“Hell,” she said when he’d finished explaining what he’d worked out about Albhar. “Do you think they’re allied with the Federación?”

Cold sweat bathed Bael anew. “Well, now I do,” he said. “I thought you and-and your father had killed them all?”

“They’re like vermin,” Chance said venomously. “There’re always a few you miss, and that’s enough to start again. We’ll warn as many as we can. Thank you, Baelvar.”

With that she signed off and Bael was left in his remote castle, surrounded by the enemy and feeling like a giant bruise, inside and out. The tear on his back meant that manifesting wings would hurt like hell, and if he was going to carry Kett he’d have to turn into a big creature like a dragon, which required a hell of a lot of energy he just didn’t have.

Var looked up at him, feline eyes narrowed, and Bael laughed suddenly.

“What was that my old dad used to say?” he asked, picking up his twin and pressing his face against Var’s soft fur. “It’s not a problem, it’s a challenge.”

Var started to purr.

“Exactly,” Bael said, and felt invigorated for the first time in days.

Night fell over the Vyishka mountains. Here in the northern part of the Realm of Asiatica, darkness came swift, cold and impenetrable.

Var rose from the black mountains as a dragon twenty feet long, and glided silently toward Kett’s turret. Bael, dressed in a swirling long cloak, strode up the tower and made loud comments to each guard he saw about alternately beating the shit out of the shapeshifter and raping it to hell. They guffawed and cheered him on, and Bael wanted to kill all of them.

He reached the top, demanded entry and, right on cue, someone outside yelled, “Take cover! A dragon!”

The guard with Bael hesitated, and Bael pushed him at the stairs. “Go,” he said. “Go shoot at it or something.”

He shoved the door open before the man had even gotten around the corner, and stopped, taking a mental breath.

Kett lay huddled on the floor, still naked, her skin gray and caked with blood. Her ribs, clearly visible through her thin flesh, rose and fell shallowly with each breath. The wound on her shoulder was horribly swollen, streaks of red running down her arm, the skin cracked and oozing.

She looked a minute away from death, and murderous rage rose up within Bael.

“Kett,” he said, falling to his knees by her. “Kett, can you hear me?”

“G’way,” she mumbled, her voice barely a rattle. “F’koff.”

“Not gonna do that, sweetheart.” As Var landed on the roof of the turret with a heavy thud, Bael carefully lifted Kett from the floor and wrapped her in the warm clothes he’d hidden under his cloak.

“No,” she rasped. “’M dead. Useless. Can’t use me.”

“You’re never useless, darling. Now shush a minute.”

He covered her with his body as Var began to rip the roof of the turret away. From outside came the sounds of shouting, the order to fire, but Bael knew that was useless since a dragon was covered in scales almost everywhere. Men were running up the steps of the tower toward them, but they hadn’t even gotten close by the time Var tore through the roof and picked Bael and Kett up in his claws.

Roaring, he began to flap away, breathing a satisfying jet of fire down into the turret and incinerating all the guards who’d cheered Bael on when he’d said he was going to rape Kett.

It would have been a perfect getaway, were it not for the arrow that struck Var’s wing, the only significant part of a dragon not covered by scales.

Buffeted backward for a second, Var screamed and rained fire down on the archers in the courtyard.

We don’t have time for this to hurt now, Bael told his twin. It can hurt later, but not now.

And for the first time, perhaps because it was the first time he’d truly needed it, the magic worked. His wing painless, Var righted himself, his grip so tight on Bael that even through his thick cloak and doublet he was breathless.

He could have merged with his twin for strength, but Var’s claws were too big, too sharp, to hold Kett without hurting her more. So he stayed human and held her as closely and tightly as he could.

Her shoulder wound oozed through her clothes. She didn’t move.

She barely breathed.

He grabbed her close, desperate, not knowing what to do.

“I’m so sorry, Kett,” he whispered, sobs breaking his voice. “Please get well again. You can beat me up as much as you’d like. Just stay alive, sweetheart. Just stay alive.”

Sobbing, tears freezing on his lashes, he pleaded with every god he could think of to heal Kett.

But the gods, as ever, remained silent.

Kett wasn’t entirely sure what she was imagining and what was real.

She was fairly sure she imagined the dragon picking her up and flying off with her in its claws. After all, she knew dragons pretty well and they rarely picked up anything they didn’t intend to later eat. The dragon holding her, however, did so gently, as if recognizing she was hurt.

The cold seemed realistic. And the pain. The terrible throb of her shoulder that made it almost impossible to move…she couldn’t have imagined that. It was worse than when the tiger had ripped open her leg, because then she’d only been alone for less than an hour before the Maharaja and his hunting party had found her, taken her in and cared for her.

Hmm, the Maharaja. She’d been entertaining his court just before the whole cave incident. Had he been Albhar in disguise? Her delirious brain superimposed the Maharaja’s dark, plump face over Albhar’s pale, lined one, and dismissed the thought as ridiculous.

Then again, she appeared to be flying about in the clutches of a dragon, so who was she to say what was ridiculous?

Swimming in and out of consciousness, occasionally darting close to what seemed to be the surface but couldn’t possibly be, Kett dreamed of burning deserts and cool oases. Bael was there, hot and lovely, his skin like water on her fevered flesh. His mouth traced soothing kisses over her body. His fingers swept away the pain.

Symbols danced over his body, moving, living tattoos on his skin. Whenever she tried to focus on them, they slipped away.

She thought she might have woken up as she felt hands on her body, heard a whispered voice urging her to get better, to heal, to just stay alive. A voice whispering desperate words of love.

She giggled. Her brain was supplying her with some wonderful fantasies as she drifted toward death.

Sliding away from the false realities of the healer’s touch, sinking into the blissful release of unconscious delirium, Kett allowed herself to dream about Bael again. The rotten bastard had ordered her to be beaten and starved, he’d let his men kick her around and bragged about raping her, but her tortuous brain still supplied her with memories and fantasies of his lovemaking.

She remembered every touch of his fingers, sweeping fire along her skin. The way his lips caressed her, hot and wet, his teeth nipping her collarbone, his tongue swirling around her nipple. The way his fingers delved into her hot, melting pussy, stroking her into incandescence. The fevered touch of his mouth ignited her, her whole body bursting into flame as he licked and sucked and stoked the fire until she burned to ashes.

The acrid scent of smoke filled her nostrils. Where Bael’s fingers touched, her skin simmered as if scalded. His tongue licked against her like the flicker of flames.

Kett opened her eyes to smoky darkness, heat burning her eyes. Flakes of snow danced in the air, incongruous against the heat, and she frowned. Strange dream indeed.

But so vivid. She smelled burning meat and the stink of hastily doused fires. Turning her head, her neck muscles creaking, she came face-to-face with the burned, crispy shell of what looked very much like a human head.