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Mia’s mind blanked and she went absolutely still, horrified by the giant predator stalking leisurely toward her.

Did it know it had her boxed in? Could it smell the terror pinning her in place against the useless door?

A muted roar drifted to her, followed by a swift certainty: Zoran would come for her. All she had to do was hold on until he got there.

The knowledge gave her the courage to move. She glanced around, careful to keep her movements small and slow, though her heart fluttered wildly in her chest and her hands shook so badly, she had to clench them into hard fists against the door at her back.

The rear entrance had been designed primarily as an emergency exit. Nearly all foot traffic entered from the street on the other side of the building. Whoever had designed the science center had made this entrance smaller, though no less beautiful. An overhang curved above the rock-tiled patio stretching from the door to a graceful railing delineating the narrow, grassy verge lining the jungle. To either side, a ledge-like slope fronted the building, adding a gentle upward swoop for the eye to follow toward the roof over the entrance.

Jyrak’s words came to her then. Vyirkolen were good jumpers, but they couldn’t climb. If Mia could make it onto the ledge, which was hopefully too narrow for the vyirkolen to navigate, she had a shot at reaching the roof before the predator could swat her off with one of its massive, claw-tipped paws.

Her feet felt rooted to the rock.

Mia inhaled slowly, willing her rapid heartbeat to calm. But no, she could do this. She had to, if she wanted to live, and she had so, so many reasons to live, many of them beginning and ending with Zoran.

They’d just found each other, just discovered the kind of love she’d dreamed of having for so long. How could she leave him now, when they’d barely started their journey together?

That thought gave her the impetus to move. She inched her right foot to the side, toward the walkway and town and Zoran.

The vyirkolen yawned and shook its sleek head, then leaped toward her, landing just on the other side of the railing, not fifteen feet away, startling Mia. She screamed shrilly and dashed toward the ledge. Two heavy thumps sounded behind her, claws clicked against rock. She’d just reached the start of the ledge when something hit her back, knocking her off her feet. A heavy paw came down between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the ground, pressing the breath out of her lungs, and the vyirkolen let out its eerily human cry.

Oh, my God , she thought, oh god oh god oh god .

Teeth snapped closed above her, and the creature nuzzled her head with its snout. Mia whimpered as it batted at her, toying with her.

Playing with its food.

She flung one fist backward, connected with something hard, not even jarring the damn thing. It snarled and snapped, drawing another scream from her raw throat when its teeth grazed her upper back, snagging on her hair and clothing. Fire burned in its wake, and she knew that its teeth had pierced her skin. Knew that its venom had already entered her bloodstream.

Feet pounded on the walkway. She raised her head and saw a familiar set of boots followed by half a dozen others. Claws pressed into her back, puncturing her skin. She inhaled sharply as the boots reached her and the weight lifted off her back, and slid helplessly into a dark fever dream as the venom worked its ill and Zoran battled the thing that had done this to her.

Zoran raced to where his mate was pinned beneath the weight of a monster. His heart roared in his ears, blocking the sounds of the other warriors running behind him and coming toward him from the other side of the science center. He ignored them all.

A vyirkolen ’s venomous teeth were a mere handspan from Mia’s delicate flesh. The creature opened its maw and closed them on her back, catching Mia’s hair and clothes between its wicked teeth.

Zoran screamed. “Mia!”

Then he was there, slashing his sword, slicing just under the vyirkolen ’s jawline, severing the connection between his mate and the thing trying to slay her. It reared back, taking a mouthful of hair and cloth with it, sidling away from Mia as she drooped to the ground, unconscious.

Kaelen, running toward them from the far side of the building, dropped his sword, drew his dagger from its sheath, and leapt. He landed on the vyirkolen ’s back and wrested it away, stabbing his dagger quickly into the monster’s chest.

Zoran had eyes only for his beloved. He dropped to his knees beside her and saw the true damage done: the beast’s teeth had scraped across her back, piercing the flesh. An icy chill froze him where he knelt and his breath came in shallow pants.

No. Not Mia. The venom would…it would destroy her. When she had only just come into his life. When she had only just learned to love him.

He threw back his head and roared to the heavens. “ Reja-la, reja-la .”

My heart, my heart .

Firm hands pulled him away, then Jyrak was there, shoving an antivenom injection into Mia’s thigh. Others bore a simple stretcher and a flat board toward her.

Zoran tried to shove them away. “No! She is my mate. I must carry her!”

