If I can convince them, they will war for us. For the future we could have, instead of the extinction that looms ahead.

This is my duty to my people, to my mate, and to the females of Earth.

My heart squeezes as my gaze lands back on Leigh, always on Leigh. I’ve known her all of a few weeks, and how it has shifted my entire worldview.

There will be no more hiding, no more waiting and biding my time.

I would carve a place in the world for the both of us, and ensure Earth is safe… My hands clench at my sides as we walk through an arched doorway to a large, bare meeting room. A large table spans the length of the room, and there is a chair set apart from the others on a dais.

Earth will be safe, I will stop the Roth Overlord from carrying out his plans, but…

She will not return to Earth.

She may be all defiance and fire right now, but I will break her down, until she craves me, until she needs me… loves me. No matter the lies it takes.

I will be king, and she will be my queen.

Leigh turns her face towards me, as if she knows the direction of my fevered thoughts. I can’t help myself—I tangle my fingers in the thick length of braids wrapped around her head, and she gasps, eyes wide, as I tug her back to my side.

“What?” she snarls, as violent as any Roth queen should be.

“Trust no one,” I tell her quietly.

“I don’t. Especially not you. You promised not to kiss me.”

I pretend not to hear her. “I do not like the way he looks at you.”

“Let her go,” the female Billie mutters, her hand at her thigh, where I know she’s strapped a plas knife under her skirts.

All I have attention for is Leigh though, for the green fire in her eyes, so reminiscent of the borealis over the Northern Roth ice caves.

“You may have the place of honor,” Roghat says, a faint smile on his face at seeing the tension between us.

I release my mate and she pats her hair, sitting down defiantly at one of the many chairs along the long table. Roghat immediately sits next to her, and her lips purse, as though she’s not thrilled with that development.

I nod to Lyko and Ayro, and they position themselves as close to her as possible, the other females following suit.

What choice do I have? I have the position of honor, a position I must take if I want them to respect me as king.

I don’t like it. My mate should be with me, at my side, but… I need Roghat’s allegiance. The numbers here are large enough to make an impact in a fight against the Overlord, and I know from experience that the appearance of many Roth settlements are often deceiving. I guarantee there is more to this outpost than they are showing us right now.

The rest of the settlement sect file into the building, taking their seats and speaking in quiet voices. I lean forward on the chair. They’re too interested in her. In all the human females.

My skin prickles, and my power begins to build beneath my fingers.

Roghat leans towards her, his shorn hair so different than mine and my brothers’. A strange think to have done, to cut his hair off like that. It is not like the Roth to wear our hair short. A frown turns my lips down. Maybe this was a waste of time. Maybe this sect is too far gone from Roth culture to even wish to involve themselves with our politics.

I sigh, leaning back against the chair. My fingers drum against the arms, sending orange sparks flying where my energy slips free.

Leigh laughs at something Roghat says, though it’s a tight, unnatural sound. The noise in the hall diminishes at the sound, and nearly all the males stare at her now. I don’t like this.

My lips pull back in a snarl. Something is wrong. I should have insisted she stay with me, at my side, or even better, in my lap.

Roghat cuts me a sly look, and I half-stand in response, already infuriated. He meets my gaze, and I gather my power around me, wearing it like a mantle.

His hand flicks out, and when he grabs Leigh by her neck, time seems to stand still.

The memory of my mother, fighting for her life, for her freedom, as the Overlord’s troops dragged her from our home, flashes before me, and I shake my head, refusing to let the weakness of that past moment ruin my future.

She lets out a furious noise, and then a knife I didn’t even know she had presses to his throat. A thin trickle of blood blackens the blade.

“She should be mine,” Roghat spits out, and the knife cuts deeper into his skin.

Without the tough hide other species have, Roghat is vulnerable, and Leigh uses that knowledge as well as she can.

“You have not fully mated her,” Roghat sneers. “She doesn’t wear the marks of Roth. The humans may be breedable but they are not fit to call queen. They are not Roth.”

A roaring fills the otherwise silent hall, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me.

Nobody moves.

She digs the tip of the knife into his neck, sputtering for her own breath as his knuckles whiten and her feet kick.

“Let her go, or you die,” I tell him, my muscles straining with the effort of not incinerating the entire gods-damned settlement. “You all die.”

“And you’d kill her with us?” he asks, but sweat beads at his temple.

When his fingers flex around her throat, she makes a small noise of distress, and I raise a finger, my entire hand cloaked in white-hot fire. The chair behind me catches, too, and the rest of the sect shouts, crying for water.

Fools. Don’t they know they are powerless against me?

Don’t they know I would burn the world to save her?

“Release the queen! May the stars shine on them both! Nydo flames as the gods once foretold, a true King of Roth,” a voice cries out, the only sound that pierces my awareness long enough for me to register it.

The hand around Leigh’s neck, the only thing in the universe that matters to me, falters, and she slices a thick line across Roghat’s neck as she takes a huge, shuddering breath. Her feet smash into the ground.

In the next instant, I’m moving as fast as I can to get to her side.

I haul her against me, the flames around me guttering, save for those around my hand, which I reach out to Roghat.

“I promise you this, Roghat of the Ikkox sect. I do not need you badly enough to allow you to live.”

Dark red-black blood seeps through where his fingers are clapped against his throat.

Leigh shakes like a leaf in the wind against my arms.

“I can finish the job,” she murmurs. “I’d love to.”

“Bloodthirsty,” I say approvingly. “And they say you are not worthy of the crown. She is more vicious than any male here,” I boom.

She starts forward, the plas knife only slightly trembling in her grip. “Should I chop his balls off first?” she asks. “Make him eat them?”

Roghat drops to his knees, and the hall falls completely silent. “You have my troops. You have my ships. I only beg of you, help us find females like these. You have my allegiance, my king. My queen, you have my apologies. I am at your service.”

Leigh flips the knife around in her hand, a practiced, showy move demonstrating skill I didn’t know the tiny human possessed.

The rest of the males in the hall kneel as one, thumping to the floor so heavily the table shakes at the impact. Shoulders move as one, grey Roth fists beating against them, a sign of respect. For both of us.

Leigh raises her chin, and I scent the female’s fear behind me. But for all her hand trembles, my queen, my mate… she smells like rage.

“Well, my queen,” I drawl out lazily. She doesn’t take her eyes from Roghat kneeling before us. “Do you want to take his manhood or his life? Both? Neither? I’ll leave it up to you. Consider his life a mating present between us.”

She turns her face to me, a smile flitting across it—but not before I see the disgust plain in her eyes.