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VEGA

Camp, if you could even call it that, was a gouged patch of shadow under a spine of rock, the kind that looked like it wanted to collapse and finish the job the world had started on us.

Bedding? Sure, if “windblown grit in every orifice” counted.

My shoulders ached. My lips were split, and my tongue was dry like I’d been chewing sand for a year.

But none of that was the real problem.

The real problem was Zarvash.

He moved like a grenade with the pin out, hunched against the stone, pretending “intimidating” was a strategy instead of the last excuse holding his bones in place.

His wing, torn, twisted at his side, had to hurt.

He was trying to look stoic. He was pulling it off, too, in the way seven-foot murder-lizards always managed when pretending they didn’t bleed.

Except he did. Bleed, I mean. Every time the wind hit him just right, I saw him flinch. It was tiny. Gone in a blink. But it was there, pulsing under the mountain of bronze scale like a warning sign only I bothered to read.

I sure as hell wasn’t about to coddle a dragon, but letting him bleed out when I had no idea where we were? Even worse.

“Let me see the damage,” I demanded. If I made it an order, maybe he’d listen. Or pretend to.

His head snapped around, eyes like twin gold razors in the firelight. “There's nothing to be done.”

That was the wrong answer.

“Did I ask for your diagnosis, Doctor Deathwish? Show me your damn wing. Or do you want to limp home with half your insides on the outside?” Every syllable ground to an edge. No time for polite.

He stared. He was measuring me, probably trying to decide if I’d stab him or collapse first. But then, grudgingly, jaw clamped, he shifted.

The bag he'd scavenged from our captors hit the ground. He eased out his wing with a care that probably cost him, even if he’d cut off his own tail before admitting it.

What he revealed was bad. Really bad. The membrane was a patchwork of torn flesh, blood congealed into sticky black ropes.

The joint looked wrong, swollen, inflamed, fever bright.

Then there were the gouges, deep enough that I could see the underlayer.

Under all that scale and brute force, he was vulnerable.

“Shit.” I leaned in. I couldn’t help it. “How long has it been like this?”

“Since the battle.” He bared his teeth. “There's no need to worry. I’ve lost more blood than this in training.”

“Oh, wow. Do you want a trophy or just a pat on the nose? Stop posturing.” I kept my voice low, but I wasn’t doing gentle. Gentle was for safer worlds.

He'd been carrying this wound for days, ever since some assholes from Ignarath had managed to get the upper hand on both of us while we were fighting for our lives outside of Scalvaris.

Judging by the fact that our captors hadn't met with any backup, I didn't think the fight went their way.

But had anyone died? Hawk? That damned snarly mate of hers?

I had to push the worries out of my mind.

For now.

When I reached for his wing, I hesitated. Not because I wanted to touch him, nope. But something about the heat radiating off him, power right there under my hands, made my skin tingle, anticipation spiking in every nerve. It didn’t matter. I had a job to do. “Flex for me. Slow.”

He did. There was a grinding noise you could feel in your molars, bone on bone. His tail lashed. Not at me. At the universe.

My hands hovered, steady but not steady enough. “It’s not just torn. It looks infected.”

He scoffed. “Drakarn wounds heal.”

“Would Mysha agree with you?” I named the head healer of Scalvaris, and Zarvash flinched.

I dug into my bag, cursed at the state of it.

Our kidnappers hadn't been kind enough to furnish us with a first aid kit.

“The least I can do is wash it out. Don't scream.” I uncapped the water flask and poured it over his wound.

“I do not—” he started, but when I hit a tender tendon, he sucked in so hard you’d think the world shrank.

The air between us didn’t just vibrate. It burned. It was just a bit of water, but it was like being stuck in a lightning storm under your skin, prickling, urgent, wrong. All the while, Zarvash just stared. He was unmoving, blank, but not blank enough: something wild there, coiled behind his eyes.

If he tried to eat me, I’d almost thank him for the distraction.

God, girl, not now.

I lingered too long. I knew it. I didn’t move until every joint gleamed with moisture and my heartbeat had long since jumped to double time. Then I wiped my hands. “That’s all you get. Try not to die before we get home.”

He made a noise, low, a growl, maybe a laugh if you squinted. “Comforting. Your bedside manner would terrify even a lavabeast.”

“Beats getting eaten by one.” I didn’t smile. I couldn’t. “How far to Scalvaris? We've been walking for a while now; you must have a guess.”

He retreated to the shadows, adjusted the useless wing like he could will it better. He kept his face hidden. At first, I figured he’d ignore me. A Drakarn trick I'd observed too many times: stretch the silence until your nerves snapped.

Then he spoke. “We are far beyond the Great Lava Lake. With my wing as it is, I can't fly us back. On foot, it's more than a moon’s journey.”

A cold pit opened in my gut. “That’s … You’re not saying a month, are you?”

His gaze flickered. “Longer. With my wounds, longer still.”

Great. A month with him . Why not just sign up for a six-course banquet, “me” as the main dish.

