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He doesn’t hesitate with his response. “No.”

I let him go and backhand him. Hard. Hard enough for him to spin across the wall, blood spurting from his nose and his mouth. This is still more gentle than he deserves. I should bebreaking every bone in his body. I should be crushing him bit by bit until he takes me to my mate.

“Monster,” he curses.

I hit him again, closed fist this time. Dead center of the stomach. It’s not as satisfying as it should be. And it does absolutely nothing to get me any closer to what I want.

“Don’t make me become seriously murderous,” I tell him. “I have kept you alive for as long as I have because I am fond of you. That liking is fast expiring.”

He is bent double, but straightens through the pain to look in my eyes.

“She’ll die like my mother did, giving birth to me. You’ll take her life, and the whelp will spend the rest of its life owing you something.”

I soften. Slightly. Fractionally. He’s trying to make up for a past loss by creating a current one. I can’t say I intend to tolerate it, but it does make me moderate my response a little.

“Equinox, your mother’s death was a tragedy.”

“A preventable one. Human women are not built to birth dragon babies. I killed my mother, and you are going to force your whelp to do the same. I’m not telling you where she is.”

I wrap my hand around his throat and I squeeze hard enough to very nearly close off his breath forever. I could rip it out if I wanted, and I am very much on the verge of wanting that.

“Yes. You are. I will imprison you and torture you for a thousand years if you do not tell me in the next two minutes. I will make you wish you had never been born. I will ensure that you regretyour existence for the rest of it. I want my mate, and I will commit unspeakable cruelties to have her.”

He knows I mean it, because I do. I will not kill him. That would be too merciful. What I will do is make his eternity more painful than he can possibly imagine. He has crossed me at a level nobody should ever cross me.

“If I lose her because of you. Actually, no, if she has so much as a scratch because of you, I will do the absolute worst things I can do to you and I will do them over and over and over until you curse the day your blessed mother was born.”

I loosen my grip slightly as he starts to turn blue. “Last chance. Now.”

“I put her back where she came from,” he rasps out.

In an instant, I am portaling through to Earth.

I arrive in the house where I took her, taking my human form and usual suit. I can already tell she’s not here anymore. I can’t feel her here. I can hear the sound of the other girl playing on her phone, and I can hear her father lying on the phone in his office. Melissa is not here.

I go out the front door and try to imagine where a young woman, scared, confused, absolutely filled to the brim with dragon seed, would go. Common sense says down toward the city, but something else draws me uphill. I can feel her. Her, and something else. I can feel power emanating from somewhere up the winding road.

“Stay away from me!”

She saw me before I saw her. Interesting. She is standing on a corner with her jacket off, and the back of her shirt in tatters. It’s the strangest thing. I don’t think anybody has hurt her. She doesn’t look like she’s been assaulted. But the shirt has been rasped away by repeated rubbing. She was doing that back at the castle too, and in the forest. I did not think much of it at the time, but now I am realizing I should have paid attention immediately.

There are buds rising on the backs of her shoulders. I know what they are, because I have seen them in whelps before. They are the precursors to wings. But humans do not develop wings. Humans also do not return to the human world after going to the dragon realm and being bred three times.

“Melissa, I’m not here to hurt you.”

She looks at me with eyes full of mistrust, then turns to walk away. The sight I behold when I have the full view of her back is very disturbing. The shirt is almost entirely missing, and where it was is raw flesh, blood, and the beginning of an unfurling that cannot possibly be allowed to happen. I have to get her off this plane immediately.

I start to run after her, which is a mistake. I start running, and she starts running, and before I know it, those wings that had barely begun to emerge are ripping out from her tender skin and expanding at a horrific rate.

“Melissa! No!” I try to call out, try to stop her from doing what I know she is going to do. It’s another mistake. I should never have chased. I should have tried to talk, seduced her back to my realm rather than tried to force her.

It’s all too late.

I watch my mate erupt from the ground, her wings expanding in a swift, dramatic motion that bears her aloft in an instant. They move seemingly of their own accord. They are not scaled. They are… leathery. Deep black leather with claws on each end of them.

There weren’t that many people on the street when the chase started, but somehow there’s suddenly a lot of them, almost as if they all spawned in at once.

“Batwoman!”