She’d been as yielding as a bundle of cotton when he scooped her up, relaxing obediently into the affectionate prison of his forelimbs. It amazed Vladya how exquisitely tiny the damsel was, a princess in miniature, from her creamy fine-boned paws to the perfectly formed triangle ears that perked alertly at the top of her satin crown—all so delicate and adorably small. And even more fascinating than Kobato’s fairylike exposition was the stunning energy carried within: a blazing star cradled in a paper lantern. Her enormous kindness as she allowed the ragged gangster to worked his hardest at being “nice.” Her intelligence, equal parts innocence and wisdom. Until this point in his life, Vladya would not have thought it possible to think so much about an individual other than himself or his leader. There just . . . hadn’t been room for it, not when the knot of his barbed-wire heart was so crowded by savage anger. And now the dog found his thoughts in a constant loop of this wonderful girl, calmed and delighted as he turned the storybook pages of everything about her.

You are good. You are smart. You are strong. Vladya chanted these obsessive affirmations in his mind as his nose traced Kobato’s nape, trying to reassure her after the uncertain lance of his question but also wanting not to break in half himself. Had he just fucked up big time by treading into that territory? Was there a way to backpedal out of it, to just throw a veil over the whole thing and forget his stupidity? Oops, sorry, let’s pretend that never happened. Kobato had gone very, very still without Vlad immediately noticing. He assumed she was humoring him, but after a beat the pallid monster paused his absent stroking. Black-gold eyes fell shut, anticipating a stab of sympathy pain. Oh no. Here it comes.

Then . . . “Wishes?” Vladya slammed his maw shut as soon as the word slipped out. He felt like an IDIOT—except Ko had just murmured a statement so entirely alien to the arctic soldier’s vocabulary it was if he’d fallen down a rabbit hole into a different world. Jaw muscles clenched to let the bird finish her thought. “Simple rays of light” . . . already Vlad knew he was peeking into the diamond tower guarding the princess’s soul. If this feminine creature truly believed in something as intangible as a wish, and that such a goal required tireless steps to reach, then he could guess at much of what had driven Kobato to selfless extremes all her life.

A secret and profound sadness yawned in Vladya’s chest, an emotion he couldn’t necessarily name and would never admit to—yet a familiar one nonetheless. I could have told you what a waste of time that is, kid.

But Vlad couldn’t force back the clock to protect Kobato from the tenderness of her own heart. Besides . . . did he truly want to? Compassion was the waif’s form of fearlessness; take that away, and the Ko who inspired a dragon to tame himself no longer existed.

A sigh gently collapsed Vladya’s lungs, relaxing his body so that he could drape more comfortably by his valkyrie’s side. Which was important, since the next bit of information to drop from her lips like a stone into glass-smooth water hit Vlad like a fist to the chest. His first thought was bitter recognition: war. Then, immediately chasing that, a choking sense of horror. Kobato . . . knew war? There was suddenly not enough space in the cabinet of the bone dog’s budding emotions to feel jealousy as the mention of another male’s name. It did not matter who this Ioryogi was. Vladya already understood that this story did not have a happy ending.

Without conscious effort, the ice-born beast had moved his faraway stare to the darkest part of the cave. In that bottomless screen of shadow, Kobato’s forlorn words wove themselves into a living picture. He saw the clash of clan and teeth, the pointless struggle of it all. The unfairness. The heartbreak. And colliding with that sickening film of strangers were snatches of Vladya’s past, bands of ivory white next to writhing pelts of grey, as if someone had taken two films and spliced them poorly together. And the end result was gore, gore, gore—a whole lake of it, wasted, staining their paws like ink spilled across clean paper. If Vlad knew the name of his emotions, the one he was suffering now could only be . . . empathy. “I understand. I’m sorry.” He muttered it so softly he doubted that Kobato could hear while in the grip of her confession.

Abruptly, her desperate tawny portals turned and pulled Vladya’s focus from the slideshow in his mind. No, he thought coldly, I don’t know what you say. He held her distraught gaze with a stony levelness. How on earth could he answer her? Perhaps the glacial gladiator wasn’t meant to. The agony of hopelessly watching his comrades die had calloused over so much that Vladya had learned to stop asking those kinds of questions years ago. All the scarred brute could offer was silent acceptance, lightly kissing away the tears that rained down Ko’s dear face.

I wish I knew what to say.

I wish I could tell you how brilliant you are.

But I’m . . . not him.

He hadn’t realized how depressed he’d grown until the destination of Kobato’s story dragged him up from the sinking mire of his private thoughts. Vladya had been looking down at her muzzle. Not anymore. He had to make eye contact to see if she was screwing with him. She couldn’t be—right? A musical laugh, signaling the end of her tortured tears. The outlaw’s ears strained forward. “No wonder he was so afraid,” Vlad breathed, recalling with perfectly clarity the subzero rage that possessed Kershov when Kobato dared touch the Alpha’s canvas. “Kershov had no idea what to do with you.”

What was fundamentally wrong with Vladya that he had grown so coarse and jagged and ugly while this little wolfess had shouldered similar pain and transformed into something beautiful? How had each hardship softened her impossibly more while they ripped through Vlad’s hide like physical scars? What was his fucking excuse? Thank the moon, thank the stars, thank whatever power ruled this universe that the gladiator and the maiden had met. It was all Vladya could hope to become like the living goddess he worshipped. As a complex work of art, she inspired him. As someone who had gone through fire, just like him . . . she gave him hope. Real hope. If Kobato did not have to see this life through a lens of hatred, then neither did he.

There was something Vladya wanted to do . . . now more than ever, when he felt this close to his chosen. Heat flooded his abdomen, fighting for dominance with the ridiculously euphoric warmth suffusing his chest cavity with light. The foreleg he’d laid over Ko’s smooth shoulder slid slowly down the modest curve of her waste. His feathered banner swept over her luxurious plume, the back of her haunches . . . “I love you.” Vladya stated this as simple fact. “I want you to trust me . . . and speak from your heart. I would never do anything to harm you. Ever.” This was a moment he had only dreamt of—and Vlad could hardly admit to himself that he’d harbored such fantasies about an angel more pure than freshly fallen snow. He did not want to hold himself back, but he would, at the slightest command from his princess.

“Kobato . . .”