Kragen seethed with effort. It felt like he was straining against his own skin as he fought to contain the fire of the hunger within. A few of the Royal Guard—his former comrades—and approached with more shackles back in the tunnel, and he had merely snarled at them. He was done with useless toys. He was done with pretense.

His whole world had shrunk to a single point of awareness: Andromeda. He felt her, near him. He felt every breath, every heartbeat. He felt that she was ready for mating.

Fight it.

He had fought it all the way to the royal chambers, which was now the most secure place on the ship. The Royal Guard had arrived with the queen just after he and Prince Rhazian had finished dispatching the would-be assassins, and they were now fanning out through the ship, rounding up any confederates. The remaining members of the separatist Draconid faction, who had always opposed mating with humans, would pay dearly for a mistake of this nature. Killing Kragen would have been one thing, but an attack on the prince was something else entirely.

And an attack on Kragen’s mate was a death sentence.

Separating from Andromeda, after he had pinned her to the wall and felt her need, felt her heat, had nearly killed him. Only the queen’s voice had cut through the haze of the hunger, reminding him of his responsibilities. Reminding him of his vow.

Andromeda would not be harmed.

Nothing had changed. He could not claim her without hurting her.

So he fought.

That did not mean he would win. The remaining members of the Royal Guard all watched their former commander with a wary eye. Only Queen Vana and Andromeda herself were unafraid.

“Is the ship secure?” Prince Rhazian asked. He was standing, not quite at ease, next to his mother’s informal throne. This was the reception room to the royal chambers, large enough for certain formal ceremonies.

“Nearly.” It was Lieutenant Dreker who now commanded the guard. Kragen approved of the choice. “We will keep the ship on alert for another twenty-four hours, but the immediate danger is passed. We will find the people responsible for this, Your Highness.”

Prince Rhazian was still obviously furious. Kragen did not care. That was no longer his business. He was watching the queen—who was watching Andromeda.

“Your Majesty,” Kragen said.

All eyes turned to him. Some weapons, too. Stupid. They would be useless against him in this state.

The queen’s gaze turned on him, and Kragen was, momentarily, grateful. She had been queen his entire life, and she was very powerful. It had been her voice that had brought him back from the edge. He had been so close to breaking. To giving in to the hunger that burned in his veins. He would have claimed Andromeda in that ruined tunnel, poured his seed into her and watched it change her, and then he would have destroyed everything he ever loved to protect her.

But in the past few days by Andromeda’s side, Kragen had learned that life was not as simple as the hunger made it seem. The hunger was a remnant from an older time, a simpler time. It had nothing to say about the complexities of protecting a mate who had a previous life, who had a home, who had a family, all of whom would be hurt by choices he made.

So Kragen looked his queen in the eye and told the truth, through the haze of the hunger.

“I did what I did because I believed it to be the right thing to do, and I still do,” Kragen said. “That is my only justification. I have no defense, and I know the punishment.”

The queen seemed to smile, slightly.

“That is not much of an argument, Commander,” she said.

“I am not here to argue,” Kragen said, and growled slightly as he felt another urge rise in his chest. Andromeda was standing so close to him. He did not look at her, for fear of losing control. But he could smell her. “I am here because she has something to say. And you will all listen.”

Every eye in the room turned to look at Andromeda.

Kragen growled. But he held fast.

“And who is she?” the queen asked.

“My mate,” Kragen said. “Andromeda Knowles.”

The queen’s expression barely changed at those words. But the entire room came to alert.

“And does this Andromeda Knowles know where you are hiding Runevok ka Davos?” the queen said eventually.

This time Kragen did not suppress his growl. It rumbled throughout the room, reverberating down the walls.

“I will not betray my brother,” he said. “And neither will she.”

“You betrayed him when you broke rivka,” a young Leonid spat from somewhere behind the prince. “You betrayed us all!”

Kragen let his gaze fall on the young Leonid. A trainee, perhaps, or a new graduate of guard training. A pup.

Kragen could drain him of his kuma in but a moment. The hunger told him to. The hunger screamed that his mate was near.

He bared his fangs.

“Stop!”

It was Andromeda. The sound of her voice calmed him, and at the same time hardened his cock.

The queen smiled this time, and waved a single hand. The young impertinent Leonid staggered visibly, as though he’d been struck.

“Speak, Andromeda Knowles,” the queen said.

This time, Kragen forced himself to look at his mate. It might be the last time he ever saw her. So he turned to look at her, and the bond between them, head on.

She was so godsdamned beautiful.

The fire within raged. The hunger roared. And the rest of him…loved.

He loved this human female.

Kragen saw it now. What he’d seen the times he’d drank her kuma, what he’d seen of her heart—that was all real. If it had just been the hunger driving him, he would have claimed her long ago, consequences be damned. The hunger did not have a conscience. It was an animal, a primal thing. It did not care if Andromeda lost her home. It did not care if she had her eyes open when she chose to submit.

Kragen did.

As he looked at her the need for her swirled inside him, snarling, a savage thing caged only by how he felt. He did not just see beauty in her eyes. He saw the amount of love she could carry, the gentleness, the bravery of someone who was physically weak but stood strong with a warrior’s heart. He saw the face she made as she was overcome with pleasure. He saw everything.

The only thing holding him back, the last thread of his Dominant control, was the promise he had made to her.

I will not harm you. You will have your say.

“Speak,” he said, echoing the queen.

Andromeda swallowed. But she stood straight, and she stood tall. And she looked right at the queen.

