Magic clashed in the sky as Arawn collided with the dragon again and again. Smaller his eagle form might be, but his power still matched that of the beast, and the essence of their battle was of the non-physical kind.

Time and again, he tried to take off and head toward his territory, toward that spot where he saw lightning strike down out of the corner of his eye, but the dragon thwarted every attempt to break away. Roaring, it launched itself at him, a wave of primeval magic making the air wobble, the world groaning on its hinges.

He narrowly escaped the giant claws, executed a deft move to turn in mid-air when a huge shadow slammed into the dragon, took it down toward the mountain. A flash of golden feathers and fur, followed by a feral screech.

The griffin.

Breathing hard, Arawn whirled around, wanting to make for his territory now the dragon was distracted.

Lightning on the slope of the mountain.

His heart stopped as his senses picked up her presence, the bond between them pulsing with her nearness. Again, he whirled around in the air, only this time, he shot toward the volcano. Toward Maeve.

He could make out Velez, who was holding her pressed tight to his body. Red tinged Arawn’s sight, primal instincts swamping him, demanding he tear the other male to pieces.

He slammed down on the ground in an explosion of power that rocked the mountain, disturbing the ash around him until it created a whirlwind storm of white and gray and black. His magic writhed and clawed, ready to snap and rip.

“Ah,” Velez said genially. “There you are. So glad you can join our party. I brought a guest.”

He squeezed Maeve’s waist, making her whimper. Her amber-gray eyes wide, she stared at Arawn, and the sight of her in Velez’s grasp was enough to want to make him raze the world. His power built to a crescendo of brute force.

Velez clucked his tongue. “Come now. You know as well as I do that you cannot use your magic against me. Not with her so near. Not when she is still in such a lovely mortal form.” He pressed her closer again and gave her a smack on her cheek.

Arawn snarled, fury raking across his nerves—because Velez was right.

“Anything less than an attack at full force will have no effect on me, brother. Going full tilt, however, would kill her human form at this proximity.” He pursed his lips. “Such a dilemma.”

“Let her go, and I will let you leave.”

Velez laughed. “And why would I do that when she is my best bargaining chip? Really, the nerve of you.” He shook his head. “See, I was wondering how I could gain your cooperation. Was thinking I would threaten to turn your entire dominion and all its inhabitants to ash. I do have a dragon now, after all.” He winked.

Said dragon still battled it out with the griffin in the skies above, causing tremors to shake the air and the ground, sending waves of buzzing, jolting magic over the mountain.

“But then,” Velez went on, “a little birdie told me there is something you value even more than your territory, someone you care for more than for your power.” He stroked over Maeve’s hair, and Arawn wanted to stick that hand in a shredder and turn it into mincemeat. “She really is special. Seems like she has been through a lot.” He grimaced. “It would be so unfortunate if I ripped out the beast inside her and killed her in the process.”

“Do that, and I will hunt you to the ends of the earth, and hack you into little pieces while you are conscious, then let you heal to do it all over again. For eternity.”

“Hm.” A cold, cold smile. “You do care a lot about her. So you might actually consider my second offer. See, the first one was better, but—alas—you refused, and now it is off the table.” He shrugged. “If you want her to live, all I need in return is a binding pledge of servitude—in blood.”

Arawn barked a harsh laugh. “You want me to bend the knee to you?”

“Since that would make sure you do not stand in my way, and has the lovely side effect of me gaining control over your dominion and the impressive network of favor-bound creatures you built, yes, I want you to bow to my will.”

Maeve stirred in Velez’s grasp, struggling against his magic. “No,” she choked out. “Don’t.”

Arawn met her shimmering eyes, fire and smoke and a passion burning so deep, so true, it was the purest thing he’d ever touched in his life. If her flame were to be snuffed…no other light should be permitted to shine. And while he would have fought a sky full of gods to keep her—if he had to shred his honor, his pride, his soul to make sure she survived, he would do so.

He would even do what he had never, in all the millennia he had lived, dreamed of doing.

“All right,” Arawn said to Velez—and went down on one knee.

* * *

Maeve fought against the insidious power holding her immobile. To no avail. She wasn’t strong enough. How could she be, when she didn’t even have access to her magic, or the beast lurking inside her?

Again, she turned inside, tried to reach the ancient force in her core. If only she could call it forth, then Velez would lose his leverage—when she was the one who commanded the beast out, she’d survive.