He kept talking like it cost him something, “Unless …”

My head snapped up, reflex sharp as a blade. “Unless what? Unless I sprout wings?”

He didn’t flinch. “Unless we make for Ignarath instead. It is near. Two days, maybe less. But—” He bared his teeth. “It is enemy ground for us both.”

I wanted to laugh. Or maybe scream. “You're suggesting we walk right into the den of vipers that was trying to buy us?”

My original plan had been to make my way to Ignarath … somehow. It was clear now just how foolish I'd been.

He gave a slow, rolling shrug. It was all muscle and implication. “It is a place. Plaktish made it clear they have humans, perhaps your humans. Bargaining chips. If we learn why, if we learn what Ignarath plans … Scalvaris gains advantage. The Blade Council?—”

I sliced through that with a glare sharp as glass. “You care about the council, fine. Since when do you give a shit about what happens to us? You don’t even like humans.” I hadn't forgotten what his scheming had almost cost Orla. I still wasn't sure why Rath hadn't ended this guy.

Zarvash’s jaw flexed, and his scales rippled. “I do not.” His words were blunt as a hammer. “But Ignarath grows bold. They are planning something. For what purpose, I do not know. If they seek war, I must know.”

That. That right there, danger beating in the cracks, not hatred or loyalty, just rage at something bigger than either of us.

I could almost taste that Ignararth envoy, Plaktish’s oily voice, echoing between my ears.

I remembered Khorlar, stone and fury, putting himself between me and the threat.

I remembered the way every Drakarn got cagey when Ignarath came up.

Even here, with Zarvash, the tension spread on my skin like poison.

“So, we sneak into a city run by killers and slavers, poke around, and hope we don’t end up bartered for claws or chained in a basement? And that’s your best plan?” I shot back, my words dry as desert bones.

His mouth twitched in something almost like a smile. “Alone, I can manage the terrain. With you—” He paused, the silence a knife between us. “You are … slippery. That makes you useful.”

Never just a person. Always a tool. My hand closed in a fist at my side, my nails digging grit. “So, this is just strategy. You trade me if things go bad?”

His eyes glittered with cold intelligence, nothing else. “Trading you gains me little. Ignarath wants it all. I want information. That is the only truth.”

But there was something underneath; not calculation, but heat. I wasn’t sure what was worse.

I could have backed out, right then. I didn't. It was a huge risk, but this was too important. “There are missing people. Kira’s little sister, Larissa. If she’s in that pit, I’m going in. I don’t care what any dragons think.”

A ripple ran through him, almost invisible: his scales tensed, his claws flexed, his shoulders locked. “Then keep your head.” His voice was razor thin. “Inside Ignarath, you can trust no one. Not even me. Or you’ll die.”

“I wasn’t planning on trust,” I muttered. “I’m planning on survival.”

He looked away, already recalculating routes and weapons, his mind three battles ahead. Fine. I shifted my focus to my own checklist—the only ritual keeping me together. I counted rations, laid out my knife. My hands wouldn’t quit shaking; it was adrenaline, not emotion, I told myself. Liar.

The silence between us was savage, thick with night wind and threat. Except now, every time the fire spit, every time he shifted, my body noticed. We were too close. Heat crawled up my spine, soaking beneath my skin, not fear, something else, off-limits and feral.

If it was attraction, I wanted to punch it. If it was terror, even better.

“Dawn, then,” I said. I tossed him some jerky we'd managed to salvage. “Eat. I wouldn’t want you useless before we get to the suicide part of this journey.”

He caught it one-handed. He eyed me like I was another puzzle with teeth. He ate anyway. Something about his jaw, the slow grind, made me shiver. Ridiculous. Grit crunched in my teeth and in my brain.

We sat like that, chewing, every breath a test. Firelight carved his scales into hard lines and shadow. I pretended I was scanning for threats, but really I was keeping him out of my blood. Or trying to.

Eventually, my body gave the order I’d been waiting for. I hunched down. I kept the knife ready. I announced, “You sleep first. Try anything, I’ll cut your heart out and roast it on what’s left of this fire.”

A dry, ugly chuckle came from him, crawling low in his chest. “I would expect nothing less, veshari .”

I almost asked what that word meant, but I bit my tongue. There was something in Zarvash's gaze daring me to ask. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

I meant to keep watch. I meant to stay sharp.

Instead, my thoughts circled: Kira’s missing sister, Plaktish’s sneer, Khorlar’s shadow, Zarvash’s heat.

Every muscle vibrated with too many promises and too little hope.

Fear, or hunger, made my skin tight, my breath quick, the space between us electric.

God, what was wrong with me?

I kept my knife in hand, my back to the rock, the last echo of warmth already fading.

I waited for the suns and the promises of new danger.

The world out there didn’t scare me half as much as what crawled under my skin, looking at him, at the space that kept shrinking, no matter how far I tried to run.

There was no going back.

Tomorrow it was Ignarath, and the chance none of us would survive it.

Tonight? Just the two of us, and the fire that I couldn’t let die.