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“Is he…?” Lachlan’s voice was barely loud enough to hear over the wailing in my mind.

“He fell… They fell… directly into the maw,” Kellin replied. He stood over the opening, staring down in fear and awe. “But the fissure is closing.”

The others all clustered around the opening for a moment, before the earth began to tremble, as if the center of the entire world were on the verge of breaking apart.

For some reason, Lachlan called out something about Kellin’s pelt, but Goran was already running with me, carrying me away.

I slept and woke, nightmares about falling into a sea of fire and breathing in the molten rock tormenting me. There was movement. I was being carried.

Filled with concern, Kellin’s voice broke through the pain that wracked me. “You can’t hold her much longer. Not when she’s like this, Goran. Look at your arms.”

“I let her go once. I won’t do it again.”

“Here.” Lachlan’s voice. A soft, cool fur slid around me. A pelt.

Movement again. Goran was running, humming a love song he’d written for me long ago. Lachlan wept audibly just behind us.

“The sea!” Kellin shouted. “It’s boiling.”

Water surrounded me, though it was thick and warm. Steam hissed around my face as I fought to open my eyes. When I finally did, the faces of my mortal mates swam above me, outlined by an ash-covered sky.

Everything hurt. Everything burned. I opened my lips to cry out.

“Lachlan, you need to tow Goran to where the water grows cool. I’ll carry her,” Kellin murmured into my hair.

“But—”

“I don’t need a pelt to swim.” Something cool and soft wrapped around me, tying me to Kellin’s back.

The waves buoyed us up, though they were more ash than seawater from the taste of them. I longed to sink deep into them, to find the silty bottom of a trench and bury myself. Hide from the pain and the knowledge of their deaths.

The water grew colder. “Rada, no. You have much to live for. You have mates who love you. We will heal together.”

I opened my eyes then. Lusca hovered above me, man-shaped from the waist up, sea monster below. Tentacles wrapped around me, swirling.

Why was I so hot? Beyond hot. I burned. I was burning alive.

“We do not know, beloved. I took you into the trench, but not even that cold water could touch you. Sleep now.”

I closed my eyes, red fire flickering behind my lashes, and shook in the teeth of the nightmare that was my life.

LACHLAN

Ipressed a hand to the mate mark on my neck. It had been burning for two nights and two days, but now it felt almost numb. The pain sputtered and spat, like a fire going out.

Kellin and I stood on Menthera, where the Omegas and children had come on rafts and canoes, carried gently on the waves and surrounded by protective orcas. It was nearly dusk on the second day after the new moon, after the battle, after losing Alexios… I forced the thought away, taking in the scene around us.

The oldest Omega, Mirrim, had insisted the children and women all needed to rest for a few nights before they went on to the mainland. When the Starlakians had tried to improvise tents, though, she shook her head. “We’ve spent our lives unable to see the stars. We also have heard of how Omegas are treated on the continent. I beg you to let us know at least a few days of freedom.”

The entire Starlakian contingent had dropped to their knees, stricken, as Goran quietly explained some of what these women and children had suffered. A few warriors had wept. More than one had begun muttering poems that consisted of eternal vows mixed with promises of bloody retribution. We’d had to explain that there were no enemies left to kill on Pict. Apart from a few Alphas who may have escaped into the jungle, and Edan himself in the maw, the island was uninhabited.

One Omega had needed a shelter, of course. Rielle. Luckily, there was a stone cottage in the center of the island, not far from the one thing that made Menthera a decent place to stay: a freshwater spring. Mirrim and the fierce, tattooed Omega named Adiah had carried the half-comatose Omega into the cottage. She was in heat, her scent an assault on the unmated Alpha rescuers.

Of course, she and the others were all perfectly safe. The dozen warriors here were respectful and kind, and they took to stuffing bits of kelp up their nostrils. They kept their eyes down, their voices soft, and one of them played silly tunes on a small harp for the children. I’d heard him playing outside the stone cottage in the night as well, though Rielle was still unconscious, thanks to the herbs she’d been given.

My eyes flicked to Goran, who was going through basic sword drills with some of the children a few dozen feet away. They’d been almost utterly silent when we first arrived, but after a few warm meals and two days of watching the distant volcano’s plume of smoke dissipate, they’d gotten brave. Some of them, including a tall older girl named Godla, had taken to the sword training with a ferocity that made me slightly nervous.

We planned to leave tomorrow. The rocky beach of the small cove hummed with activity, warriors moving things in and out of boats, directed by Dustin, of all people. He’d grown in the past few weeks, his patchy beard had filled out, and his skin had cleared. He still looked like a young warrior, but he carried himself with the quiet power of a young Warlord.