We landed so hard that the stone underfoot jarred up through my legs, the impact echoing in my knees as Ronan released me and stepped forward. My breath came rough and shallow, chest tight from the flight—but the instant my feet wereon the ground, the world itself came to a standstill. The air went strangely quiet for a moment, just long enough for tension to coil again, before a voice boomed out from above us, so loud and deep it seemed to vibrate in my bones.
“Who here is in control? Step forward now.”
The Dominion’s voice didn’t just echo through the castle grounds. It pressed down with every syllable threaded with a suffocating power that made the atmosphere feel too dense. Heads turned all at once across the crowd gathered before the castle and as they looked toward us.
The silence deepened as all eyes landed on our group and Kieran stood at the center of it.
She straightened slightly beside me, her chin lifting, a flicker of response moving through her posture before she even took a step. I knew that shift. The one that came right before she took responsibility for something no one else wanted to carry.
And then the Dominion’s gaze found us.
It was like the heat was sucked out of the air in a single instant as his attention locked in.
I watched his eyes drift over us, over the black feathers that were impossible to ignore in the bright afternoon light, stark against the backdrop of a city that once declared them defectors. The Dominion’s expression shifted, his mouth tightening slightly as fury pulled taut behind his stillness.
“What is this?” he demanded, his voice now sharper, clipped at the edges like a weapon. “What happened here? Why are there fallen among your ranks?”
The words weren’t meant for me, but they still hit like a crack of thunder. His power rolled through the courtyard. I felt it in my gut, and my limbs, and most of all in the way Kieran started to move beside me—one small step forward, her body angled to shield the others behind her.
I reacted without thinking. One moment I was drowning in my own fear, and the next, it was gone. Not pushed aside. Not dulled. Just gone, like a thread pulled loose and yanked clean from my chest. The panic that had locked me in place only moments ago didn’t matter anymore. The Dominion’s rage, the threat hanging in the air, even the memories clawing at the edges of my mind—they all fell away beneath one thing.
Her.
The woman I loved was about to step forward into the crosshairs of a creature powerful enough to erase entire bloodlines from existence, and my body moved before my mind could catch up.
A rush of heat surged through my limbs, startling in its intensity. My pulse kicked hard, not with fear this time, but with something far more primal. Protective. Every instinct sharpened, my awareness narrowing to her breath, the subtle movement of her frame as she shifted through space, the curl of her fingers at her sides as she prepared to speak.
I couldn’t let her walk into that storm. Not alone. Not first.
My hand closed around her wrist, grounding both of us in that single point of contact. My fingers tightened just enough to stop her forward momentum, the heat of her skin jolting through me like it was the only real thing in the world. Kieran turned, surprise and confusion creasing her brow as she looked back at me, but I didn’t release her. I didn’t speak. I just held on.
It didn’t matter that my legs had nearly buckled minutes ago. It didn’t matter that I’d been carried through the sky like something helpless, dangling and frozen. That fear didn’t live in me anymore—not where she was concerned.
I would stand in front of that Dominion myself if it meant keeping her out of his line of sight.
Gabe’s mother launched into the sky with a surge of light and air, her wings snapping wide with a force that sent a gustsweeping through the square. The brightness of her feathers caught the sun, reflecting in silver arcs that danced across the courtyard as she rose between us and the threat above. Her flight wasn’t just practiced—it was commanding. There was no hesitation in her, no tremor in her flight. She moved with the authority of someone trained to command the skies.
“I’m the Archangel in control here,” she called out, her voice strong, unwavering, laced with an authority that would make every wyvern’s instincts recoil whether they wanted to or not. “What is it you want from us?”
Gabe stood just ahead of me, his gaze fixed upward, lips slightly parted as his breathing quickened—subtle at first, then tightening with every second that passed. I watched his chest rise and fall in an uneven rhythm, every breath sharper than the last as his mother hovered between us and the Dominion.
He wasn’t blinking.
I knew that look. The one where your mind races to all the worst possibilities, faster than you can stop it. He wasn’t just watching an Archangel stand her ground—he was watching his mother confront something that could destroy her with a single word, and she hadn’t even flinched.
Her voice had stayed steady, her wings unmoving as she faced the Dominion down, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch. Not for a son who’d already lost too much.
Gabe’s jaw tightened, a rough breath catching in his chest before he turned slightly away from the group, his shoulders drawing in.
Steele noticed, and without a word, he stepped closer and reached out, his hand coming to rest gently on Gabe’s shoulder. It wasn’t a dramatic gesture, just a steady, grounding touch. But Gabe leaned into it almost immediately, the tension in his frame easing by fractions as he closed his eyes for half a second, like he needed that point of contact to keep from unraveling entirely.
The Dominion hadn’t moved.
He remained suspended above the courtyard, his massive wings still stretched wide. But the silence deepened, the air tightening as if even the city knew to stay still beneath his gaze. His voice dropped, no longer a command shouted from on high, but something colder. Measured.
“The Archangel who usually governs this territory,” he said, the words echoing with unnatural clarity, “was due to submit his monthly report three days ago. Yet there was no notice. No explanation or communication for why it hadn’t come.”
His tone didn’t rise, but the veiled threat was unmistakable in his words.
