My face burned. “Of what? Your girlfriend? Your sparkling personality?” I sneered. “I’d sooner be jealous of the weather, sir, respectfully.”
I wished I could tell him to fuck off, but he outranked me, and the dragon prince had already proven he could make my life worse in ways I hadn’t imagined.
I turned to Aelindor and Caspian.
“I won’t go back to the base, sirs. I’m heading south at first light to cross into the Haven.”
“Do you understand the consequences of desertion, cadet?” Drakken snapped.
Why wouldn’t he leave me alone?
“Do your worst,” I said, spreading my arms, “and kill me, then. Or better yet—burn me with your dragon fire. You’ve already done it once.” He flinched, so slight that anyone else would have missed it. “I’m going. No one is stopping me from getting my sister back. Not you. Not Xander. Not anyone.”
“You won’t go alone, love, because you’re not alone anymore,” Aelindor said. His hand settled on the small of my back, and I wanted to arch into his touch. My fury ebbed. “And you never will be. But before we make any move, we verify intelligence. First, we confirm that Missy is in the Haven and not still at Crimson Ridge. Second, we find out exactly where the Collector is holding her.”
“I know how badly you want to go,” Caspian added. “I know the waiting feels like it’s killing you. But you need to trust us on this, Max. We shouldn’t charge into enemy territory blindly. Understand?”
I swallowed and nodded.
I was a wreck, but beneath the wreckage, beneath the fear, the fury, the relentless tears, a part of me had been trained for this. My parents had drilled it into me since childhood: think before you move, plan before you act, survive by being smarter than the people who want you dead.
I’d spent a decade planning my escape from Crimson Ridge. Digging a tunnel handful by handful, threading Coldiron into Stormglass shipments, memorizing guard rotations, mapping the route east. I’d honed patience into a weapon.
This was my worst trial, worse than the mine, worse than the Wastes, because Missy’s life hung in the balance and every moment of stillness felt like her suffering. But if I went to the Collector before I was ready, I’d never get her out. I’d throw myself into the hands of a man who hoarded people the way Drakken hoarded gold. He’d lock me in a case beside the Oracle’s severed head and call it his collection.
Aelindor turned to Drakken. “You haven’t brought in Max’s bedroll.” A beat of silence. “However, if you’re not comfortable with Max staying here for the night, you’re welcome to take her tent. Or anywhere else you’d like.”
Drakken held Aelindor’s gaze for three heartbeats. The dragon was a labyrinth of hostility and suspicion. Then, without a word, he peeled himself off the tent pole, turned, and pushed through the flap into the dark.
The tension drained the instant he left. My shoulders dropped half an inch.
A flicker of satisfaction moved through me at him being dismissed from his own tent. But the next second came something else, a pull, an absence where his heat had been. A gap that settled like a quiet ache. The dragon prince couldn’t stand being in the same space as me so much that he’d rather walk out into the cold night than stay.
I stared at the tent flap swaying shut behind him and told myself the ache meant fucking nothing.
Chapter 4
Max
“Ineed training,” I said. “Real combat preparation, not classroom drills. If I’m going into the Haven, I need to be more than I am. Is your invitation still open?”
Aelindor opened his mouth to answer.
“I’ll train you.”
The voice came from behind me—low, rough, and certain.
Drakken stood at the tent entrance, my bedroll tucked under his arm, gray eyes locked on mine with the intensity of a man who’d made a decision.
“It’s my specialty,” he said. No elaboration. Just the offer, laid down like a gauntlet.
Caspian’s eyebrows rose. Aelindor’s posture eased, the way a man relaxes when a piece he’s been waiting for slides into place.
I stared at Drakken.
Every instinct shriekedrefuse. Every bruise from his interrogation room, every humiliation on the training track, every barbed word—they all demanded I throw the offer back in his face. I could almost taste the satisfaction it would bring. But I couldn’t afford pride. Not with Missy’s face seared behind my eyelids.
Drakken commanded the Covenant’s army, had run Greycrown Academy for years. Turning raw material into something that survived a battlefield was his domain. Aelindor could teach me strategy. Caspian, instinct. Nikolai, how to read people like texts. But Drakken could teach me to fight like I had nothing left to lose.
