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I stared into his eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“We’re fused. Bonded, closer than any creatures were meant to be. I’m not in his trapped dragon form, though I can feel it. Millions of pounds of earth and stone, pinning me down. Skadi did that.” He sniffed. “You smell like a winter morning. And fish.”

I shrugged. “I mated the fish.”

“But not the ice god?”

“You tell me. He would’ve felt it.” Pretending I was still talking only to Serak was all that was keeping me from screaming.

“He would’ve burned every inch of this island, and you along with it, if you had.”

“Does he still intend to breed me?” I spat the last two words, using energy I didn’t have on anger.

“Not necessarily. He has me now.” We both stayed quiet for a long moment. “He still wants you, though. Even more.” The fires grew brighter in his eyes, and the air around us grew even warmer. “You’re more powerful now. Even more beautiful.” The fires flared even more harshly, and I had to close my eyes again.

“Serak, let me go.”

“I can’t,” he said solemnly. “You’re already in your heat cycle.”

He wasn’t wrong. These weren’t pre-heat pangs, and the sweat rolling down my body wasn’t all from the heat that rushed in from the tube. I felt nearly feral, like I might tear through the obsidian walls to find one of my mates.

Why couldn’t I feel them in my bonds? It had to be something Edan had done. Or maybe… “Where are we?”

His answer was a hazy smile, so much like the one he’d given me back when I’d poisoned him in Turino that I wanted to cry. When he brushed a tear off my cheek with one warm fingertip, I realized I was crying.

Definitely in heat. I was not some emotional ragdoll, not normally.

“Heat. It’s like your goddess created you specifically for me. Your hair shines like obsidian, your skin pale and so easy to mark with my flames. Your eyes shine like polished hematite, but your scent is what I cannot forget. It lingers in my thoughts, even in the deep cage where my brother trapped me. You bring me the brightness of growing things, and the soft, cool rain that beats so fruitlessly on my raging fires.”

“Edan.”

“Mate,” he replied, though the voice wasn’t filled with madness for once. I swallowed and forced my eyes open. Serak glowed like a coal that had been blown on. “I am sorry I left you with the unworthy males who marked you, my bride. They’ve gnawed at you like rats.” His hand moved to the bites that Goran and Kellin had given me, and I flinched away. “I will not burn them off until you beg me to.”

“I won’t,” I began, but he laid his hand on my throat, and another strong cramp shook me. I couldn’t suppress the moan that was half lust and half despair.

“In your heat, we will become one. All the others will be burned away.” His lips glowed as he leaned forward and lifted my hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it that felt more intimate than it had any right to. “Make your nest, Omega. I will return when you call for me.”

In a movement so liquid it was more reptilian than human, he slid away from me and down the tube. For a moment, the heat that poured into the room grew blisteringly powerful, and I pulled one of the blankets over my head to protect myself.

Then he was gone, and the room was dark, except for a faint red glow that came from the walls themselves.

I knew where I was. I had to be in the Alldyns Vug itself, maybe even at the very bottom of it. Inside the caldera of the volcano, deep inside the maw, the mouth of eternal fire Serak had thrown himself in.

Panic set in, made far worse by the emotional surges and physical pain. But I’d survived being burned at the stake in Mirren. I’d survive this. I had mates now, powerful ones. I just needed to get through to them.

I closed my eyes, settled into the seated meditation pose Alexios had taught me, and tried to breathe deeply.

Every breath came out on a sob. I kept on anyway, pushing through. Centering myself with the chant he’d taught me. Eventually, my body remembered what I’d trained it to do. I let my hold on consciousness slip away. I let go of all my fears and worries, all the pain in my body and fear in my heart, and slipped into a deep trance.

But it took me nowhere. When I woke, I was naked, my body in the center of a nest woven of blankets and sheets, cushions along the rounded edge, the entire thing smelling of mint and rain. My head was thrown back over one of the cushions on the edge farthest from the tunnel.

And Serak was kissing me. He tasted like Serak, anyway.

But his voice was all Edan when he smirked and asked, “May I enter your nest, Omega?”

“Never.”

His lip curled up. “You’re my mate. You have to say yes.”