Page 3 of Fated to the Drakarn Commander (Drakarn Mates 4)

Behind me, the guttural rumble of Drakarn voices grated against the too-smooth cadence of the humans. It was grit under my scales. This whole exercise reeked of folly. Dragging untested warriors outside of Scalvaris was risky enough.

Addingthem? Madness.

I turned, scanning the camp. Trainees moved with the hesitant precision of students afraid of screwing up. Their fear was a familiar scent, almost comforting in its predictability. They’d learn the unforgiving honesty of this world, or they’d feed it.

The humans … they moved with an alien fluidity that still set my teeth on edge after all these months. Terra gestured sharply at Lexa over some scrap laid out like a battle plan. Vega stood sentinel, her eyes missing nothing, a grudging spark of respect kindled despite myself. My warriors were untrained. These women? They were battle tested and bloodied.

But they still didn't belong here.

Then my gaze snagged onher.

Hawk.

Kneeling by her pack, her movements were spare, precise. Lethal economy. The light struck sparks off her dark skin, her shorn hair seemed to drink in the light and swallow it whole. She swiped sweat from her brow, a simple gesture that sent a jolt through me.

My tongue scraped raw against the roof of my mouth. My fangsachedwith a sudden, burning throb.

Hells.

I ripped my gaze away, jaw clamped hard enough to crack stone.

"Stone Fist, sir." Marvok approached, wings held tight. The kid's scales had barely hardened. "The perimeter checks are complete."

"And?" The word was a growl ripped from my chest, the distraction welcome.

He flinched. "Tracks. North. Small predators?—"

"Nothing issmallout here." I snarled the words, pinning him with my stare until he looked away. "Double the watch."

He scrambled back. Untested. Maybe not hopeless. He'd learn or he'd die.

Volcaryth was a harsh place. There was no room for softness when it came to training, not if I wanted to keep my warriors alive.

My eyes betrayed me again, snapping back to where Hawk was.

Had been.

Now the space was empty. Vega was gone too.

Wrongness coiled in my gut, cold and sharp.

Stealth was instinct. I moved through the camp, silent as death, hunting her scent. When it hit me—that sharp, foreign sweetness cutting through the dust and heat—the reaction was a physical blow. My fangs pulsed again, a searing agony radiating deep into bone.

My tongue burned as if I’d tasted magma. Only this heat I craved more and more.

It was a brand seared onto my soul since that day in the caverns. A truth hammered into bone.

I crushed the thought savagely. Irrelevant. A distraction. A weakness I couldnotafford.

The scent pulled me, hooked into me, leading toward a jagged cluster of boulders bleeding shadow onto the baked ground. Voices drifted on the shimmering air, thin and tense.

"—don't care. We've waited long enough." Vega’s voice. Fierce. Stubborn. "Reika said there were others. What if they're stranded in Ignarath territory like she was? What about Kira's sister? We have to?—"

"Do you have an actual plan?" Hawk's voice was cool steel layered over something I couldn’t name. "Or do you think we can walk in and ask nicely?"

"What do you think?" Vega's voice was getting angrier. "We've heard enough?—"

"Rumors get you killed," Hawk shot back. "You're talking about facing winged nightmares without backup."

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