Jyrak caught his sleeve and yanked. “She may have suffered other injuries, my lord. We must allow the medics to tend to her until they have assessed the damage.”

One part of his mind understood her logic.

Another part, the primitive instinct that had led him across the galaxy to his beloved, struggled viciously to reach her.

Strong arms wrapped around his chest from behind and hauled him backward. “You must allow them to work, Zoran. Control the fear. Let them help her.”

His mother knelt in front of him, blocking Mia from view, and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Listen to Lord Drexus, my son. Mia’s luck will hold. The medics believe the antivenom was injected in time. Now we must wait.”

His soul cried out for her, and as his people carried her away, he begged the Fates to save Mia from the terrible monster they had sent to prey upon her.

They gathered in the lobby of the healing center, what Mia’s human friends called a hospital .

Zoran could not bear the smell of the place, not when his beloved mate’s life yet hung in the balance. The vyirkolen ’s claws had pierced her spinal cord. There existed some possibility that the nerve damage would render her unable to control her lower body.

Xeruvian medical advancements had rendered all but the most severe nerve damage fully treatable. The question now became whether such techniques could be used to save Mia.

Assuming her body recovered from the vyirkolen ’s venom. She had received only the slightest dose; yet were humans more susceptible to such toxins. And as she was smaller and more fragile, the venom had worked much faster on her than on a Xeruvian. She lay now in a coma while the medics frantically strove to save her.

To lessen the distraction he presented, Zoran retreated to the outer gardens surrounding the building and contacted Aklan Phyrz asking the other warlord to bring Mia’s parents to Zephyria. He had only just disconnected the call when Kaelen Drexus joined him.

Without preamble, Kaelen said, “The vyirkolen carried the marking of the Var’Kol tattooed onto its inner lip.”

Zoran stiffened. “The Var’Kol are dead. We wiped them from existence. Did not our fathers and grandfathers relay such stories to us? How then could they have marked a vyirkolen , when the last Var’Kol died so long ago?”

“We decimated their population. Such is true. But they finished the task, murdering their own women and children to keep them from falling victim to our warriors. Who can say that a few did not survive the knives of their kin?”

Was such possible? Had pockets of Var’Kol survived beyond the end of the last war?

A terrible memory filled Zoran’s mind, of the day the earthquakes came. He and his father had been touring the southernmost area of their jutji , plotting out areas for potential expansion of farmland. The ground had rumbled ominously, then a great rift had cleaved it in two, opening up a maw more terrifying and deadly than any vyirkolen yet born. His father had stumbled once. Looked up and given Zoran a strained smile. The land beneath his feet crumbled away into the rift. Zoran dove for his father, snatched at his father’s hand.

And missed. His father had slipped away. The last Zoran saw of the male who had been his rock, his taskmaster, his mentor, was his body falling into the black void, lost beyond retrieval.

Then the burning fever had come, a plague that had killed many Xeruvian females or rendered them sterile, a nearly fatal blow to his people’s survival.

Mia had insisted on reopening the investigation into its origins.

Had someone targeted her? Was there a Var’Kol spy living among them, covering up an alternative truth about those disasters?

But to what purpose? The Var’Kol were gone. Even if a few had survived, as Kaelen postulated, surely their numbers were not so great. After all this time, surely their enemy had faded into history.

There were other implications to Kaelen’s words, other possibilities Zoran and the other warlords must consider.

“If this becomes known,” Zoran said slowly, “if the old suspicions rise again, anyone with Var’Kol blood will become a target.”

“Do you think one of your people betrayed you?”

“A very few might have.”

“Do you believe I had a hand in this?”

Zoran considered the other warlord, the bad blood lying between them, the opposition and arguments, the trouble that seemed to cling to every conversation and deed. And considered, as well, the fact that Kaelen had risked his own life to save the life of another warrior’s mate, one of the human females whose presence he had so vehemently opposed, the beloved of a warlord with whom he had carried on the bitterest rivalry.

Kaelen’s expression had gone hard and cold. Without another word, he turned and stalked away.

Before he had gone far, Zoran said, “She will ask for you. Mia. She will want to thank you for saving her. You are welcome to visit, should she recover enough for visitors.”

“She will,” Kaelen said with a certainty Zoran envied. “Lady Kerus is no weakling.”

“Then you will be welcome among us.”

Kaelen swept his gaze over the garden, then nodded once. “Peace be unto you, Zoran, and unto your beloved mate.”

Zoran bowed respectfully. “And unto you, Kaelen, Lord of Clan Drexus, honored warrior of our people.”