"STOP!"

Dexmon’s eyes flared gold, and his voice came out layered.

Solara, who was mid-Truebond Veil, stopped immediately. The sudden brake sent Gav and Serena flying off her back into open sky.

Gav had approximately half a second to process that he was no longer on a dragon before gravity introduced itself with enthusiasm.

"Don’t worry, Velkaris has us," Serena breathed in his ear. When she spoke they were moving so fast that she couldn’t get any air back in her mouth.

Gav wanted to respond. He had things to say. Important things. Profane things. The atmosphere was not cooperating with any of them.

Instead he squeezed Serena hard, wrapping his arms around her with zero fucks given that two Alphas were watching. It was the grip of a man who had calculated his odds and decided that if he was going to die, then he’d do it holding the prettiest girl in Skardos.

Serena fabricated a gold parachute. The wind ripped through it before it fully formed. Useless at this speed. She let it go. Magic, it turned out, was not built for terminal velocity.

Her back hit a dragon wing, slowing down their fall but not stopping it. She knew her dragon was why.

Velkaris had coordinated an aerial rescue using other dragons as speed bumps. The dragon equivalent of catching a person by throwing them down a flight of stairs one step at a time. Painful. Patent pending.

Three more pairs of leathered membrane met them, coordinated, slowing them down.

But they were still going too fast and they both knew it. Panic fluttered in her chest and instincts took over.

The world rearranged itself around her in pink light.

A pink portal opened mid-air. They fell through it. Another portal cracked open one thousand feet above where they just were. In theory, it gave them more time before hitting the ground.

"Motherfucker. What the actual fuck," Gav screamed. Eloquent. Concise. The first complete sentence he’d managed in ninety seconds.

His arms tightened around her if that was even possible, and he buried his face in her neck. She could feel every single part of him pressed against her. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Aurelia: If we survive this, he will want to mate with you.

Serena: Please stop saying that. I beg you.

To be fair, Serena had been straddling him on a vibrating dragon before being launched into the sky. And now her legs were wrapped around him. But that was so she didn’t drop him.

More dragon wings met them as they fell. Every one felt like being slapped by a leather wall at terminal velocity. The kind of slap that left fingerprints.

The worst part was the rhythm. Each impact drove his hips up into hers, in the same way, at the same angle, the g-force compressing them together like the universe was personally invested in making this as uncomfortable as possible.

Aurelia: His body doesn’t lie. Biology.

Serena: We are PLUMMETING through the atmosphere right now.

Aurelia: And he is hard. Both things are true.

She was going to give him the grace of pretending this was not happening, and if they survived, they were never going to speak of it. Ever.

A noise escaped Gav’s throat and his cock pulsed. The friction was turning the fall into the most torturous dry-hump of his life.

He realized in that moment that he was going to die in the air with an erection.

Aurelia: He is hitting the right spot every time. Good rhythm.

Serena: THOSE ARE DRAGON WINGS, AURELIA.

Aurelia: Grinding. Your hips thrust towards him on that last one.

Serena: They did not.

Serena fabricated another parachute. This time, it caught. The jerk of deceleration cracked two of her ribs on the left side, and she heard the sound before the pain registered. It held for three seconds.

"Fuck. Fuck. FUCK," Gav wheezed. One word. It contained every prayer, complaint, and last testament.

The wind ate her magic the way a fire ate parchment. A hole tore through the center and widened faster than she could fix it.

They were falling again.

Aurelia: Your body is responding. Heat between your legs building.

Serena: Don’t.

Aurelia: Your scent changed. He can smell your arousal now.

Serena didn’t dignify that with a response.

Aurelia: He is pretending it’s not happening too. That is funny.

Velkaris dove under them. Wings spread. Perfectly timed.

Gav landed on top of Serena, knocking the wind from her. One of Velkaris’s spikes went through her rib from the back. The scream came out before she knew she’d opened her mouth, and the edges of the world bleached white.

Gav rolled off of her, coughing and clutching his ribs.

