Niva approached Maxsym’s Draqon form and ran a hand along his green and purple scales. They trembled slightly in response, fluttering against his muscular body. He was smaller than Zayd, but no less impressive. The combination of blue, green, and purple scales reminded Niva of the extinct peacock bird, an animal known for the males having a striking display of feathers. It seemed like an apt comparison.

She climbed on his back, and Maxsym shifted to accommodate her weight. When she grabbed hold of the thicker scales on the back of his neck, the Draqon flapped his powerful wings and took off into the sky. As they ascended, Maxsym veered close to the cliff’s wall of jagged rock, closer than Niva was comfortable with.

Was Maxsym having some fun with her, scaring her with the danger of flying? She gripped tighter and forced herself to relax and move her body with him, rather than fight the sudden shifts in his trajectory.

His flight path evened out, and Maxsym’s Draqon calmed beneath her. Her hips softened with his controlled movements. They soared above the flatlands and swerved over to the western slopes. Despite the smoother ride, she felt none of the peace she’d felt with Zayd. Their flight had felt natural and easy, like they were part of the sky, floating between the sun’s rays. His scales had been loose, moving independently as she touched him and lifting off his back as if he was just as relaxed as she was.

Air blasted her face as she flew with Maxsym, forcing her to hunch close to his back and hold on tight for fear that the gusts might blow her right off. He seemed to be battling against the air itself, fighting against the natural movement instead of letting it carry him toward his goal.

Niva stroked his side as she had with Zayd to settle him or maybe reassure him, but at the contact, his entire body shuddered, and his scales seemed to retract slightly back into his body as if avoiding her touch.

He veered to the left, steering them away from the crevice at a wide angle like he’d lost all sense of direction. His wings flapped hard, pushing them high into the clouds, and then in the next moment, he fell limp, sending them plummeting toward the ground until Niva screamed and kicked him.

“Maxsym, land!” she shouted into the wind, kicking and smacking his sides, trying to get the out of control Draqon to bring them back to the ground where she could stand on her own two feet.

Maxsym roared, banking hard to the right to shake his passenger from his back.

Niva screamed and clung tighter, digging her small fingers between his individual scales. She dug her heels into his side and shouted into the wind. He couldn’t hear her. The air buffeting them was so deafening she could barely hear herself.

She couldn’t die up here. She wasn’t going to die up here. She’d just found peace with the life she’d started to make with the Draqons, with Zayd. If he truly could feel her, now would be a fabulous time for him to show up.

Maxsym dropped suddenly, and Niva lost her grip with one hand. The wind slammed into her side, throwing her off balance as she clamored to find a new handhold. The scales clung tightly together, like armor layered one on top of the next to keep out any attack. Prying her fingers between two scales, she realized Maxsym’s behavior was more like that of a wild animal, out of control and acting on instinct.

Maxsym nosedived toward the ground, and she flattened herself against his back, squeezing her thighs so she gripped him with arms, fingers, knees, and feet. Every part of her latched tight against him, becoming a second skin. As he dove, he rolled, taking her upside down and then flipping back to the side again.

The rush of adrenaline she felt wasn’t excitement; it was terror. The ride itself could have been exhilarating, but having no way to communicate with Maxsym as he barreled toward the western slopes made it an act of mere survival.

He jackknifed around a sharp corner and led them straight into a dark crevice where haksiba insects filled the air. He screeched, and the small creatures skittered away, flying high above them, some disappearing farther into the cracks of the rock wall.

Maxsym pulled his wings against his body and twirled toward the end of the crevice, forcing his large frame through what seemed like an impossibly narrow passageway.

Niva screamed as the ground scraped against her back and she was rolled over and over until she had no sense of up or down.

Maxsym landed on the ground once they’d entered a chamber on the other end, his chest heaving as he rested his body and head against the stone floor. The sky opened high above them through a series of small openings. With a growing sense of dread, Niva realized they were in a cave shaped like an upside-down funnel.

She jumped off and scrambled as far from Maxsym’s large body as she could. If he struck out at her with a taloned claw or one of his wings, he could easily throw her against the stone wall and shatter her bones.

