When Kershov turned a corner, heading into a bowl-shaped copse recently thickened with new forest growth, his breath suddenly hitched in his chest. Her perfume was fresh here—deliciously, temptingly, overwhelmingly so. It filled the dark space as if the very leaves exuded her scent on their glossy green surfaces. A symphony of blossoms and blood. Luxurious fur and exotic spices. A velvet black curtain that stifled Kershov’s acute senses and left him gasping, plumage spiked and heartbeat abruptly hammering within his ribcage. When Scarlet Nights had slipped from Abendrot to leave him alone in a tidal wave of madness, Ker had searched for her signs through every corner of the territory—until eventually her signature was so faint he lost hope of ever recovering it. Now that the deadly Queen had returned, her King still found it difficult to believe she was real. He hadn’t realized just how much she’d meant to him.

The notion was terrifying.

After the fateful pack meeting when Scarlet Nights had marched in like the regal assassin she was, Kershov had made no effort to seek her out within the castle walls. It was almost as if he were trying to prove something to himself, to her . . . that despite the fact he’d held her closer than a lifeline in a churning ocean, he didn’t need her—not really. A pitiful lie, of course, but one the Pharaoh would stick to until it completely fell to pieces. Glad to have you back, lover mine, but see how well I do on my own?

Nearly salivating, Kershov turned aggressively away from the triggering place, slab-muscled shoulders tensed as he marched with hard resolution somewhere else. Anywhere else. Abruptly an ache he had not had to endure for moons scorched downward from his abdomen into his pelvic bone, inciting a savage snarl to tear from his maw. Damn her. The colossal titan broke into a gallop, demolishing undergrowth as it blocked his path. It took him a full minute to realize he was running along a trail Scarlet Nights had left behind—tagging after her like some foolish cur on a leash. Fine! If his absurd instincts were dead set on confronting the blood-spattered bitch, so be it. His veins begged for another hit of her drug. Each pound of his paws in her direction sent him further down the path to his own rational damnation. Ridiculous. Unavoidable. Dangerous.

Come to think of it, what a strange, unlikely pair they made: lamia and wendigo. Puppet-turned-Queen, puppeteer-turned-slave. Because that’s what he was, as much as the massive bone-colored monster ferociously denied it. They barely knew one another, had never actually skinned back each other’s layers to survey the truth of each other’s insides, and nevertheless Kershov felt himself tied to the woman with the flaming amber gaze. The screeches of his inner monster shredded out across space and found resonance against her unknown heart. He looked at her, teased her, touched her, and experienced a sort of impossible recognition. Perhaps that’s what other wolves meant when they talked about “soul mates.” Scarlet Nights fit him, without clashing in his gears or merely circulating his awareness like an entirely separate piece. And as a tortuously unfair trade off, the Alpha lost function when she left.

His legs slowed their churning pace. For the second time, the saturation of his beloved’s perfume assaulted his senses and closed on him like a trap. Kershov had caught up to the succubus at last, and stood only a few body-lengths from where her multi-hued silhouette was framed by the forest.

His solitary eye was a fathomless black pool slaked with flawless ice when it rested on his mate’s addicting form; easy to see out of, impossible to see in, because past the gleaming veneer of his cornea yawned an abyss that swallowed all light. Heavy, fragrant summer evening air stirred the immaculate alabaster of his war robes. Dappled shadow hazed over the cut-concrete edges of Kershov’s stonily handsome face, blurring the lines where sparse fur struggled to hide violent slashes of nacreous tissue . . . gruesome artwork that echoed its strength in the satin lines sewn over Scarlet Nights’ own angelic visage. He was a creature chiseled from solid marble, foreboding, magnificent, cold, a monument of a wolf, but the playful mystery forever glittering in Scarlet’s gaze had infiltrated his mind like smoke and rendered him useless as a bridge with all its supports destroyed. How dare she hold this power over him? Who was she to inject him with sensuous venom until the absence of her bite left him spiraling into the chaos of withdrawal?

They faced each other as mates and strangers. Once Kershov finally spoke, his lyrics carried a shivering tremor, longs shards of ice preparing to drop. “I see you’re getting back into the swing of things, my dear. It’s almost as if you were never gone.”

Something was crystallizing inside of him, spider webs of frost crackling along his insides and freezing his chest until Ker thought his words would escape in a cloud of glacial condensation. Had she thought about him at all when she’d walked away from Abendrot? Had she missed him? Had some part of her nature cracked without him to fill in the spaces? A more chilling thought pierced the dragon’s mind, inciting an enraged pulse to throb at the back of his skull. Could she feel . . . guiltless, about all of this? Would the Empress he’d been circumventing for these past few days offer no more than another enigmatic smile? Pallid hackles raised imperceptibly higher. As much has Kershov had been purposefully avoiding Scarlet Nights, she hadn’t exactly made an effort to seek him out.

“Let’s talk,” Kershov murmured, silk and snow rolling from his tongue.

Then he lunged—jaws unhinged.