A blast of hot wind slams into us, and out of the smoke comes amonster.
Massive.
Black.
Belching fire.
A land engine three stories tall, all jagged armor and molten exhaust vents. Barbed wheels churn dust into a cyclone. Plasma horns slash the air. And mounted on top?—
Golden scales.
Red cybernetic eye.
Him.
Kyldak.
My heart stops.
Not figuratively. Not romantically.
Literally.
I forget how to breathe.
He looks like a nightmare carved from myth—armored to the gods, twin axes strapped to his back, hair wild, expression like a thunder god on a vendetta.
Riders scream and scatter.
One of them drops to his knees.
“Red Eye…”
The one about to gut me turns—too slow.
Everything happens too fast.
The moment I blink, the world goes feral.
Kyldak moves like he’s been waiting for this fight his whole damn life—like the air’s too thin and violence is the only way he remembers how to breathe. One heartbeat, he’s ten meters away. The next, he’s on the chief—his axe arcs through the air in a gold-and-black blur.
There’s no pause.
No speech.
Just the wetthunkof metal through bone.
The Slag Rider’s head hits the ground before the body realizes it’s dead.
I barely have time to gasp before Kyldak turns—his red cybernetic eye flaring like a furnace—andgrabsme.
My feet leave the ground. My lungs forget how to function. He’s got an arm under my legs and one locked tight around my back, hauling me up like I weigh nothing, like I’m a weapon he’s reclaiming, not a person. His armor burns against my skin. His scent—metal, smoke, and that low, animal musk that once lived in my sheets—hits me like a drug.
“Kyld—” I choke on his name, half a sob, half disbelief.
“Don’t,” he growls, voice rough and low enough to make the air vibrate. “Don’t talk.”
It’s not cruel. It’sraw. Like he’s afraid the sound of me will break whatever spell brought me here.
