“You are welcome, Miss Milo. Although I will admit this situation is partially my fault.” The winter dragon would not take responsibility for the entire world splitting itself in half—but he would admit that Milo probably would not have ended up struggling for her life in a huge rushing river if not for him. Distantly, Ker wondered what might have become of this diminutive she-wolf if he hadn’t chosen to scoop her along . . . would she have returned to her own home without incidence? Would she have gotten injured in some other way? An aggravated sigh dragged from his battered lungs. Who cares. Specks of light danced in Kershov’s vision, flickering about like dust motes even when he shut his eyes. Already his muscles burned with fatigue, all those microtears in the tissue frantically repairing themselves and stitching tendons back together, limbs sore and heavy as if made of solid concrete. The glacial Czar had not pushed himself to his absolute physical limit in a long, long time. He had not needed to. During sparring matches, Ker consciously retrained himself in case of accidental injury; during a true fight, he cleverly controlled his movements to force his opponent into rapidly depleting their energy supply. That newly born river—huge, furious, wild—might have killed him. A rather sickening, unpleasant thought . . . but Kershov could afford to face it now, with his side pressed firmly onto dry land. A few more minutes navigating dangerous obstacles and debris in that vicious, freezing current eventually would have whittled his impressive strength away until he had no choice but to sink beneath the frothing waves. Death by drowning. A long shudder passed through his colossal physique. No . . . definitely not the way he wanted to die.

“Good work back there. I did not have to drop you.”

It was meant to be a humorous barb. When the tiny wolfess did not respond, Ker cracked open an obsidian eye to peer at her—and growled quietly to himself when he saw that his spur-of-the-moment companion had fainted. She lay totally limp against him, too much like a doll in size compared to his breadth, her rib cage lifting faintly with each shallow inhalation. Poor pathetic creature. The swim was too much for her. The frost-born Pharaoh jostled her a little with one paw and promptly gave up when Milo did not so much as squeak. “I must say . . . I’m a little surprised. You would have drowned without me, of course . . . yet you held your own as best you could.”

Admittedly, her presence so close to him unnerved the gladiator a bit. Kershov wasn’t a touchy-feely brute unless it suited him—and it only suited him during highly specific and very rare moments. His ears flattened, considering the pallid bird crumpled by his chest . . . before rolling his eyes skyward and curling himself so that he formed something of a shield around Milo’s faerie-bodice. Both wolves were soaked through and chilled from the river; however, keeping close would eventually bring their body temperature back up—and Ker, being significantly larger, had more heat to share. Rumbling like a bear woken too early from its slumber, he started methodically cleaning the moisture from Milo’s sopping robes with quick, deft sweeps of his tongue.