Tane listened as Zayd and Maxsym laid attack plan to the Vilkas and other mated Draqon pairs. Even the unmated males had flown to the mountain to join the fight. Madness was a risk they were all willing to take, because having extra bodies during the battle was more important than having a sane mind afterward. Sanity would mean nothing if everyone was dead.

He didn’t miss the fact that more than a few of the unmated males cast hero-worshipping glances his way. They thought his legend was romantic and brave, but they didn’t know the truth. If they did, their glances would be ones of horror.

Kinyi stood beside him in her riding leathers. Her hair was braided back from her face, revealing her still healing scales, which everyone in the war room avoided looking at. But she held her chin high and her shoulders back as she gave suggestions for the attack. She showed off her wounds with a strange kind of pride. She had done the impossible, gone to Earth and brought him back. She showed off the price she had paid without shame. Her scent was bright with excitement and adrenaline.

She’d been born to fight. To do battle. And he never wanted to see war again.

Last night, making love to Kinyi had been all he’d ever wanted, but in the back of his mind, he doubted they could ever work. She loved Kladuu. She was willing to risk her life to save her planet. But his home had changed long ago. He belonged in a gritty bar with the odd cyborg body part lying around and loud music drowning out the shouting from the fights. Not on Kladuu.

“You good, Tane?”

He looked up to find Zayd staring at him and waiting for a response. He nodded. They’d spent all day planning and preparing for tonight when they would initiate their aerial assault on the humans. He was more than ready to get this over with. “Good to go.”

Zayd’s focus slid to Kinyi. “And you can keep him under control?”

“Who said anything about control?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared down the hive’s leader. “You wanted a bomb, I brought you a bomb. I’m just here to make sure Tane gets out alive. That’s all.”

Zayd waved off her words like she’d said the same thing he had. “And you can do that?”

“One way or another,” she said, glancing at Tane.

Everyone smelled his fear. He knew it. He should have been brave and strong, but instead, he could only think of the fire. It terrified him and seduced him.

Zayd shifted uncertainly, and his Queen placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him. The leader didn’t trust Tane and Kinyi to get the job done. Tane couldn’t blame him.

But the time for doubt had passed, and everyone was desperate enough to believe Tane wasn’t as crazy as he looked. That he could save them. That he could win this war for them.

They were all fools. He would probably get every single person in this room killed.

“Stop,” Kinyi hissed against his ear, quietly enough that no one else heard. “I know what you’re doing, and stop.”

He wanted to beg her to stay, but he knew better. The time for that had passed as well.

There was simply no time left for anything but fear.

“It’s come down to this,” Zayd said to the fighters gathered in the room. Their small army waited outside, on the flight decks and at the mountain’s base, for their instructions. “This is our final stand. We can’t sustain a war with the humans, so we attack now with everything we have.”

But “everything” wasn’t much when the humans were holed up in ships, two miles out into the ocean by the Vydal. Neither the Vilkas nor the Katu could swim out fast enough to be effective, but they would be using boats to ferry out innocent Hylas. The Draqons and the few remaining Vilkan ships carrying Gerrit, Rayner, and Nestan, the head of Gerrit’s personal guard, would follow in after Tane and Kinyi had cleared a path through the human ships.

It would all come down to Tane. He was their last hope.

They went over the plan a few more times. It sounded flimsier with each reiteration. Everyone else must have heard it too, because they fell silent, their eyes downcast.

Zayd exchanged a quick glance with his Swarm Master before addressing the group. “That’s enough talk. It’s time. We launch from the upper flight deck. Everyone say your goodbyes and meet there. No more fucking around.”

Maxsym clapped his hands together. “You heard the man. Let’s make the humans dance.”

“Do you always have to get the last fucking word? What the hell does that even mean?” Zayd snapped as the others in the room stood and filed out of the room.

“Wanna give me a kiss for luck?” Maxsym puckered his lips.

“Keep it in your pants,” Queen Niva said with a tight smile. Even her normal cheery demeanor had dimmed. She took Maxsym’s mate’s arm and said, “Come on, Ronnie. Let’s go get our bows. Kinyi, we’ll bring you one up to the flight deck.”

Kinyi smiled tightly. “Thank you, my Queen.”

Everyone but Zayd, Kinyi, and Tane had left. Before Tane and Kinyi made their way to the room’s single door, Zayd said, “Kinyi?”

She turned beside Tane and glanced back, her shoulders tensing for a fight. “What?”

Zayd’s eyes went between her and Tane. “I’m sorry for what I said about you not being welcome back to Kladuu if you didn’t bring back the White Horn. That was wrong of me. I should have never questioned your commitment. I …” The hive’s leader paused as if he needed to prepare emotionally for whatever he said next. “I’m sorry for that.”

Tane sensed how the leader’s approval turned Kinyi radiant on the inside. Doing right by her people and her home meant everything to her. But on the outside, she rolled her eyes and said dryly, “Holy shit, Zayd. Your apologies sound like you’re blowhole-fucking a Hyla. Thanks, I guess.”

“Fuck you, Kinyi.”

She flipped him off as she passed by Tane and walked outside, but she beamed as she went. Tane nodded to Zayd before following her out.

They walked through the mountain’s interior, passing by the waiting Draqons and Vilkas. It felt like a funeral procession, like they were walking to their own graveside service. Even the other Vilkas, women and children, watched as they walked up the stairs to one of the highest undamaged flight decks. The rest of the fighters fell into step behind them. The mountain’s interior quivered with silence, like no one even dared to breathe.

When they reached the deck, Tane heard the wild kick of Kinyi’s heartbeat as he followed her through the massive metal door that led straight into the crisp night air. The thrill she felt at flinging herself headlong into the fight nauseated him. How could he have mated with a female so hell-bent on war when all he wanted was simple, unassuming peace?

After retrieving a bow from the Queen, she strode straight to the farthest edge of the deck where the wind lashed against her leathers and sent her braid whipping over her shoulder. She was stunning standing out on the deck’s edge, with Kladuu sprawled at her feet. She belonged in the air, on the back of a king able to fly her into certain victory.

He slowly walked over to join her. The other Draqons hung back, their movements nervous and their eyes shifty, but at least they pretended to give her and Tane some privacy.

“There’s still time for me to go alone,” he said.

She simply stared back at him.

He raised his hands in defeat. “Fine. Let’s go before we freak them out any more.”

At his words, the other Draqons quickly pretended to not have overheard and twisted their gazes away as if the scent of their doubt wasn’t riding on the wind across the deck.

Kinyi turned her back to them and put her hands on her hips. “We agreed last night that today we would earn each other. Are you already having second doubts?”

Had he really thought he could deserve her just a few hours ago? He’d been high on her body, her smell, her passion. When she spoke, he believed everything she said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“We’re flying into this together, right?”

“Right.”

“Then we have to trust each other. Completely. Let me in, Tane. Let me help you.”

He wished like hell he could just step off the deck, shift, and take to the skies alone. But somehow, ever since that night she’d walked into his fight club and said his name, he’d known. He’d known it would always come to this moment, with her standing on the edge, her fierce eyes staring him down as she waited for him to step up to her level.

If there was ever a time to be the man she deserved, it was now.

“You can have me, Kinyi. Every part. Even the crazy-ass broken parts.”

Her eyes seared into his for a second before a wicked grin spread across her face. “I like crazy. Now, get naked and shift. We’ve got shit to blow up.”