by Pearl Foxx
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.”
Chapter Nineteen
Kinyi
Kinyi stepped back to give Tane room to shift. She wished the other Draqons, especially Zayd and his precious Queen, weren’t out on the deck too. She wanted Tane to have privacy. He needed the extra moment to get his fire and madness under control. She worried about what to say if she had to coax him down like when he’d shifted in the jungle. Those words were too personal to be spoken so freely in front of their people.
Most importantly, she didn’t want anyone to see Tane’s weaknesses.
But Tane didn’t need the space she’d given him. He made his own by stepping off the edge of the deck.
She watched him drop out of sight for a horrible, wrenching moment. Her gut flipped up her throat, and a scream bubbled up in her mouth when a massive, black- and silver-scaled Draqon rose in the air in front of the flight deck.
Behind her, the other Draqons gasped in surprise. None of them had ever seen a shifted Draqon as big as Tane. He filled up the entire night, stealing darkness from the skies.
Tane’s white horn shone in the moonlight. His midnight-black wings, like thin velvet, flapped in the air as he hovered just a few feet in front of her. Reaching forward with his taloned feet, he grasped the deck’s edge and set down, his wing sweeping out along the smooth rock like a personal runway just for her.
She tried to control the manic smile on her face, but she couldn’t. She had a better chance at kissing Queen Niva’s feet than she did at stuffing her delirious grin away.
“Show off,” she mumbled just so Tane could hear as she climbed up his wing.
The massive Draqon chuckled and let out a plume of smoke from his nostrils.
She settled astride his broad back, the leathers she’d oiled early that morning gripping his scales perfectly. She slid her hands
along his shoulders to his neck and gripped the raised ridges of his hide.
He twisted his long neck around to look back at her. His nostrils flared, and his black eyes blinked at her. At the end of his snout, a long forked tongue slithered out and tasted the air.
“I know,” she said, still grinning. “I can’t help it. You’re so fucking sexy. It makes me hot to ride you like this. Just take off before all the other males smell me.”
With a rumbling growl, he lifted off from the edge, his great wings beating on either side of them. The other Draqons shrank away as he and Kinyi lifted higher into the air above the Vilkas’ mountain. She watched as they drifted toward the center of the flight deck and peered up to gawk as they flew away.
They couldn’t help their marvel. Tane would always be a legend.
Kinyi pressed herself tighter to his neck and stroked her his neck.
Tane flew through the cloud cover, the moon casting silver-strewn shadows around them. Below them, Kinyi caught flashes of the dense jungle and the sparkling river threading through it. The Katu waited somewhere down there with their wooden boats, ready to ferry innocent Hylas and the Hylan servants from the destruction.
The jungle ended with a dash of sandy beach, and then the ocean began. Darkness with white-capped waves stretched out beneath them. They were close already. Within a few moments, they would arrive at the Vydal, and their aerial assault would begin.
Kinyi glanced behind her. Through the clouds, she spotted Zayd’s golden-hued Draqon and Niva on his back, the purple scales of Maxsym and his mate, and then farther back, the glint of the Vilkas’ ships, which were carrying Rayner, Gerrit, and Nestan into the fray.
Between the nine of them, they could only hope someone lived long enough to kill Gideon.
Tane slowed.
Kinyi faced forward, her hand flat against his scales. Before them, the shimmering Vydal towered over the ocean, waves crashing against its stilted base, the night sky reflected in the glass walls. All around it, like a glowing candle perched atop a birthday cake, the humans flew their ships.
Their numbers had been staggering in the battleship, but seeing them out in the open, flying around with their guns and gleaming black metal, Kinyi’s heart dipped. There were thousands. The low drone of engines sounded like a storm rolling in from the sea.
For the first time, Kinyi felt a flutter of doubt.
Before it could travel down their connection, she stuffed it away. Tane didn’t need her fear. He needed her support.
The moons fell behind the heavy cloud cover, bathing the ocean and Hylan city in darkness. Now was as good a time as any.
“Let’s go drop a bomb on these assholes,” Kinyi whispered to Tane.
She felt nothing but steely resolve in their connection. Tane was focused and unwavering. His eyes were unflinching as he tracked the ships.
Tane broke through the cloud cover, flying above the ships. He angled toward the most direct route through the fleet to the heart of the Vydal and dove.
Kinyi’s stomach rushed into her throat at the sudden drop. She pressed herself tighter against Tane’s neck and readied an arrow, her legs clenching his sides to hold herself steady.
A siren built from the Vydal. Kinyi glanced back. Zayd and the others were following down after them, giving Tane plenty of space to unleash his fire. The siren’s pitch rose to a deafening screech. As one, the humans’ ships swung toward her and Tane.
Tane’s fire rose from his belly. Kinyi could trace its path as it broiled inside him and roared up through his chest and up his neck. When he opened his mouth, she braced herself.
The flames shot directly at the first ship in front of them. The orange fire struck the metal hull, and Kinyi leaned back from Tane’s neck to fire her explosive arrow. It struck the metal with a sharp ping, and Tane angled upright as the small shuttle exploded.
He was already aiming his fire at another ship. Then another. And another.
