The agony ripping through her was nearly too much to bear. Her screams turned to wails. She expected more teeth and claws, for her organs to be torn out and her body feasted on. She expected death.
“Let her go, Garth,” Victor growled. “You’ve injured her enough.”
Stacy’s head swam, and tears dropped down her cheeks as the wolf retreated, still prowling with eyes blazing. He was a long, large animal with paws as big as her face. He was conscious of his actions like Victor. Manufactured, not only magical.
She whimpered as pain flared through her body. She turned enough to get to her knees, barely able to summon her magic into a shield, let alone into something she could strike at Victor or Garth with.
Victor stalked toward her with a menacing smile. He bent, and Stacy cringed as he placed a claw beneath her chin, drawing a thin trickle of blood. She didn’t have the strength to pull away. He lifted her chin so her eyes had to meet his. “You have strength, Stacy Drake, but it won’t be enough to save you or your friends.”
The sound of Stacy’s scream rooted Rowan to the spot. It wrenched something open in him. His focus slipped, morphing into sudden panic and desperation.
Miles had killed the last of the wolves surrounding them with a pitfall and twisting, snaking vines. Both were breathing hard and covered in blood. On the hill, Stacy had engaged the great wolf in battle, but now she was hurt.
Rowan’s eyes flashed to Miles, a silent signal. They wasted no time running to the hillside. The wind ripped at Rowan’s clothing and skin. His heart thundered. When they reached the top, he spotted not one wolf, but two. The second prowled the shadows near the wall of the fortress, opposite the great one.
Victor, Rowan realized. The alpha wolf exuded a power that could belong to no other. He quickly registered what had happened. Stacy was on her knees, clutching her side and bleeding from her leg. Victor’s wolf form knelt before her, one claw beneath her chin. Rowan moved to launch at him, sword blazing in his hand. He didn’t get to because the second wolf leaped with a guttural growl.
Rowan spun, his blade striking out. He didn’t make contact. The wolf was too agile. Miles raised a new stone wall, stopping the wolf before he could get to Rowan a second time. Vines twisted along the ground, snaking to capture the beast.
The beast tore through the stone wall with a roar, descending on Miles before he could roll out of the way. Rowan took a running leap, sword raised, then plunging. It went into the back of the wolf’s neck.
With a mighty heave, Miles rolled the wolf off him. Rowan helped his old friend to his feet. “You good?”
“Might have crushed a few ribs, but I’m alive.”
They turned their attention to Stacy and Victor, but a change they had not expected was taking place. All Rowan could do was stand and gape.
The trickle of power inside Stacy grew, slowly but surely.
The raw power of her heritage boiled within her, rising from a well deeper than she had imagined. Any restraint she might have held onto snapped inside her.
Embrace it, a voice whispered. It was like Khan was here with her, a guiding hand on her shoulder. Take on the full mantle of your legacy and become who you were always meant to be.
A dozen fears bombarded Stacy, leaking through her in the form of tears. What if the power was too much? What if she couldn’t handle it? What if she destroyed more than she intended to?
You must, another voice suggested. This time, it was hers. Spencer’s and Amy’s faces flashed through her mind. She thought of Rowan, Kiera, Miles, and Ethan. She thought of all those who worked at her father’s estate, people who had helped raise her. She thought of Khan and her mother. It is the only way to win. I am both Thorn and Drake, and it is high time I showed that.
Victor’s deep laugh rumbled through her. It was a wonder he hadn’t sliced her throat open with the claw puncturing her skin. “You are a pitiful human. Your magic is nothing. You should have studied for a decade or more before daring to attack me. You may have been good in a courtroom, little witch, but you are no match for me in the real world.”
Stacy held his gaze, her green eyes gradually changing to molten gold. Pain pulsed in her side, but she ignored it. “You were wrong earlier when you said I’d shown my true self,” she panted. “You’ve only seen one side of me.”
She didn’t wait for Victor’s response. Her magic tore through her, hot and quick. It exploded, searing pain darkening the edges of her vision. She’d known this would hurt but not this much. She released a scream that cleaved the air and hoped she would survive this. I have to.
Finally, something hard and red formed on her skin. A scale.
Kiera Swiftshadow had killed everything inside the damn fortress, and now she intended to help her friends.
She sped through the halls, past the dozens of human guards and werewolves she had slain. The trick to keeping her feet was not slipping in the blood. The whole place was putrid with death, and Kiera imagined outside was not much better. Her heart thumped with the hope that Stacy, Rowan, and Miles were still alive and fighting.
The strain on her body had been great, but she kept moving, willing her magic to strengthen as she went. The time for rest and healing would come later. You’ve had harder battles, she reminded herself. You have faced worse enemies.
She wondered what the people in her old world would think if they saw her now. An exiled princess who had trained as an assassin, working for a young witch to defeat a monster. It sounded noble enough, but she knew her father, brothers, and those she had trained alongside would laugh if they saw her now. They would think this was an insignificant mission, nothing but child’s play.
It was more than that to Kiera, though. Stacy had a good heart, and Kiera intended to stick by the people whose power did not corrupt them. She emerged into a side yard, where a fence and stone walls had been torn down. Chaos reigned.
Dead wolves were scattered across the grounds. The scent of their blood hung in the air. Destruction surrounded her. It wasn’t the brokenness of the place that stole Kiera’s attention, though. It was the figure exploding from the ground into the sky, a fury of wings.
It was small by dragon standards but still a fucking dragon. Its red wings were bright against the moon. A mighty tail ending in a singular spike swung behind it. Four sets of claws extended, far more lethal than any blade Kiera had used tonight.
The dragon took to the air, beating its wings against the wind. It twisted, then descended. A tremor of fear shuddered through her before Kiera remembered who the creature was.
Stacy.
She had no reason to be afraid, but the large wolf on the other side of the enclosure did.
The dragon unleashed a mighty roar. Trees trembled. Kiera whipped into her shadows, fleeing as fast as she could from that space before fire rained down on them all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The grounds were quickly becoming an inferno. Nearby equipment, sheds, and garages melted under the intense heat. It would not be long before flames licked the entire estate, and there was nowhere good for Miles and Rowan to stand.
“Fucking hell,” Miles breathed as he straightened from behind a wall of stone he had raised a fraction of a second before Stacy’s dragon fire descended. He had shielded himself and Rowan. Now, he peered over the stones to see what happened to Victor.
