan Alpha on the comms. I caught the Hylas in the unsettled region—with guns.”

Zayd’s words landed like cracks of a whip. Even Maxsym stood a little straighter.

Niva breathed through her nose to keep from panicking. She could smell the blood. Zayd’s blood. It was sweet in the air, thick in her nose, hot at the back of her throat. She felt his hands on her from last night, her body stretching around him, and she blinked and saw him in front of her, staring at her, bloodied and battered. A circle was engraved in his shoulder, sinking to the sinew beneath. A bullet hole. “You were shot.”

“The Hylas have guns?” Maxsym ignored the obvious fact that, yes, clearly the Hylas had guns—they’d shot Zayd with them. “How? They have the tech ban.”

“Does it look like I fucking know?” Zayd spat. “We have to warn the Vilkas. I chased the snakes off, but they were heading straight for the Vilkan mountain.”

Niva’s stomach dropped. Vera. The baby.

But Zayd. “You need stitches,” she said. “The wound is still bleeding and will get infected if we don’t get the bullet out of there.”

Finally, Maxsym looked at his friend’s shoulder, but Zayd only glared at her as if she’d shot him.

Perhaps she had. It was her fault he’d flown out there and straight into a Hylan hunting party.

He stalked past her, muscles flexing, blood dripping down his legs.

Niva stared after him, her mouth hanging open.

Maxsym followed, giving her arm a slight brush before whispering, “I’ll see that he gets treated. He’ll be okay.”

And then they were gone, the other Draqons rushing away to fortify the perimeter, and Niva was left in the spring’s mist, alone.