Her body thrummed with fear, but when she saw Maxsym’s eyes, large and black with no whites to be found, her terror paled in comparison. He bared his teeth, and she could hear the intake of breath, signaling he was about to spit acid in her direction. She stepped back farther with her hands out and sidestepped into the more open space to his left.

“Maxsym, listen to me. Listen to my voice. It’s me, Niva. We’re friends.”

He stared at her blankly, his scaled hide shivering, and she longed to see his smirk. She would even take a wise-ass comment about how they could be more than friends or something else that would earn him a slap on the chest. The easygoing, confident man she’d come to consider part of her family was lost, and all that remained was a Draqon, afraid and confused.

After a beat, Maxsym’s eyes darted between the haksiba hanging thick and orange nearby and back to her. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And she could work with something if it meant pulling her friend back from this state of fear he’d lost himself in.

“Yes, you brought me here, remember? We came together. To get the haksiba. That was our plan. But now, if you could be in your first form, that would be really great.” Niva’s hands shook as she spoke, but she forced herself to take a tentative step forward. “You see, I’m not used to being around Draqons. I’ve seen many of you, but being up close, it’s still a little scary. Do you think, for me, you could transform back? That way we can gather the haksiba and go home.”

At the word home, Maxsym’s body trembled. He whirled away, his unwieldy tail careening behind him. He craned his head in all directions, searching the edges of the crevice as if he was confused as to how he’d gotten there. When his eyes landed back on Niva, prickles of icy fear ran up her spine, and she fought the instinct to recoil. There was so much hatred and suspicion in the way his reptilian eyes confronted her.

“You know where you are.” Niva kept speaking to him, moving as close as she dared until the confusion overtook him again and she had to dart out of the way. The panic seemed to dig deeper into his psyche the longer they were trapped in the crevice, but Niva had no way to put distance between them, even if she could have gotten around his massive body.

But she couldn’t stay in here with him much longer. It was like he both knew who he was and didn’t at the same time. Like he was still Maxsym, but he’d gotten lost in the maze of his second form’s mind.

Suddenly, her terror heightened, overtaking her, and her heart clenched with worry. Maxsym had to be okay. She didn’t know how she’d survive it if he wasn’t. She’d die. She’d lose herself in her hate and self-loathing. All along, she’d been right. She only hurt the ones she loved.

Wait.

No.

That wasn’t her.

She wanted Maxsym to be okay and cared about him, but the way she felt, desperate and terrified, those weren’t her feelings.

They were Zayd’s.

Niva looked up and spotted a familiar shimmer of red and orange. As he dove toward the top of the crevice’s opening, his wings cast a shadow over the cavern. Each time he came closer, his fear of losing Maxsym and his horror at the idea that Niva might be hurt overtook her.

Their connection grew stronger as he approached the entranceway. She remembered what she’d felt when he’d been injured, the pain she’d suffered not just from seeing him hurt, but felt inside her own body. Their connection was more than she’d realized.

Why hadn’t she felt that with Maxsym since she’d ridden him just the same? But what she felt for Zayd had started long before their flight. It had begun the first time they met, when he’d called her dewdrop in the Vilkas’ mountain.

Shifting just outside of the crevice, Zayd stepped into the dim light of the cavern, his white-blond hair pushed back to show his scarred face, and she was struck by just how beautiful he was. It was like she could see inside him, past the physical disfigurement and the near constant scowl on his face. She could see the man inside and knew she loved him.

“Niva, are you okay?” Zayd whispered from a distance, his eyes locked on Maxsym.

She nodded but gestured toward Maxsym, who still prowled back and forth in the small cavern, his scales tight and his tremendous jaw clenched.

Zayd slowly stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, the way he would approach a wild animal or a frightened, lost child.

“Max,” Zayd spoke tenderly, using a nickname Niva hadn’t heard before. It conveyed so much emotion between the two men, and she hoped it would be enough to bring Maxsym back from wherever he was lost. “Max, it’s me. It’s Zayd. I’m here. You’re okay.”

Maxsym ignored Zayd’s advance, neither responding to him nor lashing out. But the look on Zayd’s face made Neva’s heart ache. His fear amplified the tension in the cavern, making it almost impossible to calm Maxsym down.

