The time that passed since she’d been shoved in the cell could have been hours or days, and when a familiar growl rumbled down the hall outside her cell, she thought it was a figment of her imagination.

Rayner.

A key rattled in the cell door. She scrambled to her feet, heart pumping. It wasn’t her imagination. He was here. This was real. He could be coming to get her and take her home.

Home.

The door slid open, and his massive silhouette filled the frame. Vera stared, her eyes soaking up the familiar lines of his face. Her hunger and anger and fear made her want to sag against his chest and let his arms hold up her weight. But she rooted herself in place by her own strength; she remembered what he’d said on the deck right before she was arrested. He couldn’t protect her this time.

“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.

“Get up, bitch,” the guard spat from behind Rayner, lifting a glow torch and illuminating the space.

Rayner’s skin rippled as he slowly turned his head to stare back at the young guard. But the guard just smirked at him.

“Rayner,” Vera whispered, “what’s happening?”

“You’re coming back to my quarters.” He stepped into the cell and swung a heavy blanket around Vera’s shoulders.

“What about Niva and the others?” Vera asked in a rush of relief.

“They’re at Nestan’s.” Rayner steadied her against his side with a strong arm wrapped around her waist. He guided Vera forward and shouldered the guard aside, keeping his body between them.

“I’ve heard nothing about this allowance, sir.” The edge of derision in the guard’s voice made Vera’s skin crawl. She’d never heard anyone speak to Rayner like that. What had happened since she’d been arrested?

“Take it up with Ansel. He’s your Beta now.” Rayner never stopped walking, but when Vera looked up, his jaw was clenched and the vein on the side of his neck pulsed.

“You’re not the Beta anymore?” Vera asked, horrified.

Rayner shushed her. “I’ll explain when we get home.”

As soon as they stepped out into the massive underground city, Vera felt herself let go of a breath she hadn’t meant to hold. The air was so much fresher, and the bright lights stung for a moment before her eyes adjusted to the vibrant colors and activity.

Vera was shocked to realize how much she’d missed it.

As they walked back to Rayner’s home, a young girl in servant attire lifted her head and smiled at Vera. The gesture was so quick, so fleeting, and the girl disappeared so soon after passing Vera that she thought it might have all been a figment of her overtired, hungry imagination.

A servant had smiled at her? What had happened to their glares and barely concealed hatred? And the young boy with the food who’d said she’d given them hope.

“What’s going on, Rayner?” she asked, looking around. She spotted scant few servants.

“I’ll tell you everything when we’re alone, I promise. Just keep your head down and use the blanket as a shawl. We don’t want to draw too much attention.”

“Why? Where are the others?”

“Dammit, Vera, can you just listen to me this one time?” Rayner stared down at her, but she didn’t see anger or rebuke. She saw fear. He was afraid.

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you? Because of me.”

“It doesn’t matter. Come on.” He gripped her arm, tighter this time, and pulled her forward. Instead of demanding the answers she wanted, she lowered her head and tugged the blanket tighter around her.

Vera watched her feet as they walked, careful not to look up as they passed people, and listened to her heart as it thrummed in her chest. Rayner walked with the same steady gait as always, but something in his touch and the way he kept flicking his eyes at her told Vera things had changed because of her.

At Rayner’s house, she shed the blanket and turned to ask him all the questions she had been accumulating during the walk back. But the words didn’t come out as she watched him lock his door with two bolts—something she’d never seen him do before. He checked the servant tunnel entrance and his bedroom, leaving her watching from the center of the room, mouth agape.

“We’re alone,” he announced, his shoulders dropping. It was possible he hadn’t slept any more than she had in the time she was gone.

“What’s going on?” she whispered. “How long was I in the cells?”

Rayner closed the distance between them in two long strides and pulled her tight against his chest. “Two long, horrible days. I couldn’t get you out any sooner. Believe me, I tried.”

“And your position in the clan? What happened?”

She stepped back to read his face. He turned his gaze away from her, letting it fall to the bedroom door. “I’ve lost favor with Kaveh. He announced a new Beta.”

She gaped at him. “No. Rayner, no.” She grabbed his arm and forced him to focus on her. “Is it because of me? The escape?”

“You would do anything for those women. It’s who you are.” He cupped her cheek, his thumb warming a path along her skin.

