Serenna’s arms twitched against the restrictive shadows as she battled for her freedom. His words prompted a scathing remark, her chest constricting with a panicked storm. “We wouldn’t even have a military academy if it wasn’t for you monsters attacking Kyansari!”

The muscles in his jaw flexed as he gritted his fangs. “We have never attacked Kyansari.”

“You’re lying,” Serenna seethed.

“Read the bond,” he sarcastically taunted, sneering. “You’ll find I’m not.”

“I don’t want to touch your filthy mind.” Rage bubbled up in her throat. “Dissolve this connection and you’ll never see me again.”

“Oh, you’re not returning to your elven kin.” He straightened, cracking his neck.

The blood drained from Serenna’s face. He can’t keep me here…

“Now, I am going to ask a final time.” His eyes burned with an unnatural glow. “Why do you have a Heart of Stars?”

His persistence regarding the relic left Serenna bewildered. Heartbeats stretched in the silence between them. To avoid being on the receiving end of rending again, her stubbornness fractured.

Serenna swallowed and quietly admitted, “It was given to me.”

“And who so freely bestowed an Aelfyn artifact to a half-elf grunt?” The male’s eyes pinned on her. “The king?”

Serenna lifted her chin. “Prince Vesr—”

With no warning, the male ripped off his gauntlet. He shoved a grotesquely clawed hand to her chest, sundering her words. Talons shredded her leathers, gouging into flesh, splitting into skin.

A scream ravaged Serenna’s throat when pain like nothing she’d ever known detonated within her Well as he started flaying her power. Agony radiated from the depths of her body as he plucked, slashed, and unraveled the fibers of her magic. White-hot anguish thieved Serenna’s sight as her mind caved in on itself, Essence threatening to rip her apart.

Something inside of her shattered and snapped.

Knees buckling, reality disintegrated into splinters as Serenna crashed to the ground. Like a wounded animal whose limb had been cleaved by a trap, she lay panting, unable to process the injury. Unable to comprehend the loss.

The male had taken something. Something that was hers. Mind racing, Serenna frantically dove inward, assessing her power.

There was a hole. A gaping hole in her Well.

Portaling.

Her ability was gone. Serenna’s heart careened in fear at the incomprehensible emptiness. Disbelieving, she looked up in horror. The male’s concentration focused on a globe of white light hovering above his claw.

Devastated by a thousand warring thoughts, each one more terrifying than the last, Serenna’s mind howled, processing that he’d somehow stolen her talent.

“NO!” she screamed as he shoved her ability into his chest. Through the bond, she sensed his exhilaration at the surge of power. “NO!” She stumbled to her feet.

Serenna shook loose hair out of her eyes. Black hair. Trembling, she held up her hands and nearly vomited. The impossible truth pulverized her, crashing into her like a boulder. She didn’t have claws, but her fingers had elongated. Gruesomely so.

Her panicked voice rang around the chambers. “What did you do to me?”

With a snarl, he lunged and snatched her leathers. A cloud of rending reared behind him, spreading like dark wings. “Now you will know what it means to be wraith.”

Serenna’s vision went white when he started plundering the rest of her Well. Thoughts fragmenting, all she knew was pain. Her body convulsed through the endless wave of agony, sanity unraveling. Every nerve on fire, she screamed, calling out for help. For the prince. For Jassyn. For anyone to stop the butchering of her magic.

She distantly heard other voices in the chamber.

“Lykor!” a male yelled. Boots pounded into the room.

Sight blurring, Serenna blinked to see a golden-haired half-wraith dragging the claw away from her chest. He shoved back the male who was raiding her magic.

Blinking again, Serenna discovered she was curled on the ground, having collapsed at some point. She gasped for air as the waves of agony subsided.

“I’ve got your she-elf,” a male voice said behind her.

Serenna flinched when a warm hand touched her shoulder. Gently lifting her under the arms, he hauled her to her feet.

Disoriented, Serenna staggered as a wave of dizziness rocked the ground beneath her boots. Regaining her balance, she went rigid upon seeing the hulking warrior—the only full wraith in the room—restraining her arm with a wicked claw. Torchlight glinting off of the shining rings pierced into his face only intensified his utterly barbaric look.

Eyes swiveling back across the chamber, Serenna watched the half-wraith clench the arms of the one who’d stripped portaling from her. He restrained the one he’d called Lykor, their boots scraping against the floor in a scuffle.

Sensing his frenzy to kill her for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, Lykor’s gaze was fastened on her. When Serenna instinctively angled her perception toward him, she met a void where she expected his presence to be. He’d gone wild casting out an explosion of Essence, shadows snaking up the walls.

Fear erupted, stealing Serenna’s breath as some of that darkness streaked toward her. Forced to include the wraith gripping her arm, Serenna wrenched another shield into place. She channeled her entire strength into the ward, knowing that the rending battering her barrier would obliterate her to blood and bone.

The male wrestling with Lykor gritted his teeth, fangs elongating. “Aesar, now would be the time to take over.”

A lance of shock nearly jolted Serenna’s power out of her grasp. What did he say? Her gaze volleyed between everyone in the room as her confusion compounded.

Serenna’s eyes locked for a fraction of a second with the wraith holding her arm. He appeared to be nervously spinning one of the rings in his brow, attention bouncing between her and the surrounding shield.

An icy chill suddenly trickled down Serenna’s spine as she sensed a shift through the bond. Another entity taking over, a calm that was distinct from Lykor’s rage, as different as the moons were from the sun. He can’t be Vesryn’s brother. It’s impossible.

Rapidly blinking at the male holding him, Lykor’s fangs retracted as the shadows receded. Chest heaving, he slumped, disheveled midnight hair slipping over his face. The elf-wraith helped steady him on his feet, brushing away the strands in front of his eyes.

Lykor trembled as he touched the male’s cheek with a tenderness Serenna didn’t expect these…beings to possess. His eyes traveled over to her, going round. Serenna sensed his startlement spinning through the bond. His attention whipped to the wraith restraining her. “Fenn, get her out of here. I can’t—” he doubled over. The other male lowered Lykor to the ground as he jerked in a fit.

Serenna couldn’t begin to guess what was unfolding, but she knew she needed to escape—flee to somewhere safe. If there was anywhere safe. But it wasn’t going to be around Lykor, or whatever bedlam she’d foolishly wandered into.

How am I supposed to leave without portaling? She’d have to rely on the prince sensing her location to retrieve her.

Gathering Essence in a rush, Serenna dropped her shield and slammed her palm against the monstrous male holding her. A shock wave of force punched the wraith across the war room. She didn’t wait to see if he crashed into the table or a wall. Eyes latching onto the double doors the warriors had entered from, Serenna sensed freedom and ran.

She almost made it.

A shadow unfolded in the entryway, materializing in front of her. Serenna collided with the leviathan’s chest. Seizing her, the brute caught her before she fell on her back. As soon as Serenna tried to extricate herself out of his talons, cold metal snapped around her arm.

Essence fled.

A single golden manacle clamped around Serenna’s wrist, tethering her magic. A renewed surge of terror at the defenselessness capsized her gut. Writhing against this Fenn creature’s hold, Serenna shrieked, resorting to fighting with her fists and feet.

The warrior’s claw tightened on her arm, holding her at a distance. “File my fangs,” he yelped, dancing out of range of her flailing.