Kinyi met Zayd’s eyes as she followed Tane from the arena. The hive leader’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything. Niva offered Kinyi a small smile, which Kinyi tried to return.

What was with that human and smiling? No one could be that happy all the time. Zayd was good in bed, but he wasn’t that good.

The noise of the crowd dimmed the farther Kinyi tracked Tane through the mountain’s interior. She stayed back, giving him space, and followed him by scent alone. When she caught sight of him, he was talking to a young man draped in mismatched Arakid silk and with long braids down his back. He pointed up to the rooms that wrapped around the mountain’s exterior wall. Tane nodded his thanks and continued on, heading for the stairs that wound up to the higher levels.

His scent bothered her. It tasted off in her mouth. Metallic almost, like his madness, but not quite as strong. She wondered if his self-hatred and guilt had ensnared his madness, making it worse than it normally was. Whatever had happened in his mind during Caj’s trial had left his thoughts dark and bitter and his scent like bruised fruta.

He stopped outside the room the Vilka had indicated and placed his palm on the reader. Kinyi didn’t bother hanging back anymore.

“You going to invite me in?” she asked.

He didn’t look up as the screen chirped and the door unlocked. “You followed me.”

“Of course I did.”

He held the door open for her. It took her a moment to realize he intended for her to walk inside first. He was being courtly. She rolled her eyes.

After fumbling for a torch and not finding one, she remembered the Vilkas’ rooms were programmed for more advanced technology than the Draqons’ hive fires. “Lights on,” she commanded.

Lights bloomed overhead, revealing a small room with rock walls, a fireplace, a heap of rugs on the cold rock floor, and a low-slung bed piled with brightly colored cushions and furs. It smelled like fresh soil and wet rock, and it made Kinyi ache for her small quarters at the hive.

Tane set about building a fire to warm the room without speaking.

She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off her boots. She stretched out her tired calves and toes. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Really?”

“It’s all over your face.”

He struck a match and held it close to the kindling. The small pieces of wood caught fire easily. Rocking back on his heels, he watched, transfixed, as the flames grew. “I guess you’re going to tell me what you think you saw.”

“You think you deserve a punishment like Caj.”

He added a small log to the fire. His silence broke her heart.

“He’s done horrible things, Tane. Bad men pay for their crimes. That’s how the law works here. But we don’t punish people for things they can’t control. You couldn’t do anything about your madness. Your Queen shouldn’t have let you fight without a mate.”

He built up the fire with careful precision. Soon, the warm light and curls of heat spilled out into the room.

Kinyi took off her jacket and worked her braided hair loose.

“Say something,” she whispered when Tane still hadn’t spoken.

“I like it.”

She stared at his hunched back. He had to be burning that close to the fire. “Like what?”

“When I lose control, I like how the fire feels inside me. I crave it. I want it. That’s why I left.” He twisted around and stared back at her, his eyes dark in the shadows of the fire. “Because I enjoyed what happened that day on the battlefield.”

She met his gaze without flinching. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not working. If you’re trying to convince me you’re a bad man, it’s not working. If you think you deserve to die and that’s why you’re going on this suicide mission against the humans, then you’re wrong. You’re so, so wrong.”

He frowned. “It’s not a—”

“Don’t lie to me. You have no fucking intention of taking me with you. You plan to fly in there and burn everything to the ground, including yourself.”

He unfolded himself from the floor and stood to his full height. She looked up at him, her eyes hard because she knew she was right. He thought he’d hidden it well enough from her, but she was an expert liar and she hadn’t wanted to call out her mate in front of Zayd.

“If this is where you try to convince me to take you because you think you can control me, then you’re in for a long night. It’s not happening, Kinyi. You’re staying here where it’s safe.”

She leaned back on the bed and hooked her ankles. “That’s cute.”

His eyes narrowed. “What is?”

“That you really think that.”

She watched him wind up with his deep breathing and his shoulders expanding and his fists flexing as though preparing for a battle. The poor sucker didn’t know he’d brought good intentions and chivalry to a gunfight.

“Kinyi. Listen here. You—”

“Is that how you want to do this?” she interrupted. “You want to spend tonight fighting when we could be having the best sex of our lives?”

“You’re not—”

“Because tomorrow, I am fighting. I am riding you. We are going into that battle together. So you better save your energy for two things, Tane. I will lay them out for you plain and simple. Number one is figuring out how the hell you’re going to keep your shit together tomorrow, because I do not plan on either of us dying. And number two is really the most important. You need to be plotting the many ways you can get me off before the sun rises. Do I make myself clear?”

