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Lightning answers his call. A bolt strikes Valek’s dragon between his wings. The current arcs across his scales and turns his bronze blinding white. His body seizes from snout to tail, and he rips free of my neck on a silent roar. His bones glow blue through his flesh. The stink of burning dragon fills my nose.

The lightning lifts him off me and flings his limbs and wings wide. When it drops him, he slams into the earth with smoke rising off his scales. Aftershocks twitch through his body.

My dragon struggles to his feet and staggers over to him. Every step wrenches my torn wing, but he won’t go down. He plants a foot on Valek’s neck and leans on it enough to make his point. His roar shakes the ground under us.

Bolts keep hammering inside the circle, but Hazel’s shield holds. The storm peaks with thunder and lightning on top of each other and breaks off all at once.

The clouds scatter as fast as they gathered and leave the night sky clear. My dragon collapses with nothing left in him.

The shift back to human form is excruciating. My bones grind into shape. My scales sink into my skin and drag every wound with them. I lie naked and bloody in the dirt, too wrecked to move. Across from me, Valek is a man again. His gashes are already closing under the lightning burns that branch from his torso up his neck.

Aya’s still screaming and pounding on Hazel’s shield with tears all over her face. I can hardly hear her over the ringing in my ears. Around us, the men of the clan go down on a knee and bow, Dominic and Sam with them. They press their fists to their chests and chant.

“ALPHA EZRA! ALPHA EZRA! ALPHA EZRA!”

Their voices fill the clearing, but they bring me nothing. My dragon doesn’t so much as stir. None of this is what I wanted. I didn’t fight to be their alpha. I fought for my father’s Stormscale blood and my right to be who I am without shame. I’m leaving this clan and never coming back.

I stretch out on the ground and stare up at the sky. My skin pulls and itches where the deep wounds knit shut. The stars are back out like nothing happened. Alpha or not, I’ve made my choice.

30

EZRA

When Hazel lifts the shield, Aya runs to me and drops to her knees in the dirt to pull my head into her lap. She puts her hand over my heart and presses down with shaking fingers to feel it beat. She’s already crying.

“I am so angry with you,” she chokes out.

I try to laugh, but pain forks through my body and turns it into a wince. My burns are already knitting closed. I moan as new skin pulls tight over them. It feels like someone is peeling my flesh off inch by inch.

My dragon hasn’t made a sound through any of it. Now there’s nothing where he should be, and that’s worse than the burns. My mouth goes dry when I call for him and he doesn’t answer.

The clan picks its way toward us around the smoking craters in the clearing. Sam pushes through the circle to kneel at my side and goes over every wound I’ve got. He prods the deep cuts on my leg until I flinch.

Aya’s tears hit my skin faster now. “He’s burned and cut so bad. Is he going to recover?”

My mother crouches opposite Sam. Under the scorched-earth stink, I catch the sharp spike of fear in her scent before she locks it down.

“I need burn ointment, sterile bandages, antiseptic solution, and suture kits,” Sam orders as he rolls up his sleeves. “The third-degree burns along his chest will need debridement.”

“We have plenty in the medical pantry,” my mother says. She snaps her wings wide and launches into the air. Her takeoff throws dust and ash all over us. Aya hunches over my face to block it.

I tense up despite the pain when a shriek cuts through the clan’s murmuring.

“Valek! Oh my god, Valek!”

I turn enough to see Kenya back from the market. She jumps down from her loaded wagon and collapses beside her mate. The other human mates close in around her. I’m the one who put him on the ground. Every sob out of her is on me.

“Uncle Sam,” I rasp. “Go to Valek.”

He ignores that and keeps checking me over. I get an elbow under me and push up, but a sharp sting in my neck drops my head back into Aya’s lap.

She cups my face and bends to kiss my forehead. “Baby, stop moving.”

“I have to do something,” I mutter. I steady my voice. “Uncle Sam, I command you to take care of Valek first.”

His chin jerks up, but he can’t refuse a direct order. I’m alpha now whether I want it or not. Barking orders at my uncle from flat on my back feels wrong. Valek needs him more than I do. Sam salutes with his fist against his chest.

“Yes, Alpha,” he grits out before he hurries off.