His left arm hung uselessly at his side, the flesh blackened and blistered from the energy weapon. Every breath sent fire through his ribs. He could taste blood on his tongue.
But he was alive. And most of the pirates were very much not.
Horris and Myles Judd emerged from behind a piece of maintenance equipment, both pointing blasters at Zane's chest. They were close. Even injured, he might survive the shots, but he wasn't sure how much more damage he could absorb.
"You should have minded your own business, dragon," Horris snarled. His scarred face was flushed with anger and what might have been fear. "Now you get to watch your lady friend bleed out nice and slow."
"The bounty didn’t say anything about you," Myles added, though his hands shook as he kept his weapon trained on Zane.
Zane tried to push himself upright, ignoring the way his vision grayed around the edges. If he could get to his feet, if he could summon enough fire to take them both out before they pulled their triggers …
"Zane, down!"
Mercy's voice cut through the haze of pain and rage. He threw himself flat against the platform without hesitation, trusting her completely even though he couldn't see what she had planned.
Twin blaster shots sizzled through the air where his head had been moments before.
Horris stumbled backward, a smoking hole in his chest where his heart used to be. Myles Judd crumpled to his knees, his weapon clattering across the tarmac as he clutched at the massive burn that had replaced most of his torso.
Mercy stood twenty feet away, a fallen pirate's las rifle still smoking in her hands. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her face streaked with sweat and debris. But her eyes blazed with fierce satisfaction as she watched their enemies fall.
Beautiful. His mate was absolutely beautiful.
She dropped the rifle and ran to him, falling to her knees beside his injured form. Her hands hovered over his burns, afraid to touch but needing to assess the damage.
"How bad?" she asked, her voice steady despite the tears tracking down her cheeks.
"I'll live." The words came out rougher than he'd intended, his throat raw from dragon fire and impact trauma. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. You came for me." She said it like she couldn't quite believe it. Like the idea of someone riding to her rescue was foreign and wonderful and terrifying all at once.
"Always." He reached up with his good hand to cup her face.
Then she was kissing him, fierce and desperate and full of everything she couldn't put into words. Relief and gratitude and something even bigger, though neither of them was ready to name it yet.
He kissed her back with all the passion his injured body could muster, pouring his own relief and devotion into her hold.
16
Vemion was nothing like Mercy had expected.
She pressed her face to the shuttle's viewport as they descended through atmosphere, watching alien landscapes unfold below. Not the gleaming cities or grand palaces she'd imagined, but vast wilderness stretching to every horizon. Mountains cloaked in forests so dense they looked like green velvet from altitude.
"It's beautiful," she murmured.
Zane's hand found hers, fingers intertwining with easy familiarity. His burns were healing with dragon swiftness, though angry red marks still traced his left side. "Wait until you see the rest."
The shuttle banked toward what looked like uninhabited wilderness. Trees gave way to a small clearing where a cabin sat nestled against the mountain's base. Not a palace or grand estate, but something that could have been lifted from her childhood dreams of home. Warm stone walls, wide windows that reflected the forest, all that was missing was smoke curling from a chimney into the crisp air.
"This is yours?" It wasn’t exactly the home of a playboy lord.
"My retreat." The shuttle settled onto a landing pad that seemed carved from the mountainside itself. "When court gets too suffocating, I come here."
Mercy studied his profile as she powered down the systems. Away from the resort's luxury and the pirates' threats, he looked different. Relaxed in a way she'd never seen before. Like the masks he wore in civilized company had finally fallen away completely.
The air outside hit her lungs sharp and clean. It tasted of pine needles and mountain snow, wild in a way that made her chest expand with unexpected hunger. When had she last breathed air that hadn't been filtered through a dozen processors?
"Come on." Zane shouldered their single bag, everything they'd managed to salvage from Saffron Court. "I'll show you around."