Velkaris snapped his head towards Morholt. He roared, furious, translating roughly to: This is your fault and I have a very long memory.

He lowered to the field. Dex and Fin were already in motion before his claws settled.

Gold blood was gushing out of her back. She attempted to sit up, but the spike had her pinned in place.

Velkaris whimpered, feeling her pain bleed across the dragonbond like acid down his throat. The whimper cracked into a full-on draconic cry, a low, broken keen that shook the trees at the field’s edge and sent a flock of crows scattering into the sky. A sound he’d never made before.

"It’s okay, buddy," she soothed, her voice thin around the edges, the words pushed out on a breath she didn’t have to spare. Her priorities had never once been in the correct order and today was no exception.

"Serena!" Dex vaulted onto Velkaris’s back, boots scrabbling against scale, trying to help her sit up, only to see the blood pooling beneath her. "Baby ... Gods."

Fin jumped on Velkaris’s back too, and Velkaris let him. He grabbed one of Serena’s hands. Her fingers were limp in his grip. He pressed his lips to her knuckles.

The matebond carried her pain into him in a slow, hot pulse, and he absorbed it without a flinch.

Aeron moved up onto the dragon behind him, hands flaring gold.

He healed Gav first, who lay gasping like a fish, dignity somewhere in the upper atmosphere. The moment Gav could pull a full breath, Aeron moved on. He touched Serena next, and the blood gushing slowed to a steady, sullen weep.

A portal tore open at the edge of the field with a sound of canvas ripping, and the usually composed Alaric was running, black coat snapping behind him.

He looked at Dex with a pure look of "I am not pleased" and Dex fired back an identical look without a single word of apology in it.

"Lake." Alaric said, no explanation needed. "Assuming that spike under her is angled down."

"Yes."

Alaric’s hands glowed gold. "Pull her up away from the direction it’s pointed, before picking her up."

"I’m sorry, baby," Dex whispered, trying to not wince himself.

Sorry. The word was too small. It was a thimble trying to hold an ocean.

The spike was lodged in deep and he understood this was going to be difficult. He pulled her up a few inches on Velkaris’s back. The sound she made went through him like a blade through water. He felt it in his teeth, in his spine, in the place behind his ribs where the matebond lived. He had caused that sound by helping her. The math was cruel.

He stopped, jaw tense. "Alaric. I am going to cut the spike. You remove it."

"Copy, ready when you are."

Fin moved without being told, sliding both arms under Serena’s shoulders to take her weight, holding Serena in the place Dex had her.

"I’ve got her. Go."

Dex unsheathed his blade. Raised it.

Serena stopped him mid-swing.

"Wait!"

Her voice was steady. "Will it grow back?"

Dex and Fin exchanged a glance.

Velkaris made an exasperated noise. He would have rolled his eyes if dragon anatomy permitted. Cut. The. Spike.

Dex’s mouth pulled into something that wanted to be a smile and couldn’t quite get there. "Baby. You have a piece of him through your back. Now is not the moment for a structural integrity audit."

"It is exactly the moment," she countered, breath thinning between every word. "If it grows back, cut it. If it doesn’t, figure out another way."

Fin’s grip under her shoulders tightened a fraction. "Serena."

"He didn’t mean to," she continued, eyes locked on Dex’s, that quiet stubborn weight she did so well even with gold blood soaking through her training suit. "I’m going to be fine. He has to fly with these for the rest of his life."

"It grows back. He won’t even feel it," Alaric clipped. "Cut the goddamned spike."

Velkaris made a low rumble of agreement that vibrated through the scales under all three of them.

Serena didn’t seem convinced.

"Serena," Fin said, voice firm. "Eyes on me. Let him work."

She turned her head to look at Fin, her shoulders relaxed a fraction.

Dex didn’t wait for an invitation.

The blade fell in a clean gold arc, slicing through the spike at its base with a sound like glass cracking under pressure.

Serena’s whole body locked.

"Alaric. Now."