The ship rocked violently, something massive impacting the hull. The force flung her sideways, away from Zane. Her shoulder cracked against the bulkhead hard enough to make her vision white out for a second.
The pirate fired. She saw the plasma bloom from the barrel, beautiful and terrible. Her hands came up instinctively, a useless gesture against that kind of death.
Something inside her pulled. Not a physical sensation, not exactly, but something deeper. Like reaching for a door handle in the dark, knowing exactly where it should be. Heat bloomed in front of her, but not the searing agony of plasma.
A wall of fire erupted between her and death. Orange and gold flames that danced and writhed but didn't burn her. They moved like they were alive, like they were listening to something she wasn't saying out loud. The plasma blast hit the barrier and dissipated, its energy absorbed into something greater.
What the fuck?
Then Zane moved. Fire, real fire, erupted from his hands in a torrent that made her little shield look like a candle flame. It roared down the corridor, white-hot at the center, with edges that flickered between orange and blue. The inferno engulfed the pirate, and the scream that followed was mercifully brief. The smell of charred meat and melted plastic filled the corridor.
Silence fell, broken only by the wail of alarms.
Zane stared at her, chest heaving, eyes wide with something that might have been shock. Or fear.
"You control fire?" Her voice came out strangled. Her hands were still raised, and she could see small flames dancing along her fingertips, gold and harmless. But she blinked and then they were gone. How was he doing that? "Since when?"
He took a moment to compose himself, still staring at her like she'd grown a second head. When he spoke, his voice was careful. Controlled. "I'm a dragon."
The words hung between them, simple and impossible. Her brain tried to process this information and came up error. Dragons were myths. Stories. Not real people who complained about wine and made bread in her galley.
"That might have been useful when the fucking pirates started destroying my ship!"
The hull breach alarm shifted from warning to critical. The synthetic voice that followed was calm in the way of machines delivering death sentences. "Structural failure imminent. Abandon ship."
Her anger evaporated, replaced by the cold clarity of survival. Sixty seconds. Not enough time to reach the escape pods. Not enough time to seal the breach. Not enough time for anything but one desperate option.
She and Zane looked at the dock connecting her dying ship to Horris's vessel. The parasite that had killed her ship might be their only salvation.
"Run." The word came out together, from both of them.
They ran. Through the hatch, across the docking tube that groaned under the pressure differential. Her ship's death screams followed them, metal shrieking as it twisted and tore.
Behind them, the Alto gave one final, shuddering groan, and Mercy felt it in her bones. Five years. Gone.
They burst onto the pirate vessel and straight into Horris's waiting arms.
6
Of all the ships in all the galaxies, Zane had to board hers.
The thought crashed through his mind as Horris's crew surrounded them, weapons drawn and faces hard with the promise of violence. Zane's hands still tingled with residual heat from the fire he'd thrown, his dragon stirring restlessly beneath his skin. The beast wanted blood. Wanted to protect what was his.
His mate.
Mercy.
The realization hit him again, harder this time. She'd redirected his fire. Not dodged it, not shielded herself from it. She'd reached out with some instinct buried deep in her human DNA and turned his flames into a barrier.
The only way that was possible, the only explanation that made any sense at all, was if she was his destined mate.
Fire roared in his veins, begging for release. It would be so easy. A thought, a gesture, and Horris would be ash. His crew would follow seconds later. The ship would be theirs, and he could get Mercy somewhere safe to process what had just happened between them.
"Whatever you're thinking, don't." Horris kept his blaster trained on Mercy's head. The barrel kissed her temple with casual menace. "You're not faster than a plasma bolt."
The pirate captain's scarred face showed no emotion, but Zane could smell the fear beneath his bravado. Good. He should be afraid. If he knew what Zane was thinking, what the dragon wanted to do to anyone who threatened his mate, he'd already be running.
On his left, one of the pirates, a wiry human with nervous hands named Stevn, circled behind him. The man moved like he knew what he was doing, staying out of Zane's peripheral vision.