It should be so easy. The spell was dissolved, nothing should keep that beast in there anymore. Why wasn’t it coming out? Why isn’t this easy?

She gritted her teeth and called on the beast again. Come out. I want you out.

Darkness and silence and the weight of her failure. She was too weak, wasn’t she? The one thing she should be able to do, the one power she had—and she couldn’t manage it.

The impact of her abject incompetence was like a blow to her guts.

This was her reality, though, wasn’t it? Always too weak, always dependent on others to protect her. The one time she dared move out of her family’s home and take charge of her life, she was kidnapped and tortured and raped. Because she wasn’t strong enough to fend for herself.

Filled to the brim with ancient power, and yet unable to use it to protect herself. She didn’t know whether to cry or to laugh. Both?

And even now she couldn’t call that beast forward, even now it failed her—but it was active enough to kill her family, wasn’t it? Important enough that she was abducted and tortured because others wanted to harness the immense power waiting quietly in her core.

Those damn powers, that damn beast… How could she ever truly embrace them when they brought her nothing but pain and loss and scars?

She couldn’t. A simple and shattering truth.

Slumping in Velez’s grip—which didn’t change her position at all, since he’d paralyzed her—she choked back a sob, crushed by the weight of her despair, and listened with rising horror while Velez laid out his nefarious plan.

He wanted Arawn to submit to him, wanted him to make a binding pledge of allegiance to Velez, and thereby hand him the power over Arawn and his dominion. Holy hell. If Arawn surrendered, if Velez was given that sort of power…

The world would drown in blood.

But Arawn would never agree to it. It went against his very nature to submit to anyone, to give up the power he’d been gathering back over thousands of years, to hand over the dominion he built with painstaking effort. He wouldn’t throw all of that away just for her.

As well he shouldn’t, not for someone who was so fucking weak.

“I want you to bow to my will,” Velez said.

Her heart stumbled when she saw the shift in Arawn’s expression, as if he was…actually considering it.

“No,” she choked out past the magic holding her in place. “Don’t.”

Arawn met her pleading look, the forest green of his eyes in stark contrast to the glowing red of the lava flowing down the mountainside—and the love shining in those green depths pierced her heart, her soul.

“All right,” he said to Velez, and went on his knee.

“No!” Maeve struggled again, threw herself against the power encasing her.

Velez clutched her even more tightly. “You will bind yourself to me in blood and submit?”

“Yes.”

Her pulse raced, stampeded through her like a maddening drumbeat that stole her breath. She couldn’t let this happen. She couldn’t let him submit. Not Arawn. He was hers.

Something roared inside her, and it wasn’t the beast.

Closing her eyes, she dove deep, deep, deep, and driven by the explosive mix of fear, love, protectiveness, and sheer teeth-gritting will, she rushed past the shards of the broken spell, past the pain and the shame and the resentment, the agony of accepting the fact she killed and maimed her family, past the fear of a power she had no idea how to handle, to the beast…

…trapped in a cage of her own making.

She’d kept it in there. By not fully embracing it, by resenting it for the bloody trail of pain it had left in her life. It hurt to acknowledge it. It ripped her raw to reach out and touch the force that was responsible for the death of her mom and Moira, for mentally crippling her dad. For causing her to be kidnapped and tortured.

It fucking hurt, but she reached out through that pain, reached out to the beast, for the first time in her life.

Come forth, she whispered, her heart gentle and open. I want you with me.

The ancient presence uncoiled and stretched in the darkness. I have been waiting for you, it whispered back.

And then it lunged at her, in a flash of fire and ash, and the world lit up in an atomic blaze.

* * *

“You will bind yourself to me in blood and submit?”

Arawn glared at Velez. “Yes.”

His erstwhile brother smiled and held out his hand. “Do it, then.”

Arawn’s attention flicked back to Maeve, who was shuddering in Velez’s grasp—more than before. Something was wrong. Pulses of deep emotions reached him across the bond, a maelstrom of feelings he couldn’t figure out.

Her skin began to glow, the light growing brighter and brighter…and she exploded in a firestorm. Flames surged out in a blinding supernova of ancient power, the force knocking him back. Velez crashed down in the periphery of his vision, several yards away, and didn’t move.

The griffin screeched above, followed by the roar of the dragon.

His entire body hurt, as if his bones had been smashed—and he remembered well how it felt—but Arawn managed to get swaying to his feet.

“Maeve!” he roared.

