Page 37 of Fated to the Drakarn Commander (Drakarn Mates 4)

"You'll what?" Scorn dripped from her voice. "Ask your alien boyfriend for permission to save our people?"

Steel finally entered my voice. Enough. "I'll do what needs to be done," I bit out. "But I won't lead a rescue mission into a massacre based on a hunch."

She stared at me, a long, assessing moment. Betrayal hardened her gaze again. "You know what, Hawk? I think you have changed. And not for the better." She brushed past me, pausing at the alcove entrance, turning back just enough to meet my eyes. "Just remember who you are. They're not like us. No matter how much Terra or Selene or you want to pretend. They'll never be human."

She left. The silence she left behind was heavy, crushing. Her words echoed in the sudden emptiness.

Not like us.

I stood there, rooted to the spot, the weight of everything pressing down. What had I become? Who was I becoming?

And the question that clawed its way up from the deepest part of me, the one that truly terrified me: was I losing myself?

Mate.

The word pulsed with the heat still radiating from my core.

What did it mean? For me? For my duty? For the women I came here with?

No answers. Just the bone-deep certainty that the ground had shifted beneath my feet. Something fundamental had fractured inside me, in my world.

There was no going back to the soldier I was before Khorlar. Before this.

The real question, the one that made my breath catch in my throat …

Did I want to?

12

KHORLAR

The airin the Blade Council chamber was heavy with the metallic tang of old power and fresh tension. It felt less like a council room and more like a cage where predators circled, waiting for the first sign of weakness.

I stalked in, each scale pulled tight against my frame, my control a physical effort, an iron discipline clamped down hard. Every instinct I possessed screamed danger. This wasn't procedure. This was a battlefield disguised by tradition.

The circular chamber was packed, the air vibrating with suppressed hostility. Darrokar stood near the heart of it, a towering presence at the curved stone table. His obsidian scales seemed to drink the light. I could feel the pressure radiating from him. Around him, the others took their positions. Some faces were stone, unreadable masks hiding gods-knew-what agendas. Others shifted, eyes flicking, calculating—the stink of politics clinging to them.

Rath caught my eye. A grim nod passed between us, a shared current of understanding. He could feel it too. Vyne sat beside him. Across from them, Nyx's gray-and-white marked scales stood out. He was the Shield. Pragmatic. Solid.

His support, if given, would carry weight.

But it was the figure opposite Darrokar that sent a shard of ice scraping down my spine.

Karyseth.

Her silver-streaked scales caught the light like honed blades, throwing back fractured reflections. Her robes, heavy with the symbols of the Forge Temple, whispered against the stone with every calculated shift of her weight. She was power. Cold. Predatory. Behind her, her acolytes stood unnervingly still, yellow robes stark against the dark stone, their eyes burning with a fervor that made my teeth ache.

This wasn't a meeting. It was an ambush dressed in ritual.

"Stone Fist honors us," Karyseth's voice sliced through the tense silence, ancient as the deep rock beneath us, cold as a starless night. Her gaze, sharp and merciless, raked over me, lingering—deliberately—on the still-raw score across my shoulder where the Ignarath bastard's blade had marked me. "Fresh from dealing out justice, it seems."

Every head turned. The weight of their collective stare was a physical pressure. I met it head-on, moving to my place at the table without faltering. Let them look. Let them see the price paid for touching what was mine.

"Our esteemed Council member has been … occupied," she continued, the curve of her lips showing just a hint of fang. "While one of our guests now lies cooling."

"An uninvited guest," Zarvash cut in smoothly, leaning forward from his seat. His bronze scales caught the light, his voice deceptively mild. "Who trespassed where he had no right."

Karyseth's eyes narrowed to slits. "Blood spilled on Scalvaris soil demands accounting by the Temple. The Temple does not play favorites."

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