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  Tears burned trails down Riyah’s cheeks. She could feel the hate inside of Vyr. Hate for himself. She could feel everything. All the pain. The drive to claim more and more territory just so he didn’t have to think about the loss. The need to hurt anyone who came after the people he cared about. The relentless urge to hunt, burn, and devour, because that’s what injured animals did—they lashed out. And the injury in Vyr consumed his entire heart.

  Everything he hadn’t been able to put into words over the past six months was laid bare before her.

  “Hurry,” she whispered.

  “We’re almost there,” Nox murmured.

  Her body felt jolted over and over. Where was she? The bed of Torren’s truck? All she could see was through Vyr’s eyes in the orchard—heat waves and gravestones.

  Isaac Daye

  Farion Daye

  A picture of a little dragon was etched under both names.

  Her hands…Vyr’s hands…traced them, and a single tear fell onto the stone surface of Isaac’s. It sizzled and evaporated in an instant.

  “I’m sorry,” he choked out again.

  And then agony rippled through her, bowing her body. She looked up to the sky. The only thing that would make her feel better was the mist of clouds against his scales, and releasing the fire in his belly, and devouring ashes.

  The Red Dragon was coming.

  “Vyr!” Riyah screamed as she was thrown from his mind.

  She struggled for breath as she opened her eyes. She was lying in the back of Torren’s truck, and Nox was hovering over her, his hand resting on her shoulder, his other on the edge of the bed, his eyes up ahead to wherever Torren was driving. Her body jostled hard as they hit a bump, then another.

  “Ooooh, mother fuck cakes,” Nox murmured, his eyes going wide.

  Riyah struggled upright, but she already knew what she would see. She’d felt his Change coming, felt the Red Dragon clawing out of Vyr, burning him up from the inside out.

  Smoke clung to the woods like fog, and she could see the distinct line where the snow had melted from whatever was happening to Vyr. The thick tires blasted right through three-inch thick snow to mud.

  “Hold on!” Torren yelled out the open window, the back end of his truck fishtailing this way and that as he blasted through the woods, dodging sturdy pines.

  Above the trees rose the fire-red spikes along the back of the Red Dragon.

  “Oh, my gosh, Nox!” Riyah yelled. “What if he burns the sawmill?” He’d bought Torren a sawmill long ago, and the Crew had just got it up and running a year ago. That was their main income.

  “He won’t.”

  “How do you know?” she cried as the Red Dragon lifted his long neck and bellowed a roar into the sky. “We haven’t called the other dragons. Who is here to stop him this time? We haven’t even told Kane or Damon or—”

  “Riyah!” Nox gritted out, gripping her shoulders. They jerked hard to the side, braced on their splayed knees. “Quit acting like a damn princess when we all know you’re a dragon slayer.”

  “W-what?”

  “I burned my beautiful bronzed skin to bring you here, woman. Wiggle your fingers and turn him into a turd or something.”

  “That’s not how my powers work.”

  “I just saw you motherfuckin’ levitate. Off the ground. Like a ghost. Bing bong, clip clop, witch! Blink hard, point your magic wand, and stop the fire.”

  “Oh…just…stop the fire. You’re stupid.”

  “You’re stupid.”

  She yelped as Torren hit a big bump. Her knees were going to be black and blue, and indeed Nox’s hair was mussed and his cheeks flushed. His sweater had been burned to tatters, exposing raw, red skin underneath. Whoops. They both gripped onto the sides of the truck for stability as the dragon beat his wings and created hurricane winds.

  “You’re stupid because you let me burn you,” she muttered.

  “Well, you’re stupid because you bone a man-eating dragon.”

  “Well, you’re stupid because last week I caught you eating cereal with orange juice.”

  “Well, you’re stupid because you forgot to buy the milk so I had to eat the cereal—”

  “Both of you, shut up!” Torren bellowed.

  The Red Dragon spewed fire and lava in a line toward the east.

  Nox muttered, “Torren is extra stupid because he’s driving us right toward the Red Dragon’s mouth.”