He seemed about to say something else, but he stopped himself with a shake of his head. He moved over to the small table where plates of fruta, cheese, and dried pryll had been laid out and poured her a glass of water from a pitcher, the same way she had just a few days ago. “Come, sit. You have to be starving.”

She crossed the room and grabbed a hunk of bread, pulling some off with her teeth as she sat and took the glass Rayner held out to her. “Why are you being punished?”

“I’m responsible for you. Your actions are my responsibility.”

Vera dropped the bread and nearly the glass too. “That’s completely ridiculous! I’m my own person with my own thoughts! How can you be held responsible for that?”

He smiled, a sad pull of his lips that never reached his eyes. “You’re a force of nature all of your own.”

For one moment, Vera allowed herself to look at him as a man. To forget where they were and why she was in his home and just soak up the feel of him. There was no denying her attraction, but the ache in her heart that urged her to reach out and take his hand and lead him back to the bedroom was more than attraction.

It ran deeper. Stronger. More real than anything Vera had ever felt before.

“What happens now?” This time, she did reach across the table and place her hand on his.

He stared at her hand for a moment before turning his over, palm up, to clasp them together. “You will be put on trial.”

A surge of hope thrilled through her. “Good! I can defend myself.”

He raised his gaze to meet hers. “That’s not how trials work here. It’s a public decree of your crimes and the punishment Kaveh has decided on for you.”

Her previous hope extinguished faster than a candle in water. “What about the other women? Will they be punished too?”

“When I spoke to him today, right before I came for you, he was going to let the others off with a warning.” He shook his head at Vera’s obvious relief. “That isn’t a good thing. It means your punishment will take the place of theirs, but I don’t know what he has planned. He’s shut me and Gerrit out. I think his … his mind is about to fail completely, and he thinks, for some reason, the unrest in the clan is my fault.” A muscle along his jaw ticked. “Perhaps it is my fault.”

“Rayner,” Vera breathed out. He looked so lost. So confused.

But she saw the moment he shoved the worry aside. His eyes blazed bright as he stared at her. “I will keep you safe. I won’t let them hurt you.”

Vera was already shaking her head. “You don’t have to do that. You don’t owe me anything.”

Rayner’s face shuttered, his eyes cooling into an icy darkness as he unfurled his body from the chair. The telltale ripples rolled beneath his skin, and the sharp points of his canines sank into his lower lip. Vera quivered at the thought of how those teeth liked to nip at her skin, at the swell of her breasts.

“This isn’t about my position or anything else. It’s about you. Kaveh is talking about a harsher punishment than exile.

“Oh,” she breathed out. But surprisingly, it wasn’t fear or regret she felt at his words. Just a yawning hole deep in her heart. “I stand behind what I did to try to free my people. I’m not going to apologize for it. Even if it’s death they want for me.”

A growl ripped from Rayner’s throat. He grabbed her up, nearly lifting her off her toes as he loomed above her. “I won’t see you touched! Don’t you understand? That would kill me. I’d give my own life before I sat and watched you die. I wouldn’t have a choice. It’s impossible for me not to defend you, to love you. You’re mine.”

They were so close she could see the yellow ring circling his pupils. His chest heaved against hers.

“Rayner …”

“I won’t let anyone kill my mate,” he finished, his eyes glinting with truth.

My mate.

“Did you—” Vera had to swallow her heart back down into her chest before she could finish. “Just call me your mate?”

Releasing her, he paced across the room, shoving a hand through his hair, his broad shoulders flexing beneath his shirt. He turned back toward her and took a deep breath. “During the battle, when I transformed into my Vilkan form, I smelled you through a more primal filter. Shifters here on Kladuu are built to find mates—true mates—someone we’ll spend the rest of our lives with. It’s a forever bond.”

Vera’s skin prickled at his words, and she had to fight back a shiver. She stood somewhat shakily. “What exactly are you saying?”

“You’re my mate, Vera. My true, once in a lifetime mate. My human spirit and my Vilkan soul can’t live without you.”

Staring back at him, processing his words over and over, she realized she’d never heard a higher truth than what he’d said. Never heard anything that resonated so deeply within her, in a place she hadn’t even known existed until she landed on this strange, terrible, wonderful planet.

“I’m your mate?”

Ever so slightly, he bowed in acknowledgment of her words. “You are.”

“Then it’s settled.” She lifted her chin toward him, her own resolve clenching a tight fist around her heart as his eyes widened at her words. “You’re mine as well.”