“Kragen did what he did for the greater good,” she said. “He found a drug that can slow the progression of the kravok. He wanted to save his brother, but he wanted to save all of you, too. I know breaking rivka is a taboo, but to me…”

She hesitated, and looked at Kragen. He curled his massive hands into fists, but stood still.

“To me, it means he would do anything for family.”

“And how do you know all this, Andromeda Knowles?” the queen asked.

“Because I’m his mate,” Andromeda said. “I don’t understand how or why, but I know it’s true.”

And she peeled back what remained of her dress to fully reveal the mating mark on her breast. As Kragen saw it, it began to glow with his. He could feel the heat from where he stood.

“And yet you are unclaimed,” the queen said, smiling. “I find it hard to believe that a Leonid would leave his true mate unclaimed this long.”

“Then I’ll prove it,” Andromeda said.

And before he could order her to stay still, she took the few steps to Kragen, reached out her hand, and touched his face.

For a second, Kragen was consumed with heat. With fire. With light, emanating from the very place where she touched him. He was aware, on the edge of his perception, that the room filled with a bright, white light, that every Leonid there reached for his weapon, that only the queen remained unafraid. He was also aware that the queen was insane.

Because Kragen was hanging on by a single thread of honor.

And then, suddenly, she was gone.

Andromeda dropped her hand, and stepped away. Kragen shook with the effort of holding it in—but he did not move. He did not break.

He would not break.

“My Gods,” the queen whispered. “Why have you not claimed her, Commander?”

His voice rang deep and rough.

“I knew what I had done,” he said. “She could not know. She will not be harmed.”

It was all he could manage, in words. Words were fading. His knowledge that Andromeda could not submit unless she understood the consequences was fading. What he knew as Kragen was fading.

Control was fading.

All that would be left soon was the alpha. The Dominant. The animal hunger.

The queen, however, looked to Andromeda—and laughed in amazement.

“This must be excruciating for him,” she said. “You cannot know, of course.”

Andromeda’s brow furrowed and she glared at the queen. Glared. Even in his fever, Kragen was amazed.

“You don’t know what I know,” Andromeda said. “And even if you don’t agree with me that Kragen is a hero, you must know that everyone on Earth will have seen the video of us by now. Everyone knows we have a mating bond—the first human-Leonid mating bond. And pretty soon everyone will know what the real consequences of the mating sickness are, too. And it’s pretty obvious you have your own political problems with the treaty, unless I hallucinated that assassination attempt fifteen minutes ago.”

The room held its breath. Even Prince Rhazian seemed shocked. Kragen wanted to laugh. He had never been prouder.

“This is my real offer,” Andromeda went on. “You let Kragen live. You honor him, for what he did for all of you. You let Rune live, too, and you treat him with the drug Kragen found.”

The queen leaned against one of the armrests on her throne, still smiling, still watching Andromeda.

“Do you know that no one has seen a Leonid male with an unfulfilled mating bond for over a hundred years?” the queen said. “I saw it once, when I was very young. There were very few survivors. I suspect, Andromeda Knowles, that if you required it, this entire ship would go down in flames, and you would remain unharmed.”

Andromeda blinked. Kragen closed his eyes, for just a moment. He saw it. If the queen decided against him, he saw himself doing it. Destroying everything within his grasp, everything but Andromeda. Falling to Earth with her in his arms, claiming her in a protective shield as they plummeted through the skies…

“I definitely do not require it,” Andromeda said very loudly.

“You are intelligent, human,” the queen said. “Which is good, because you will need to be. It is true that a treatment, as you call it, will be beneficial. I grant your requests regarding Runevok ka Davos. As to what we do with your Kragen…”

And at this, the queen finally looked at him. Kragen could feel her presence, the power in it, the result of a long, long mating bond with a mate who was her equal, strong enough to keep her bonded to a king who was far, far away. She was smiling.

“That rather depends,” the queen said.

“On what?” Andromeda said.

Their voices began to fade as another wave of hunger rose within his chest. Kragen had been fighting it since he looked at her again. Andromeda was the most beautiful female to ever exist, and he would not look away again. Her eyes flashed with determination, and her heart swelled with love and concern, even for those who would do her harm. Her brown hair fell around her shoulders as she argued with the queen, giving only brief hints of her slender neck. Her shoulders were back, her chest proud, her breasts full and demanding to be touched.

Through it all, her mating mark burned.

No Leonid had endured this. No Leonid could endure this. But he would, for her.

The outside world began to fall away as Kragen felt another onrush of need sweep through him. He would not look away from her, but he would remind himself. No matter what happened, a female who did not understand her choices could not truly submit. And Andromeda knew nothing of the consequences. Didn’t she?

He could only see her now. Moving in slow motion. Her lips plump and inviting, her curves demanding of his attention. Her scent on his tongue.

She knows nothing.

She reached up to push a piece of hair behind her ear, revealing the two marks where his fangs had met her neck. Kragen made fists of his hands.

She knows nothing.

Andromeda turned, then, briefly, to look at him. His blood pounded a desperate rhythm in his head, his hands, his cock.

She knows nothing…

And then, he heard. The only thing that could have cut through his fever, clear as a bell.

“But you have not been prepared for mating,” the queen was saying.

“I’m tired of people saying that,” Andromeda said fiercely. “I know more about it than any human alive, at this point. I saw. I don’t know what I saw, but…”

She stopped, and turned back to Kragen. She looked into his eyes, and the bond between them flared white-hot. A link directly to his soul. To hers.

“I saw, when you drank from me,” she said. “I know what they’ll do to you. I know I’ll share in it. I know everything I need to know. And I know what my heart says.”

“Well,” the queen said, “my decision—”

But she never got to finish.

Kragen’s roar swallowed everything.