“Maxsym.” Niva brought his attention to her and pulled her bag from her back. “Remember why we came? To get the haksiba. Let’s do what we came for, and then we can go. Does that sound good? We’ll get some haksiba, you’ll shift back, and we’ll walk out that tunnel.”

Maxsym’s body angled toward her as she spoke, his head shifting from side to side with the cadence of her words. Niva was confident he could hear her, but she wasn’t sure how much he understood until his tail flicked up and knocked off a massive haksiba deposit from the rock face. He looked at it and back at Niva then lowered his head to the ground.

Niva stepped forward.

“Be careful,” Zayd hissed, and Maxsym spat out a small spark of fire in response.

“I’m okay. Maxsym’s not going to hurt me. And Zayd’s not going to hurt you,” she said to the Draqon.

She opened her bag and began piling the loose haksiba in. She stood perilously close to Maxsym’s massive tail, but as she scooped some of the haksiba into the bag, Maxsym adjusted his body away from Zayd. He watched her, and as she continued to speak to him, his scales loosened.

He settled close by, listening as she talked about how she would cook the haksiba and what they would do with it.

When she was almost done, he reached up with an arm and pawed at another low-lying deposit, knocking it loose and sending it crashing to the ground near Niva.

“Thank you,” Niva said, keeping her eyes on him. The feeling that she was dealing with a strangely intelligent wild animal as opposed to a shifter hadn’t lessened, but now at least the wild animal trusted her.

“Do you think you can shift back? Back to Maxsym so we can talk?”

Maxsym’s black eyes widened, and he looked from Niva over to Zayd, who had crept silently closer.

“You remember, Max? You remember how to focus your concentration and bring your wings in?” Zayd asked. His voice had a tender edge Niva was unaccustomed to, and it melted her heart to hear. She was so filled with his love and respect for Maxsym despite the danger they were in.

She couldn’t help the emotions that flooded through her body, bringing heat and happiness to her extremities. Zayd flicked his eyes in her direction, black and deep. She sank far into them, beneath the still surface and down to the wild sea below. For a moment, she wished they were here alone.

He smiled weakly before turning his attention back to his best friend.

“Try it with me.” Half shifting into his second form, Zayd unfurled his wings ever so slightly so that the tips of the red and orange scales could be seen behind his silhouette.

“Ease your breathing, relax your mind. Be here, in this moment. You’re with Niva and me, and you’re safe. There’s no one else around, and no one can see you. All you have to do is listen. Bring your focus to just your breath. Still your mind. All that exists is your breathing. When you breathe in, feel your wings as they come closer to your body.”

Maxsym shimmered in the dim light, and his wings contracted against his body. After a few more minutes of coaching, they’d calmed Maxsym enough so that his wings retracted and his scales disappeared beneath his muscular frame.

Maxsym crumpled to the ground, his chest heaved, and his body shook. But he was human. He’d shifted.

Niva wanted to run to him, but Zayd held out a hand.

“You’re not his mate. You’ll only confuse him more.”

Zayd approached and crouched in front of his friend, speaking to him softly. The moment between the two men was intimate, and Niva felt like an intruder. She finished filling her bag until it overflowed and pulled it onto her back. She would leave the men there for as long as they needed. She’d been out this way enough she was sure she could circle back up toward the hive.

“Wait,” Maxsym called out.

Niva turned and found him standing on two legs. Zayd had his arm around his friend’s waist and seemed to be bearing much of the weight. “Niva, I’m sorry. I never should’ve tried to fly with you.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I should have known. It’s hard enough to fly alone, let alone with a rider. And to ride with someone else’s mate was more than I could handle.” Maxsym’s face was crestfallen, but Niva couldn’t think past the words “someone else’s mate.”

Her eyes flicked to Zayd, who refused to meet hers, but the connection between them vibrated with absolute certainty that she was his mate and had been for some time now. Her mind reeled.

How had she not known? Why hadn’t he said anything?

“We need to get you home,” Zayd said softly, avoiding Niva’s stare.

She let Maxsym wrap his other arm around her shoulders, even though her small frame couldn’t bear his weight, but perhaps she could offer him some balance or comfort. Together, the three of them made their way out of the crevice and back toward home.

But once Maxsym was safe back at the hive, she and Zayd needed to have a conversation.