She didn’t answer. He stumbled forward, his muscles sluggish, and scanned the area, his stomach in knots. Nothing but ashes where the firestorm rolled out.

His blood iced over. No. It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t be—

Lightning struck him, and he jerked, every cell in his body electrocuted. He toppled over, crashed down on the ash-strewn ground. In the periphery of his vision, a shape moved…Velez.

With a groan, Arawn rolled over, out of the way of the next lightning strike. The bolt of unadulterated god power slammed into the spot where he lay just seconds ago, cracking the earth and rattling the sky.

Maeve. He couldn’t focus on anything else, his thoughts consumed by the drive to find her.

Sending out a wave of dark power toward Velez—taking care to keep it leashed so it wouldn’t spread to where Maeve had been standing before—he turned, searched the slope of the mountain for her…or the beast. If it came out of her, where was it? Maeve was supposed to be a dragon. Dragons don’t die in fire.

“Pity.” Velez’s voice carried over the wind, Arawn’s traitorous brother coming to his feet again after his blow took him down. “She had such potential.”

In the sky above them, the dragon and griffin still battled, the air sharp and biting with the force of their ancient magic. Arawn barely noticed. He had difficulty blocking Velez’s next lightning strike, and some of the electric force hit him, nearly fried his right leg. He half-heartedly threw out a tendril of his own power to break his brother’s spine.

Velez cried out, fell, and coughed. It didn’t last long. While Arawn staggered—every step hurting—over to the field of ashes where Maeve had been, Velez heaved himself up again, his eyes a storm of wrath and lightning.

Arawn reached out…and he felt it. The silence. The emptiness.

A severed link where the bond should be.

She’s dead. Nothing else would cut that connection.

The world clouded over in bloody darkness. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Velez crawl closer.

And Arawn’s powers snapped their leash.

He let go, broke each of the seals that kept his dark, writhing, ravenous magic in check, and released it to hurl toward the being responsible for Maeve’s death. There was no reason anymore for him to restrain his devastating power. Maeve was gone. He could wipe Velez off the face of the earth.

For the first time since his fall, he let his true nature show, born of the clash of beginnings at the dawn of time, its force so potent it could break through the layers of the world itself.

With a roar of primeval fury, he struck out with a blast of dark energy. It shot out to all sides, much like the magical shock wave of the awakening dragon—only a thousand times more destructive. Its impact rocked the still-fuming volcano, cracking the earth, so powerful it would level what was left of the woods surrounding the mountain.

The blow blocked Velez’s strike, made his lightning fizzle out, and Arawn whirled, hit Velez with every last bit of his magic—and smote the other god.

Velez shattered like glass under Arawn’s power—his essence, his form, his very being erased from this world. The earth quaked, the mountain spewing more ash, the air crackling and groaning. The magic of this plane shifted in response to the elimination of a power of Velez’s caliber, the precarious balance of magical energy thrown off kilter for a moment.

Breath heavy, Arawn stared at the spot Velez had occupied. The shifting of magic continued, slithered over his skin, through his bones, the fabric of his soul. Groaning and whining, the layers of the world adjusted to the hole ripped in their midst, trying to knit it closed.

Arawn should help. Should use his power to speed the mending, ensure this world would survive the annihilation of a force as old as Velez.

He couldn’t make himself move. His foe vanquished, his revenge taken, he was left with the unrelenting silence of destruction, and immeasurable grief building in his soul.

He sank to his knees at the place where Maeve died, dug his fingers into the ashes, and hung his head, his soul splintered into a million pieces, each one stinging him with every breath.

Something warm and wet dripped down his face, onto the backs of his hands. Tears. He hadn’t shed any in centuries, maybe even millennia. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

She was gone.

A gust of wind whirled up the ashes, and a second later, the griffin landed at the edge of the field. Wings flared, it bowed, bent down on its front legs and lowered its head. Grieving for its friend.

Overhead, the dragon roared, now free of Velez’s influence. Arawn should snare it. He didn’t. What was the use?

She was gone.

More wind whirled up the ashes, and Arawn blinked—not in surprise; he didn’t feel surprise anymore—as the dragon landed close to the field as well. The mighty beast of old crawled closer, rumbling in its throat. It halted, like the griffin, and bowed its head.

So they were all mourning.

Fitting.