  “The stupidest,” Riyah murmured, biting back a smile. This should not be funny, but something was changing for her lately. Maybe she was healing from everything, feeling better, appreciating the Crew for sticking with her when she’d lost her shit for half a year. It was nice to trade insults with Nox again. It felt like old times.

  And watching her mate’s power, even though it was born of pain, well, it made her proud. He’d done this to himself on purpose, knowing the consequences, knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep the dragon in check, but he was trying to cope and catch up with her in their healing process anyway. Good mate for at least trying.

  Those charitable thoughts lasted until Torren drove them through the last grove of wild foliage before they reached the perfect rows of fruit trees in the orchard. They were all on fire.

  Fire was everywhere. He was hovering over the gravestones, spewing lava around him.

  “Why isn’t he airborne?” Nox asked over the sound of the engine.

  “Because the dragon is protecting the babies.”

  “Protecting them from what?” Nox snarled.

  Riyah shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. He’s blocked me out again.”

  “Okay, you know what?” Nox yelled. “That’s enough!”

  Torren skidded to the side in front of the dragon and sped down a row of flaming trees, but Nox stood and jumped out. Just…jumped.

  “Nox!” Riyah screamed.

  “Shit,” Torren said, barely audible above the sound of his truck. He slammed on the brakes, but Riyah was scrambling out before it even rocked to a stop. Nox stomped up to the dragon, splayed his legs, and yelled, “Hey, twatwagon!” Nox choked on the thick smoke, coughed a few times and then yelled, “You aren’t the only one who lost them, you know!”

  Vyr narrowed his eyes then opened his mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and blew fire at Nox.

  Without thinking, Riyah yelped and held out her hands. She let the power pulse through her fingertips. The fire stopped just short of Nox, but Vyr wasn’t letting up. Flames and lava spewed straight at Nox in an unending barrage. Torren’s massive silverback ran past her toward the blond troublemaker, blocking him from Vyr. Great, now she had two idiots to shield from a pissed off dragon.

  Vyr stopped his fire and inhaled again, his Firestarter clicking, but Nox called up to the monster, “You think you’re the only one hurting? I wanted them, too! Nevada wanted them, too! We stopped trying for a baby because we thought between Dane and your twins, we would have plenty of little ones to spoil rotten! I had plans, you overgrown lizard! I was going to train them to love me more than you! I bought them custom-made onesies that said ‘My uncle is hotter than your uncle!’ I made a nursery for them, so we could have them for slumber parties! Sure, we all live in the same house and their nursery was in my closet, but it counted! I’m sad, too!” The last three words, he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “Me, too,” Torren rumbled in his deep, inhuman voice. It was still a little freaky that he could talk in animal form.

  “You greedy grunt,” Nox yelled. “You think all the pain is yours? Well, it’s not. We’re all hurting. And instead of leaning on us, you pulled dick moves, pushed us all away, and you’re making everything worse. I’m very angry at you! My therapist, aka Nevada, told me I need to say my feelings, so there it is!”

  The dragon sat there, poised protectively over the little graves, coiled to strike like a snake, glaring at Nox, smoke wafting from his nostrils.

  “I think you’re being a giant dick!” Nox screamed. “And since
you burned your mate’s orchard, she’ll probably never give you another sixty-nine again!”

  “That’s not true,” Riyah corrected, still holding her hands up in case the boys needed her protection. “Selfishly, I’m still all in on sixty-nines, but you will be re-planting my beautiful orchard, Vyr Daye! You made this place a sanctuary, and now you made it smell like smoke. You burned all my trees! I love you very much, but right now I don’t like you.”

  The dragon’s nostrils flared, and he huffed out a steaming breath as he looked around at the trees and mud and ash.

  “Yeah, you cretin, you did that! To your own mate’s gift that you gave her!” Nox yelled. “You’re terrible!”

  “Well,” Torren growled, “not terrible. I sat on the model train I made for Dane, and that doesn’t make me a bad person.”

  “Oh, my God,” Nox belted out, turning to glare at Torren. “Don’t make this about you.”

