They attacked, streams of fire burning through the fog and rain. Thronos’s wings had been swooping, gaining altitude; at once he brought them closer, arcing his body down, gathering speed to elude their strike.

Against his chest, she cried, “Don’t drop me, Vrekener!”

If he could dive down behind the mountain ahead . . . He picked up speed. Almost there—

A trap. They’d driven him into a broadside from another waiting group. Fire began to crisscross in all directions, flames zooming through the air toward them. A kill zone.

There was nowhere to fly, trails of fire showering all around him.

Impact. A sphere of flames, large as a cannonball, struck him in the wing. Like a hammer of the gods, it sent him reeling into another group’s volley.

His wings were fireproof, but the flames clung to his scales, as if he’d been doused with oil.

“Thronos!” Melanthe screamed in pain. The fire was wrapping around him to lap at her. “My legs!”

When he smelled her seared skin, he had no choice but to separate her from the fire. He did all he could; he wrapped his wings around her body, covering her as he dove evasively. The speed might help him shed the flames.

No way to stop his descent. The base of a mountain rushed closer, fringed with jagged boulders. His mate screamed again, this time in terror.

Had the fire subsided? At the last second, he opened his wings, sculling them forward like oars in thick water. “Ahh!” he yelled against the pain as he scooped air, slowing their descent into the boulders.

Boom!

Another fire grenade blasted him square in the back, exploding flames all over them, accelerating his velocity even more.

He gritted his teeth, knowing he had only one chance of keeping Melanthe unharmed: fold her within his wings and take the impact on his back.

He turned in the air, praying to every deity in the heavens. . . .

SEVEN

Lanthe hadn’t stopped screaming. Heat had scorched her until Thronos blanketed her body, but then they’d dropped.

Her stomach plunged as they fell, yet she could see nothing from the cocoon of his wings.

All she knew was that they were going to crash—hard. When even he tucked his head at the last instant, fear robbed her of breath.

They hit, the craggy ground punching them like a giant fist. The force of impact sent them bounding into the air once more, a flaming skipping stone.

Vertigo overtook her, confusion. She heard bones snap! Not hers?

They crashed down again and again. Then something pierced the cocoon directly by her face; a jut of rock tore through the skin of his wing, the momentum ripping flesh away.

They came to an abrupt stop, like the finale of a fatal car pileup.

Thronos made no sound. Unconscious?

Dizzy and panicked, Lanthe scrambled away from him. She shoved against his imprisoning wings, making him groan in pain.

Freed, she stumbled to her feet, staggering on the stony terrain. She shook off her dizziness, taking stock of her own injuries. Burns only.

Thronos had taken the full brunt. Flames still flickered on his back, hissing in the light rain. He’d broken bones, and that one wing lay wasted.

Which she didn’t care about. Because he’d put her in that situation in the first place. It was his duty to mitigate the f**kup!

She gazed around warily. Why had those fire demons targeted one Vrekener? Yes, Thronos was a Pravus enemy, but fire demons often acted as lackeys, hired guns.

They’d be coming for him, and she needed to be gone when they did. She spied a natural path through the field of boulders, had just taken her first step when she heard another groan.

In a pained rasp, Thronos called her name.

Don’t look back at him, don’t look back. The last time she had, she’d been tormented by what she’d seen for all her days.

Against her will, she found herself turning.

His matte gray eyes were awash in misery as he grated, “Do not run . . . from me.”

The world seemed to shrink down, morning turning to midnight in her head. All at once she was back in the mountainside abbey, on the night her parents had been slain, the night Lanthe had first used her powers to save Sabine’s life. . . .

“Wake, Lanthe.” Sabine clutched her hand, wresting her from her bed. “Don’t make a sound.”

“What is it, Ai-bee?” Lanthe whispered sleepily.

“Just hurry.” As if to herself, she said, “I warned Mother and Father to move us from here, but they refused to listen.”

Sabine hated their troubled mother and distant father. She blamed the pair for everything: not providing food or shoes or new dresses. She railed against them for their constant sorcery outlays that put the entire family at risk: If even Lanthe insists that you’re using too much . . .

Lanthe knew the two weren’t as good as other parents seemed to be, but her heart was filled with love—why not give it to them?

“And now Vrekeners are in the abbey,” Sabine murmured.

Here? “Mayhap they aren’t here to fight.” Thronos was her secret best friend; he would never let his kind attack her family!

“They’re here to kill our parents and abduct us. As they always do with Sorceri.” They’d heard the tales. Sorceri who broke the laws of the Lore were executed, while their children were fostered in stern Vrekener families.

Even with Sabine by her side, Lanthe was terrified as they stole through the abbey, lightning striking all around the mountain.

They stumbled into their parents’ room. Mother and Father were curled together in sleep. Towering stained-glass windows allowed in the glow of lightning, distorting it. She blinked. For a second, she’d thought her parents appeared . . . headless.