Page 66

"You did this." Kavan's voice dropped to something barely audible, and somehow that was more terrifying than shouting could ever be. "You're the reason she died. The reason I burned those villages to ash. The reason we slept for seven hundred and fifty years while the galaxy moved on without us."

"I saved us from your weakness." Verrater's voice rose, cracking with conviction gone rancid. "And I'll do it again, gladly. This human is turning you soft, making you forget what you are. We are dragons, Kavan. Apex predators. We don't bow to lesser creatures. We don't mate with them. We don't—"

I refused to listen to another word.

My left arm was free, and I had gathered every ounce of strength in my body for this split second.

I drove my left elbow backward with everything I had, aiming for the soft give beneath his ribs. Pain lanced up my arm at the impact, but I heard him grunt, felt his fist loosen in my hair just barely, but enough.

I twisted and threw myself sideways, away from the knife, but my right wrist was still bound to the headboard, and the rope snapped taut as I fell. Fire tore through my shoulder as the joint wrenched hard against the restraint, and I screamed, the sound raw and involuntary, black spots bursting across my vision. The blade caught my other shoulder as I fell, a line of searing heat I barely registered beneath the greater agony radiating from my dislocated arm. I hit the floor hard, gasping, tears blurring my sight, but Verrater's knife was no longer at my throat.

Everything happened at once.

Kavan closed the distance in a blur too fast for my eyes to track, his hand catching Verrater's wrist and twisting until I heard bone crack, sharp and sickening over the noble's answering shriek. The knife clattered somewhere across the floor. Then Kavan had him by the throat, lifting him clean off his feet like he weighed nothing at all, like he was already dead and just hadn't realized it yet.

"Kavan." Sanyra's hand closed around his forearm, her voice cutting through his fury with calm urgency. "Not yet. We need him breathing. We need every name in his sect before you end this."

Rhucard was already at my side, dropping to his knees and I watched as his claws extended. "Hold still," he said, and in three quick motions he sliced through the rope still binding my wrist to the headboard. The moment the tension released, my shoulder screamed in fresh protest, and he caught me before I could crumple, his arm bracing beneath mine with surprising gentleness for someone who'd looked ready to commit murder moments before. "Easy. Don't move that arm."

"I'm okay," I managed, though my voice shook and the words felt like a lie even as I said them. Blood soaked warm down my shoulder, and my right arm hung wrong, useless, throbbing in time with my pulse. "I'm okay."

But I wasn't looking at Rhucard. My eyes found Kavan, found the terrible, absolute fury blazing in his, and beneath it, something rawer. Something that looked like terror finally allowed to surface now that the immediate danger had passed.

"Kavan," I whispered.

His gaze snapped to mine across the room, and for one suspended heartbeat, nothing else existed. Not Verrater choking in his grip, not Sanyra, not Rhucard or the blood soaking through my sleeve. Just the two of us, and the current running between us that had been building since the moment I stepped off that shuttle.

"Mine." The word tore out of him, resonating through the room with a weight that made the air itself feel heavier. "She's mine. My mate. My blood song." His gaze cut back to Verrater, and his voice dropped to something guttural, something barely contained. "And you put your hands on her."

The declaration hit me like a physical wave, not just the words but everything beneath them, the absolute certainty, the claim that went deeper than possession, deeper than protection. Not just the truth in Kavan's voice, but the answering yes screaming in my soul.

Then Kavan moved. He tossed Verrater aside like a piece of garbage, the traitor's body hitting the wall with a sickening thud before crumpling to the floor. Kavan didn't even look to see where he landed. His focus was entirely on me.

In three strides he was at my side, dropping to his knees and pulling me into his arms with a desperation that stole my breath. His hands were everywhere, cupping my face, running down my arms, checking for injuries, and I could feel him shaking. Actually shaking.

"Leila." My name came out broken, raw. "Leila, I thought—when we couldn't find you—"

"I'm here," I said, wrapping my left arm around his neck despite the pain in my shoulder. "I'm here. I'm okay."

He was trembling, his whole body vibrating with barely controlled emotion. One hand slid into my hair, cradling the back of my head, while the other wrapped around my waist, pulling me impossibly closer. He buried his face in the curve of my neck, and I felt his breath shudder against my skin.

"I could have lost you." His voice was muffled, thick with emotion. "I could have been too late."

"But you weren't." I held him tighter, feeling the tremors running through his powerful frame. This was not the composed king or the fierce warrior. This was a male who had been terrified, who had faced the possibility of losing something precious and was only now allowing himself to feel it. "You found me. You saved me."

His arms tightened around me, almost crushing, and I didn't care about the pain. I just held him, letting him feel that I was real, that I was alive, that I was here in his arms where I belonged.

"I've got you," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "I've got you, wildflower. You're safe now."

Then he turned back to Verrater, his expression going cold. "Sanyra, Rhucard—take him. Get me every name, every location, every detail of his conspiracy. I want to know everyone involved in this."

"And then?" Sanyra asked, though I suspected she already knew the answer.

"And then he's mine." Kavan's voice was absolutely final. "He touched my mate. He tried to harm her. The execution is mine to carry out."

Kavan turned back to me, his hands gentle as they cupped my face, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones while his eyes searched mine.

"How badly are you hurt?" His voice shook.