  “It’s just that a person can carry a lot of guilt for stuff like this—”

  “I’m gonna turn into a fuckin’ bear, and I’m gonna eat you,” Nox growled, shoving the silverback gorilla in the shoulder. “And then I’m gonna concentrate real hard and turn you into bunny poops. You know, like the pellets? And I’m gonna poop one pellet out at a time and name them each Torren the Terrible—”

  Torren shoved Nox in the chest. “Nevada told you to stop talking about poop.”

  The dragon rumbled, but mostly he just sounded annoyed. The boys ignored him and just kept arguing. Riyah pursed her lips against a smile. Vyr’s terrifying silver dragon eyes locked onto her, and she cleared her throat and tried to be serious. “Everyone deals with loss their own way, but perhaps burning my sanctuary isn’t polite.”

  “You know what else isn’t polite?” Nox punched his hands on his hips and arched his neck all the way back to look at the dragon.. “You taking over your mate’s mind, setting her skin on fire, and her burning my nipples off. Look at this!” He pulled away the burned, tattered shirt and exposed his torso. “They will heal because I’m a genetic miracle, and I’ll probably look better than ever, but for the next three days, you have deprived my mate of nibbling on my nips.”

  “Ew,” Torren said, his gorilla face all scrunched up in disgust.

  “Bright side, she basically waxed my chest,” Nox muttered, staring down at himself and rubbing his pecs.

  Vyr let of a smoky dragon sigh, bunched his muscles, and outstretched his tattered, massive red wings. When he launched himself into the air, Riyah and Nox fell to their knees and Torren had to splay his powerful legs and arms under the force of the wind.

  “Vyr!” Torren called after him.

  “It’s okay,” Riyah said breathlessly. She closed her eyes so she could see through Vyr again. The burning orchard was growing smaller beneath her. “He’s let me into his head. He’s okay. Just needs to fly for a while. The dragon needs to think.”

  She opened her eyes to find Nox staring at her like she’d sprouted a pig nose. “What?”

  “He just needs to fly? Have you not paid attention for the last six months? Vyr doesn’t just fly anymore. He burns shit down. I mean…it’s awesome, but we have to keep paying for the damages.”

  “By we, you mean Vyr. You don’t make that much,” Torren deadpanned.

  “Then give me a raise, asshole, and maybe I could help pay for all the smiting and pillaging and burning.”

  He crawled over to Torren and shoved him again, then rose and began to walk off. But Torren reached out his massive arm and clipped his legs out from under Nox so he went down in the mud face-first. Torren stepped on his back as he made his way toward the truck. Nox’s body made a squishing sound, and he grunted under Torren’s weight.

  “I’m telling Nevada you talked about poop again,” Torren muttered.

  Nox peeled himself from the mud. “I’m going to build Dane a model train that I don’t sit on with my big clumsy ass, and then I’m going to train him to call me ‘Dad.’”

  “Do that and I’ll kill you,” Torren called over his shoulder.

  “Poop. Pellets!”

  Riyah waved her hands in front of her face to clear the smoke and coughed as she watched Vyr disappear into the clouds. She missed him already and hoped he came home soon. She made her way to the headstones and then wiped ashes off them with her hand. He’d burned their sanctuary, but it wasn’t his fault. His anguish had just been too much.

  Tomorrow they would go to the Oregon mountains to make their apologies to Grim and his Crew. She sighed heavily, trying to imagine how it would be. This would be the first time she ever left her babies.

  It was time, though.

  She had to get back to living.

  She had to get back to keeping Vyr steady.

  Because no matter what happened, they were in this life-thing together.

  Chapter Seven

  The dragon had landed a damned mile away from the house, and now Vyr was having to tromp all the way home, bare-ass naked and freezing cold. His dragon didn’t much like the cold. It made him slower, and the Changes didn’t last as long, but from the look of the sun setting on the horizon, he’d been away for several hours.

