Chapter 55

Aharsh tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap against my ribs rouses me, and I groan, rolling over, nuzzling into mounded furs that smell like the raw musk of our lovemaking. ‘Go back to sleep, Zyke.’

‘Wake. Mate gone. Zykanth trapped in little man chest.’

My eyes pop open, and I scan our nest …

Empty.

Shit.

‘Why didn’t you wake me earlier?’ I blurt, heart lurching, scales prickling to the surface of my chest, spreading across my shoulders, down my arms. ‘And get back in, or you’ll rip apart her home and destroy her treasures. She won’t like your scales so much then.’

‘You have weak skin. Need strong scales. Protect soft little mate who thinks big strong.’

‘Calm down,’ I groan, leaping up while Zykanth churns inside me.

‘Go. Find. Move fast little feet.’

Growling, I dash toward the wooden door and drag it open. “Vicious!” I yell, wrapping a piece of cloth around my middle, stepping onto the platform that juts out from her little crystal cottage nesting in the sky—almost at the tip of one of the iridescent spires that make up the island.

Looking right, I scan the wiggly path that carves all the way to the crumbled-stone shore glistening in the morning light, then out across the stretch of silky water bathed in a spill of pink.

I hope she didn’t go down there without me. Perhaps she’s done it before, but now that she’s ours ...

The thought of her putting even a toe in those waters has my chest filling with a deluge of bone-crushing fear.

If the creature who haunts this island were to snatch her up, I’d hunt her down. Rip the seas to shreds to get her back.

‘Find, find, find,’ Zykanth chants, and I step forward, looking over the edge, feet tingling as I peer down to the jagged ravine far below …

Perhaps she went to bathe in the red pool and hunt for crabs?

Our little mate does love crabs.

Keeping as close to the wall as I can, I skirt left around the path that hugs the spire, and stop—though Zykanth keeps slamming against my ribs like a whip. The trail carves along the saw-tooth ravine, then up and over a smaller, stubby mound of crystal, at the top of which I spot her standing with a cloaked figure.

Both their heads are bent as Vicious rifles through a basket, dressed in nothing but that oversized shirt dancing around her long, golden legs.

‘Run little feet! Eat strange man. One crunch, gone.’

A sharp frill rips through my skin, all the way down the line of my spine as my jaw pops, widening to accommodate Zykanth’s ferocious maw.

‘Get down,’ I snarl, muscles bulging as I battle his might.

Ignoring me, he hisses through my bared teeth, scales pushing up over my neck and jaw and legs.

Vicious and the man look my way, and a small child scurries up from beyond the rise, peeking out from behind the folds of the stranger’s brown cloak.

Zykanth stills his swift ascent, fangs and frills sinking within as my heart lurches to a stop. ‘Little sparkly one …’

The child has a bouncy crop of iridescent curls, tapered ears tipped in a delicate line of thorns, eyes buffered crystals that catch on the pink sky bearing down on us …

Aeshlian.