Shit. Too big. Those wings are way too big for this room.
“Youaremy mate,” he snarls — and his voice is wrong. Twisted. Echoing. More beast than man.
His eyes are molten silver. No pupils. Something black swirling in the blinding silver. His fangs push past his lips, drawing blood at the corners of his mouth. His hands — gods, his hands — are cracking into the desk now, talons slicing clean through the wood. He’s going to have to replace that.
My breath catches.
Neris stirs, disturbingly delighted. “What do you think it’d look like if he plunged those talons straight into her chest?” she muses, voice dreamy.
“Bloodthirsty minx,” I mutter back, without looking away from the monster in front of me.
“Whatever you say, big guy,” I whisper carefully. I can’t make him angrier now, he’ll swallow us all in one gulp. My voice is low, soothing. My heart is a drum. “Now take a deep breath. Go back inside. Everything’s fine.”
He doesn’t blink. Just stares. Locked on me.
But finally — slowly — his body begins to shift back.
The wings fold inward, muscle trembling. The fangs disappear. The silver bleeds back into ice blue. The claws retract, leaving deep cracks across the desk.
He inhales once. Deep. Centering.
Then he turns.
Amira is frozen. Jaw slack. Eyes wide.
“Leave,” he says, voice low but final. Still laced with feral echoes.
She doesn’t argue.
She spins around, red hair whipping over her shoulder, and vanishes through the door like she’s been lit on fire.
If only it were that easy for me to get the ‘leave’ command.
"That!" I jab a finger at Draven, heat flaring in my chest. "That was very dramatic! You need to start training that lycan of yours before he tears down the entire palace!"
He exhales and drags a hand down his face, slow and tired. "That would be great... if I could actually feel him. Or talk to him."
Sin leans back in his chair, arms crossed, expression thoughtful now that no one’s growling or sprouting claws.
“Drev, I think he only responds to Kassira. To his mate,” Sin says, motioning toward me with a casual flick of his fingers. “If she’s the key to coaxing him out without triggering a massacre, then maybe start there. Controlled environment. Focused exposure. She clearly has some influence over him. He listens to her. We build from that.”
I cross my arms, pretending I’m not flattered that I can tame a rage-fueled monster with a single word. Whatever.
Draven turns his eyes to me again. There’s guilt spreading in them like fog.
“I’m sorry about Amira,” he says softly. “I don’t know what that was. I didn’t want to kiss her, I swear. It won’t happen again. I’ll talk to her. Make everything clear.”
I hum under my breath. “I doubt it.”
His jaw twitches.
Of course he heard me. Of course they both did. Shifter hearing is just the worst sometimes. I roll my eyes. "Doesn’t matter," I mutter, waving the entire conversation away like smoke.
“I’m not in the mood for your woman drama,” I say and then point toward Sin. “He’s right about the lycan.”
I push up from the chair and pace toward the window, thoughts swirling inside my mind. “You should know your beast isn’t just an ancient lycan — the kind that hasn’t been seen in millennia.” I turn and face them again, lifting a brow.
“Sure, the wings are the obvious weird part. Like, who’s ever heard of a lycan with wings? Ok, you already had the wings so we could overlook that. But that’s not all.” I start counting off on my fingers. “The talons? Full-on dragon. Not shifter claws. Dragon. The fangs are too big — he can’t even close his mouth properly. And when I was inspecting the collar under his fur…” I pause. For the drama. “I saw scales. Dragon scales.”