Ship after ship blazed around them, struggling to stay aloft or already falling from the sky. Guns shot around them, but Tane moved too quickly for the bullets to land true, twisting and diving through the inferno of his own creation.
The other Draqons and Vilkan ships kept the humans from closing in behind Tane and Kinyi as they tore through the humans’ defenses.
As Kinyi fired off arrows, she realized the orange flames of Tane’s fire were changing. Darkening. Deepening. The heat had changed as well, and there was a sound to the blaze, like thousands of tiny whispers.
The fire burned blue and pure from Tane’s mouth, and when it touched a ship or the air, it ignited into a small explosion that hissed and crackled. It spread, devouring the air. Kinyi watched the blue flames gallop across the fleet of ships without Tane having to open his mouth.
His fire, his madness, was a monster hungry to burn everything in its path.
Watching the bluish-white flames dance from one ship to another, licking through the air like they had lives of their own, Kinyi could easily imagine how everyone had died during the battle when Tane lost control. She only hoped Zayd and the others stayed far enough behind. But when she glanced back to check, the blue flames had surrounded them in a wall of impenetrable heat at their backs.
There was no more retreat, only going forward.
Tane jerked up, startling Kinyi so much that she slipped a bit off his side.
She grappled for purchase and managed to right herself as Tane’s wings beat upward, bringing them almost to a complete stop.
In front of them was a Falconer.
Kinyi heard the whine of guns as the mini-turrets built speed.
Before she could lift her bow, the Falconer fired.
Tane reared up, exposing his chest to the gunfire. They struck him deep, tearing vibrations that echoed in Kinyi’s ears. She screamed as she felt the bullets tear through the vulnerable scales of his chest.
He roared his furious blue fire at the Falconer, setting it ablaze.
For a second, Kinyi thought they’d made it. That the bullets hadn’t been as bad as they’d felt. But then Tane’s wings faltered, and her stomach swooped as they began to free-fall.
“Tane!” she shouted. The wind stole her voice as they fell faster toward the black wall of water beneath them.
The connection between them was dark.
Empty.
She felt nothing in the space where Tane should have been.
The Draqon beneath her was limp and twisting through the air, just as empty and dark as their bond.
They hit the water’s surface with a great smack that almost threw Kinyi from Tane’s back. A spray of water went up around them. All too soon, before Kinyi could draw in a breath, a wall of ice-cold water crushed her as she went under. Waves crashed overhead, but she didn’t release her grip on Tane’s scales.
She kicked him with her heels and pounded on his shoulders with the heel of her hand. She shouted with everything she had down their connection.
But they just sank. The light of the burning world above them disappeared as the ocean’s darkness surrounded them.
She held on.
Her lungs screamed in her chest, and her vision blurred with hazy lines as she tried to make out Tane’s black scales from the ocean’s void. His wings floated like a gossamer shroud.
Kinyi’s chest bucked. She fought to keep her mouth closed and hold back the instinct to suck in a breath that would surely kill her.
A flash of scales darted by her vision.
Her relief was instant. Zayd or Maxsym had seen them fall. They were coming to save them.
Sharp white teeth snapped out from the darkness right at her face.
Kinyi opened her mouth and screamed.
Water rushed in.
Her lungs heaved at the onslaught of salt water.
She choked.
Tight, bony fingers wrapped around her arms and tore her free from Tane. They rushed her up through the water as she flailed and kicked.
As her vision dar
kened, she saw Tane’s body hit the bottom of the ocean, his velvet wings settling beside him and stirring up a plume of silt that hid him from view.
Her vision had gone black when a fist struck her chest. Her insides lurched, and it felt like the ocean was pouring out of her mouth. She rolled onto her side and heaved out the last of the water, panting and gasping.
When she looked up, she saw the Vydal above her, glimmering beneath the moonlight. She lay on the city’s rampart, the massive doors open behind the Hylas who stood staring down at her.
The Hylas’ lead mage, Tavorn, grinned down at her, his teeth sharp and his legs scaled. “Look what we pulled from the sea.”
Behind him, a shadow loomed. Tavorn stepped aside, and a tall human with black hair stepped forward. He smiled, even though above him, high in the clouds, his people burned.
“Gideon,” Kinyi hissed, recognizing the evil human commander from the news reports of the space station. She coughed.
“So, this is the rider of the demon responsible for the blue fire.” Gideon rubbed his chin as if lost in thought. “She doesn’t look so big without her monster, does she?”
“What shall we do with her?” Tavorn asked, his forked tongue slithering over his lips as he considered Kinyi.
Gideon considered a moment before his smile hooked in the corners of his lips, turning evil. “Kill her. Leave her out here for her friends to see.”
Chapter Twenty
Tane
Fire simmered deep in Tane’s belly. It rose like a sun peaking above white-capped mountains.
He needed to do something, to recall something vital, but a heavy weight had settled on his chest and all he wanted to do was sleep.
But the fire was so hot it seared his bones. Smoke curled up his throat. His chest felt like he’d been burned to a crisp.
Beneath the flames, the connection chimed inside him. It woke him, truly.
The blue fire. The Falconer.
