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“Harder.”

“You sure?”

“Do not ask me again.”

He gives me harder. The bench creaks. My knife hilt digs into my hip; I ignore it. Sweat slicks my skin. His hair falls across both our faces. I come a third time with a raw sound I do not recognize as my own, walls fluttering and pulsing, more clear discharge spilling out around him and soaking the bench beneath us. He follows a handful of strokes later, burying himself deep and holding there while his own release floods me in thick, hot pulses. The heat of it is startling. I feel every throb.

For a long moment neither of us moves. His forehead rests against mine. My fingers stay tangled in the hair that covers his broken horn. The solarium is quiet except for our breathing and the steady hum of the regulators.

Then the first emergency alarm begins to wail.

The sound is high and insistent. Red light strobes across the glass. The atmospheric systems stutter; the air pressure drops for a fraction of a second and my ears pop. Behind us a maintenance panel tears free of the wall with a shriek of stressed metal and crashes to the floor in a cloud of dust and soot.

Draxon pulls out of me and has me on my feet in the same motion. My knees buckle. He catches me around the waist before I can hit the stone, steadying me against his side while debris settles around our feet. My gown is wrinkled and damp. My hair is loose and streaked with grey dust. I can taste soot on my tongue. My legs still tremble from the force of the last orgasm and the sudden shift to survival.

“Regulator failure,” he says, already scanning the damage. Voice back to controlled command even though his plates are still open and slick. “We need to move.”

I nod, breathless, and force my legs to take my weight. His hand stays at my back, large and careful, guiding me toward the secondary exit while the alarm continues its relentless cry and the solarium fills with the sharp scent of scorched wiring and disturbed earth.

We leave the inventory lists scattered on the floor, forgotten.

12

DRAXON

The first alarm strikes just as we find our breath on the bench. Its iron note shrieks through the solarium, shattering the quiet we had briefly reclaimed. Crimson emergency sigils flare across the glass, and the atmospheric pressure stutters, making my ears pop. Behind us, a heavy maintenance panel tears free of the wall with a shriek of stressed metal, crashing to the stone floor in a cloud of soot.

I have Beatrix on her feet in the same motion. Her knees buckle, but there is no time to wait. The ceiling supports are already groaning above us. I drag her toward the secondary exit, leaving the inventory lists scattered on the floor, forgotten. But a secondary shift of the wall blocks our path. I am forced to shove her through the jagged opening where the metal panel tore free, pushing her ahead of me into the maintenance passage just as the solarium access collapses behind us.

Now, inside the narrow, grime-coated corridor, the air is thick with the sharp scent of scorched wiring. Her knees fail again on her first attempt to stand. I catch her beneath the arms before she reaches the floor, my hand brushing the raw bruise already forming across her shoulder—the price of my haste in forcing her through the torn panel to beat the collapse.

"Can you stand?"

"If the corridor stops moving."

"It is not moving."

"Then I object to that information."

Her voice is rough from the vapor. She draws air carefully, testing lungs the poisoned solarium tried to close. Each breath reaches deeper than the last.

Alive.

The fact carries more force than the alarms.

I retrieve my cloak from where it fell near the broken maintenance grate. Dust coats the black fabric. It will serve. I wrap it around her, fastening it beneath her throat with hands that still remember the heat of her skin.

The corridor offers no privacy for examining what occurred here. Nor do I trust myself to examine it while the spire remains under attack.

I strike the wall beside the emergency sigil.

"Grolm."

Arcane light spreads beneath my palm. Static answers first, then the guard captain's voice breaks through.

"My lord. State your position."

"Southern maintenance passage, level twenty-three. The solarium access has collapsed. Bring guards and cutting tools."