And what of your friends? Emma and Claudia and Amy? Will you abandon them?

“They can come visit our beach house. We can have a play date for our kids there.” She sighs and opens her eyes, gazing up at me. “I guess that’s a pipe dream, isn’t it?”

We can go to the ocean if you wish. I continue to stroke her soft cheek. We can raise our young by the ocean if you like. But it will not solve anything. No one is safe while there are Salorians in this world. I think…I think Kael and I should work together more. See what we can do to help our people. I cup the curve of her chin. And I think I should start by finding you a safer nest, one where others cannot wander in and steal you away from me.

“I actually don’t hate that idea.” Her hand slides down my side. “Someplace safe and quiet would be nice. Though I’d hate to leave all the stuff here behind.”

When I discovered you were stolen, my rampage was fierce. I might have destroyed a great deal of your store. I apologize, my mate.

She chuckles. “I don’t mind that. I’m just glad to be back.” She snuggles closer to me, pressing her cheek against my chest. “Thank you for coming for me.”

I will always come to save you. Always. You are mine and mine alone.

“I like being yours and yours alone,” Sasha says softly, and her hand slides down to my cock. “I love you.” Her mind flashes with dark images, and I catch a hint of the worry she’s felt over the last few days. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again…”

I do not like her sadness, nor the catch in her throat. Hush, I tell her. I would destroy much more than a band of nomads if it meant I would get you back to my side. I would tear down fort after fort. I would rend a hundred humans to pieces. Nothing matters but you.

“Such sweet talk,” she says, gripping my length and stroking me. “It’s enough to make a girl want her mate on top of her, deep inside her.”

I growl low in my throat, because her mind is filling with new images, images of the two of us mating, me pumping into her. You want to be claimed, my Sasha?

“Oh, I do.” Her voice is a breathless whisper. “I’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry I sent you away. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss you until you were gone, and then my head was so, so silent. I hated it.”

I push up her skirts, seeking her heat underneath them. Her clothes smell of ash and strangers, the men who stole her. I grab a handful of the fabric and rip it off of her, tossing the remnants of her skirt aside. I want their stink off of you.

“I want that, too.”

Good. I continue to shred her clothes with my claws, careful not to mark her tender skin. I fling the shreds aside, and then my mate lies underneath me, soft and sweet and smelling of my fires. I slide my fingers over the folds of her cunt and find that she is wet for me, the perfume of her scent thick and heady.

“Dakh,” she breathes, wrapping her arms around my neck. “Take me.”

I claim her mouth in a searing kiss, stroking my tongue against hers, conquering her. She moans against me, hitching one leg around my hips and pressing her cunt up against my cock in a blatant request. She does not want to wait. My Sasha does not crave a slow seduction, not this time.

She wants her fierce mate.

I am never leaving your side again, I tell her as I push her thighs wider apart.

Never, she agrees.

Our minds will never be apart. When I go hunting, I will take you with me. Always together, never separated. I slick the head of my cock in her juices, dragging it up and down her folds.

Her little moan is so satisfying to hear. Always together, she agrees. I don’t want to leave your side ever again.

I push into her, enjoying her gasp when I seat my length into her warmth. She is tight, her walls gripping my cock like a slick fist. I lean in and take her mouth again, my hand cupping one rounded breast. You belong to me in all ways, my Sasha.

“All…ways,” she breathes. “Oh God, Dakh. You feel so good.” Her nails dig into my shoulders, and she closes her eyes, pleasure evident on her face. “I love you so much.”

I love you, I tell her, though drakoni do not use such words like humans do. We show it in our actions or express it in our thoughts. And as I claim my mate, I send her an endless chain of these thoughts, letting her know all the ways I love, appreciate, and adore her.

She is mine, forever. It does not matter where I am, as long as I am with her and she is with me. We can find an island by the beach or we can find a nest next to Claudia and Kael.

What matters is that my Sasha is with me, always.

Always, she sends back, her thoughts as full of love as my own.

Epilogue

EMMA

“Hold still,” a gruff voice tells me. “Yer squirming.”

“Sorry,” I say meekly, and cringe when Old Jerry pushes the needle through my scalp again. Glad I can’t see what he’s doing. I force myself to sit still in the chair. “Fucking hurts, that’s all.”

“Next time, don’t get taken hostage,” Old Jerry tells me in a curt voice. He tugs on my head, and then I hear a snip. A moment later, a thick bandage is wrapped around my head. “There you go. Good as new.” He laughs at his own joke.

“Thanks, Jer.” I get to my feet, wincing. My head feels all tight from the stitches, and it throbs like the dickens. I guess I shouldn’t have told Sasha to hit me in the head quite so hard, but at least it’s believable. No one’s questioned my loyalty, especially not since I’ve spent the entire night weeping over my injuries…and my douchebag brother.

I hated Boyd, but Boyd was safety, in a sense. He was family. Now I’ve got no one. Nothing. Not even my friend Sasha.

I pull a couple of old granola bars out of my bag and offer them to Old Jerry as payment for the stitches. His weathered face lights up, and he beams at me, his smile full of gaps. Jerry’s the nicest one in this gang of nomads. He’s still a bloodthirsty killer, but sometimes there’s a hint of a fatherly attitude with him. He snatches up the bars and gestures at me. “You tear those open, you come see me again.”

“I will. For now, I guess I’d better get back to work, though.” I pat the bandages on my head and sling my pack over my shoulder, then head back out the door of the little building Jerry’s set up as his infirmary.