He ground his teeth together. In the flickering shadows of the room, his dark skin glowed. The whites of his eyes gleamed as they stared each other down in a silent standoff, a battle of internal wills.

Kinyi could have fought with him. She would have shouted and yelled. And she would have won, because she always won. But Tane’s silence as he processed her challenge thrilled her. He wasn’t like any other male she’d met. He was strong and protective, fierce and loyal, but he understood her.

And he was wickedly smart. He knew a battle he couldn’t win when he saw one.

“And you?” he finally asked. His fists relaxed, and he rolled out his neck to stretch the tense muscles.

“And me, what?” A grin spread across her face at the intoxicating change in his scent.

His desire for her could have sparked its own fire. She tasted his need in the back of her throat like fresh smoked meat.

“How many ways do you think you can get me off?”

She unhooked her ankles and let her legs fall open in invitation. “Why don’t you come over here and let me show you?”

He pulled his shirt off in one smooth motion, revealing his washboard abs and the patch of dark, tightly curled hair beneath his navel. Tossing the shirt aside, he walked over and stopped between her legs, his hardening cock at her eye level.

“Lights off,” he told the room. The lights blinked off, leaving only the fire’s orange glow at his back.

She raised an eyebrow and looked up at him as she reached for the button on his pants. The loose material the Vilkas had given him after his shift fell away. The veined skin of his cock shone in the firelight.

She took him in her hand and felt him tense, his breath tight in his chest. She swept her loose fist down his length and back. She leaned in and tongued the slit at the head of his cock until a bead of pre-cum slipped out.

She grinned up at him and licked her lips.

“Kinyi,” he warned, a growl low in his throat. His cock twitched in her grip.

She loved that she could push him to the edge of his control, but she was the only one who could handle him once he was there, because he was hers and she was his. That connection between them hummed alive and vibrant in her belly, warm as the fire in their room.

She lowered her mouth to his cock and sucked him deep into her mouth. He hit the back of her throat, and she pumped the rest of his length. His hips moved in time with her but never enough to force himself too far into her mouth. He was gentle, almost aching in his tedious control, but she felt his breaking point shimmering right beneath the surface.

When he hit it, he pulled her mouth off him and pushed her back against the bed. She barely had time to wiggle out of her top before his hands were on her pants, ripping the clasp off and tearing them down her hips. She raised her legs so he could pull them completely off and toss them alongside his shirt.

He stared down at her, his massive body blocking all the light so he was a shadow of darkness above her.

“Tomorrow ...” he began, his voice a rough, low rasp.

“Don’t worry about tomorrow.” She reached for his hand, her body growing cold without his warmth.

He twined his fingers around hers and held tight. “There’s no other rider I want, Kinyi, but I can’t have you with me tomorrow.”

“It’s not about what you want,” she said, completely serious for once. “It’s about what you need, and you need me with you.”

“I don’t trust myself.”

She pulled on his arm. He settled between her legs, his cock right against her slick core. Most of his weight rested on his elbows, but she felt him heavy on top of her, grinding right against where she needed him to be.

Carefully, like he might break, she placed a tender kiss on his lips.

“I could love you,” she murmured, her eyes on his as she pulled back from the kiss before he could deepen it and lose himself in her.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Could?”

She ran her hand down the strong angles of his face. “You’re my mate, and of course, in the instinctual Draqon parts of me, I love you. It was instant and beyond my control, and you suddenly became a part of me before I even knew you. But the parts of me that are purely me, just Kinyi and not ruled by being your mate and needing to love you or else I would die, those parts could love you too.”

He swallowed. “I don’t know why.”

She skimmed her finger across his cheekbone, his violet eyes like a wounded sunset above her. “Because you’re the strongest man I know. Because you broke and survived. You’ve filled in all your cracks with mortar and bone and fire and steel. You know all your weakest places and you still face them down every day. You’re humble and kind, strong and fierce. And I could love you with every part of me.”

He bowed his forehead against hers, his breath a cool wash across her face. Angling his mouth, he kissed the healing scales on her face, his lips a balm to the sore ache of her missing pieces.

“I told myself I didn’t deserve you,” he whispered. His lips brushed the words across her skin like he was tracing them for her. “But I think with time I could. I could earn you. I could love you.”

She reached between their bodies and took his cock in her hand. Slowly, carefully, she guided him inside her. He filled her with a steady roll of his hips until he was fully seated inside her.

“Tomorrow, we’ll earn each other,” she told him, tightening her core around him like she could keep him inside her forever.

“Tomorrow,” he agreed and began to move within her. Tomorrow. Everything hung in the balance of tomorrow.

She closed her eyes and prayed she could be strong enough for them both.