We traverse a ridge and the pass opens below us—a narrow white scar between black cliffs. Mercenaries. Twenty, maybe thirty. Revaster’s colors: crimson and ash. They’ve set a barricade of overturned wagons and sharpened stakes across the only path wide enough for two abreast. A warlock stands atop the highest wagon, staff glowing with sickly red light.
“Hell,” I grumble.
Gamble drops to a crouch beside me, breath fogging. “Well. That’s inconvenient.”
I study the terrain. Sheer walls on both sides, avalanche chutes above, and the wind funneling straight through the choke point. One dragon could burn them all to cinders, but the moment I shift fully, the cliffs will come down on us. Gamble’s illusions are clever, but thirty men with crossbows and a warlock who can see through an elf’s illusions is another matter.
“Plan?” Gamble asks, eyes bright.
I grin, all teeth. “We give them exactly what they’re expecting.”
He arches a brow. “Which is what precisely?”
“A terrified little elf and one very large, very angry dragon.”
Gamble’s answering smile is pure sin. “I do terrifiedsowell.”
I cup the boy’s cold cheek. “You stay behind the illusion. You do not step into arrow range. You break that rule and I swear onevery scale I own, I will blister your backside until you can’t sit for a week. Understood?”
He salutes with two fingers. “Yes, Daddy.”
The word slides down my spine like heated oil. I steal a hard, fast kiss then shove him gently behind a boulder.
“Showtime,” I snarl.
I step into the open and let the shift take me, my growls and pangs of pain coursing over my entire being. The change is violent this time: bones cracking, lengthening, wings exploding from my back in a rush of searing wind.
Scales ripple across my skin, obsidian and molten gold. I rise on hind legs, thirty feet of muscle and fury, and roar.
The sound shatters ice from the cliffs and sends the mercenaries scrambling for weapons. They know what is upon them—and they know too that there is not a damn thing they can do about it.
Below, Gamble’s illusion blooms: a second, smaller me (half-shifted, wounded, limping) dragging a terrified, wide-eyed elf by the wrist. The phantom Gamble stumbles theatrically, cloak torn, silver hair wild. Real Gamble, hidden, weaves the glamour with both hands, lips moving in silent elven bursts.
The mercenaries take the bait like starving wolves.
“Alive!” the warlock bellows. “Revaster wants the elf breathing!”
They charge the illusion.
I drop from the sky like judgment itself.
The first blast of dragon fire turns the front line to ash before they can scream. I land between the wagons, wings mantled, tail lashing. Arrows ping harmlessly off my scales. I breathe again, a focused lance that melts the warlock’s staff and the hand holding it. He shrieks, tumbling from the wagon.
Real Gamble darts from cover, a streak of green and brown. He flings a handful of glittering dust that bursts into a dozen phantom dragons overhead. The mercenaries panic, shooting at shadows, their cries of distress showing them for the craven souls they are.
I wade through them like a storm.
Claws rend steel.
Teeth snap spines.
One fool tries to hamstring me with a poleaxe; I catch the haft in my jaws and fling him into the cliff face. The crack of bone echoes momentarily before the bloodbath continues apace.
It is over in minutes.
When the last body falls, the pass is silent except for wind and settling snow. I shift back to two legs, chest heaving, blood steaming on my skin. Gamble stands in the wreckage, eyes wide, lips parted. There is awe on his face, and something darker— a sense of arousal, sharp and sweet in equal measure.
I stalk toward him. “You moved from cover.”