  Rubbing his arms to put some warmth back into them, he stepped into the clearing and sighed in relief at seeing the mansion. From here, he could see a fire in the hearth through the sprawling front windows, but that wasn’t the sight that settled his dragon. It was Riyah, sitting on the front porch swing, bundled in a blanket, cupping a metal thermos in her hands. She wore a red beanie that matched her rosy cheeks and made her dark freckles stand out even more than usual. Her dark hair was in waves down her shoulders, and when she saw him, her full lips curved up in an uncertain smile. She waved at him.

  He was exhausted down to his bones, frozen straight through, every muscle sore from the Change, and his skin felt raw and burned, but he still had some work to do.

  When he made his way to the porch, she was holding out her arms with the corners of the blanket hooked in her hands.

  He slipped right into her hug and allowed her to wrap the warm fabric around his shoulders. She was so warm and smelled like herbs. “Have you been mixing something up?” he asked. He’d built her a greenhouse where she could grow and dry plants to make the old salves she remembered from her mother.

  “Something to heal our skin faster. That was a rough Change.”

  Vyr eased back and tugged at the V-neck of her sweater. Her skin was pink, and she winced when he touched her. “I’ve never dragged you through one before. Never kept you in my mind when it happened. I couldn’t—”

  “You couldn’t help it.” She leaned up and kissed him so sweetly he tugged her closer. “You did good. I watched the news but didn’t see any footage of you burning any towns.”

  “I didn’t burn anything. Didn’t feel like it. I just wanted to be in the sky for a while. Riyah?”

  Yes? she asked in his mind.

  He smiled and hugged her tenderly so he wouldn’t hurt her skin. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I saw how it was for you, in your mind. You lost your parents, and you were hurt for a long time over it, but I saw it. I felt it. You’ve never felt more abandoned than you did these last six months. And it was me, the one who loves you the most, who made you feel alone. None of it was your fault, you know?

  It was.

  No. His denial was so stern she couldn’t argue if she tried. You grew our babies so well. You took care of them in every way you could. Their little dragons were just too strong. Too impatient. It isn’t anyone’s fault. Not yours and not theirs.

  And not yours.

  Vyr sighed and eased back, just far enough to cup her cheeks and look her into her eyes. “That part I’m going to try and accept because blaming myself for what happened isn’t helping anything.”

  “Just love them, Vyr. Love them for those beautiful moments you felt them moving in my belly. That’s all the time we were allowed to have with them.” Riyah’s breath hitched, and she ducked her gaze, lowe
red her chin to her chest. And when he eased her face back up, her eyes were rimmed with tears. She tried to smile anyway, tough mate. Beautiful badass.

  “I’ll do better. And I’ll go with you to visit them now. I’ll sit with you on that bench and talk to them with you. I saw it in your head. All the times you told them about the things you love most about their father. About me. Even when I didn’t deserve for you to say anything nice. I’ll replant your orchard, not just for you, but for them, too. And I’ll apologize to Grim. I’ll hate every second of it, but if you think that’ll help Torren and Nox, then I’ll do it.”

  “Really?”

  “Grim made this Christmas wish to be a better Alpha, and it replays over and over in my head. He’s broken, but he still has the drive to take care of his people. This year was the hardest on me, but maybe I could make a wish for next year. Maybe I can wish to be a better Alpha, too.”

  Riyah parted her pretty lips to say something, but her face was confiscated by a frown and the words stayed lodged in her throat as she stared at something behind him.

  When he turned, Nox was headed this way, humming a song around a beef jerky stick, dragging what looked like a horse saddle with an extremely long cinch strap trailing behind him through the snow.

  He looked up at Vyr and stopped in his tracks, his eyes round. Just buckled his legs and skidded to a stop. “Uuuuh, you’re back early.”

  “What the fuck is that?” Vyr asked.

  “What’s what?” Nox answered innocently.

  Vyr counted to three in his head so he wouldn’t cuss ob-Nox-ious out. “The saddle you are holding in front of you.”

  Nox looked down like he’d never seen before in his life the thing he clenched in his hands. “Oh. This thing. Weeeeell…it’s a saddle.”

  “For?”

  “For our flight.”

  Vyr pursed his lips. Maybe he should just burn him and eat him. Just a little burning and eating. Just a little.