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With the door secured behind us, we returned to the bedroom. Through the open doorway to the bathing chamber, I spotted Orqiel sprawled on his back next to the pool in a sizable pool of blood. His arms and legs had deep incised wounds, as did his chest and abdomen. Keela’s killing blow had severed his head, which had rolled away to the edge of the pool.

He might have deserved worse, but he’d certainly deserved no better.

I drew up my hood and activated my biomask. “Ready?” I asked.

“Ready.” My mate dropped her plasma gun into her hand and activated her own biomask.

“You make a lovely dragoness,” I murmured, kissing her blood-splattered hair before drawing her hood up over her head.

“And you’re a very handsome Haboori.” With a wink, she led me to the bedroom’s exterior doors and out onto the balcony overlooking the deserted training grounds. In just a few hours they would be filled with fighters enduring predawn training, but for the moment, silence reigned in the arena complex.

Keela ran her hands up my shirt, curled her fingers against my chest, and leaned close to murmur, “Back to our ship, Weapons Master. We have celebrating to do.”

Instantly, my cocks stiffened. “Of course, Captain.”

I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her until she could lock her legs around my waist. My left arm throbbed, but I still had more than enough strength to hold her, especially with the help of my tail, which I wrapped around her as well. “Do not let go,” I said roughly.

She stared into my eyes with her red dragon gaze. “I don’t plan on it.”

I ran a few steps, planted my foot on a low table, and with a powerful flap of my wings leapt over the railing and into the night.

Keela’s gasp was pure exhilaration.

In my dreams, I had flown with my mate in my arms into the skies of my homeworld, soaring over beautiful pink lakes and waterfalls and brilliantly colored trees. Every such dream had been a promise of the life we would have together once our bounties were dealt with and we resolved whatever matter had brought Keela to Ghira Station to meet with N’vera.

I would never have chosen the noxious urban air of Saistea for our first flight. But as we put distance between ourselves and the dangers of the Aiphelevia, I would not have traded this journey for anything—not even a flight on beautiful Fortusia. With my own arms and wings, I was carrying my mate to safety after she’d slain her enemy. What greater or better purpose could they serve than this?

I couldn’t indulge myself and extend our flight time, as much as I might have enjoyed soaring with my mate through the towering, brightly lit city skyline. We needed to get to our ship and away from this place as quickly as possible. I heard no shouts or alarms, and quick glances down showed no one was giving us any notice since our dark cloaks blended so well with the night sky, but every moment we were in the air, I was keenly aware of our vulnerability.

My wristcomm showed the fastest aerial route to our ship, but I didn’t need it. All my instincts drew me toward our safe haven like a magnet. I swooped between buildings, over roofs, and along narrow alleys with my mate held so tight to my chest that I felt every beat of her racing heart. Her little gasps and squeaks made me feel like a god of the skies—one with dripping fangs and a pair of fully engorged cocks yearning to be buried deeply inside my perfect mate.

When the warehouse came into sight between two buildings, I gave Keela a reassuring squeeze and adjusted my trajectory to aim for the open roof.

She deactivated her biomask and smiled up at me. Her eyes had a bruised look that along with the pangs in my chest reminded me of everything she had suffered tonight. I felt the shape of the orb hidden inside her cloak too, and hoped we would soon be rid of it so my mate could begin to heal.

Still, for all the pain that haunted her lovely green gaze, it was a more beautiful sight than anything on any world, even my lush home planet.

“Well done, my bat,” Keela murmured. Her expression softened. “You know, I⁠—”

A plasma shot punched through my right wing. Agony whited out my vision. Two more shots clipped and then punctured my left wing.

We dropped from the sky like a stone.

CHAPTER 22

JARRIX

Keela didn’t scream.

Instead, she held onto my waist loosely with one arm, twisted her upper body, and fired back at the source of the shots while I fought through the pain to force my damaged wings to extend and control our tumble out of the sky.

My mate was shooting at something on the street, but all I could see was the mountain of broken glaz and twisted metal in front of us.

Time slowed.

My damaged wings couldn’t get us around or up and over the enormous rubble pile. But without her weight, I could just clear its peak.

Gods above, I had to drop her now onto one of the smaller piles of debris and trash, or we’d both be impaled on those deadly spikes of metal and glaz ahead of us and she’d die in my arms.