The ashes moved—without a gust of wind. His heart, that useless, dead organ, thumped against his ribs, his power vibrating. More movement in the field, particles floating up in a spiral, swirling in a circle like a building tornado in slow motion. Sparks lit inside the whirling cloud of ash. Flames licked over the smoke.

The tornado built and built, a fire crackling within—and with a burst of sparks and a surge of ancient magic that laid him flat on his back, a beast rose from the ashes.

Feathers of flame, a soul of fire, red-licked orange and talon-tipped feet, the phoenix robbed him of breath with its glory. It flared its wings and let loose a screech that echoed over the wilderness—and both the griffin and the dragon answered in kind.

The firebird stalked forward, its size that of the griffin, and touched its beak to the other beast’s. The griffin rumbled deep in its throat, rustled its feathers. The dragon kept its distance, but spread its wings while bowing its head as if in deference.

Awestruck, Arawn could only stare.

With a flash of fiery feathers, the phoenix turned to him, piercing intelligence in its age-old eyes. Once more flames licked over its form, smoke whispered over its massive body, and it morphed, grew smaller, smaller…until it slumped to the ground in the shape of a tiny, red-haired female.

Arawn’s breath caught, his world grinding to a halt, centering on the hopeless hope burning in his heart.

He was at her side in an instant, gathered her naked body in his arms, felt for her pulse. Slow but steady, the tick that greeted his fingertips was like a beacon to his soul. He crushed her to him, buried his face in her neck.

She stirred with a moan. He still held her tight. Probably too tight. But he couldn’t convince his muscles to ease up, his need to feel her too consuming.

“Arawn.” A choked whisper. “I need to breathe.”

With a sound of half-anguish, half-relief, he gave her enough room to suck in a deep gulp of air. Though the fact he covered her mouth with his in a kiss of desperate joy might have made it harder for her.

She gasped against his lips, laughed into his kiss. “I love you, too,” she rasped.

He cupped her face, drank in the sight of her, tiny pieces of his broken heart mending with every breath she took in his arms.

“I thought I lost you.” His hands shook. “I was ready to raze the world.”

She smiled, her eyes of fire and smoke glistening. “You’ve got me back.”

Such simple, simple words, and yet they held his salvation. And with his soul mending, he helped the world mend as well. Sending out tendrils of his power, he reinforced the knitting effort of the layers around the hole Velez’s destruction had ripped into the fabric of magic, ensured the damage could be repaired.

Maeve needed a world to live in.

Frowning, she stroked his lips, this woman who held his heart in her delicate hands. “My beast is a phoenix. I thought it was a dragon.”

“It had both of us fooled.”

“Sneaky.” Her expression darkened. “Velez?”

“I smote him.”

She blinked, raised a brow. “How godlike.”

His eyes flicked to the pattern of scars on her body—and the golden shine to them. As if she was lit from within, and the scars the seams through which her light shone.

She followed the direction of his gaze, gasped as she beheld the change in her appearance. “W-what is that?”

“I would say”—he grazed the glowing lines with a finger, delighting in her shiver—“that your phoenix made you into kintsugi.”

Her eyes widened. “That is…”

“…beyond beautiful.”

She swallowed, her smile wobbly but radiant. “Yes.”

“I want another bond,” he said, the horror of losing her having eroded all finesse in his speech.

“Oh.” Her focus turned inward. “It’s gone.”

“Not for long.” He bit into his wrist, nodded at her. “Open your mouth.”

She complied, probably sensing how raw he was, how much he needed this. He placed his bleeding wrist to her lips, and she drank without him asking her. The first suck sent fire down his spine, and the next one sent the rest of his blood flowing south.

“Do you bind yourself to me,” he asked, “in magic and blood?”

Maeve let go of his wrist, her lips stained red, her pupils dilated. “I do.”

His magic lunged for and fused with hers, darkness to flame, power to power.

He took her arm, licked over her wrist—and looked at her with a question in his eyes. Her lips parted on a gasp as she understood. Swallowing, she nodded.

Another loving lick over her wrist…and then he bit. His shapeshifted fangs sliced into her skin, opened her vein. He drank, the flavor of her blood a heady rush. Ancient power, a touch of fire, and a sweetness that was all Maeve.

Her fingers stroked through his hair. “Do you bind yourself to me in magic and blood?”

He licked over the puncture marks, met her eyes of phoenix flames. “I do.”

The bond that snapped taut between them this time ran equally strong in both directions—and glowed like a rope of embers in velvet darkness with their love.