And that is the vision of Xander, looking up at me from the ground, his eyes very much alive with a midnight darkness upon his neck. A skull with five beams of dark light curling around it.
His mating mark has returned, but different from before.
There was no light emanating from it like a normal mating mark. It was black as a void. I just know it has some meaning I can only grasp at.
Why did the ancient magic he’d broken decide to bind us back together? Does the Wild Mother think he deserves it? DoIeven think Xander deserves this?
The heat pounding through my veins sends my mind scattering.
Get back home. Get back to the nest. Think. What do we fucking do?
I can barely feel the weight of Minnie, Marduk and Yeti on the hard scales of my back. I know they clutch each other tightly as we speed over the earth, one of my shields surrounding them like an egg of protection against the wind that would likely shred their skin.
My mind races, my heart pounds, and my lungs fill with hot need. To burn the world down.
How dare she?How. Dare. She.
My mates. My family. The onesIlove? Taken by one: Katerina Crocodylus.
Is this how my mates felt when I was taken from them? Is this some divine retribution for my own crimes? I couldn’t give a fuck about themeaningbehind it.
When the Academy’s towers finally spear up from the horizon, the school appears to me like it never has before.
Perhaps it’s my new dragon-eyes, but the place glitters with warm light that whispers,Welcome, my lady.
This is a language I may have felt brushing against me before, in the quiet moments as the academy settled down to sleep, but now its communication is clear.
Golden lights blink in a diamond pattern above the building that is the animus dorms. It reminds me of the lights airports use to guide planes at night. Guards in the four towers around the school haven’t aimed their long-range darting rifles at me yet, and it’s Marduk who reminds me, his deep voice shouting above the wind, “I’m calling the guard dogs, Lady Boneweaver!”
As the Caspian tiger shouts into his phone, I feel a strange twinge in my heart at that address. My title. Something that brands me asother. As the last.
A telepathic request knocks on my mental shields. It’s one of the wolf guards. I oblige him.
“You’re not gonna torch us, are you, Lady Boneweaver?”comes the gruff voice.
“No,”I growl in reply.
“Then you’re clear for entry. The usual spot.”
My brows furrow at the cadence of this conversation. It’s not the normal way the guards speak to the students. I brush it out of my mind as I near the protective dome around the school. Its power ripples through the air like a heat wave, but I don’t feel its threat upon my dragonhide like I normally do upon my eagle feathers. Two of the guards raise their hands in greeting as they make eye contact with me, and I ignore them as the dome dissolves in submission.
I stretch out my wings, angling them snoutward so I lose speed and glide towards the lights on the roof of the animus dorms. Landing heavily on the left side of my body, I grunt, carefully easing my weight back onto my sore right hind leg.
The Devi pack hastily levitate themselves off my back, Minnie’s teeth chattering in the cold. Smoke streams from my nostrils, hot and charred, as they head towards the door that leads to the staircase. I stand there, staring at them, my chest heaving.
Yeti’s arm snakes around Minnie’s waist, and my gaze sweeps north-eastward, where my mates are. My heart squeezes. Nausea roils in my belly.
Minnie whispers my name, and I grimace against the pain of it, closing my eyes and calling forth my human form. I shrink, my hard scales disappearing, and I’m aware of the night’s chill. Wings disappear into shoulder blades, the flagstones of the roof becoming hard under my soft human soles. While I might know the world outside is cold, my skin itself is on fire. I breatheheavily as I stalk towards the staircase. The three tigers part for me, their faces grim.
It’s Minnie whose fingers brush my bare elbow. “Lia, we can’t do anything rash.”
I round on her, white smoke turning to black as it charges out of my nose. “You don’t know what I’m capable of,” I hiss. “No one does.”
My friend’s dark eyes glitter under the stars as she returns my ire. “I’vealways known.”
I turn away, snorting like the dragoness I am, to pace upon the flagstones, my shoulders hunched, murderous thoughts racing through my mind. Bloody images. High-pitched screams. The crunch of bones breaking under my fangs. The taste of human flesh on my tongue.
Minnie stalks behind me, her normally sweet voice low and harsh. “I’ve seen you break your arms for your friends. I’ve seen you surrender yourself to your enemy for those you love. I’ve seen you re-grow a limb out of sheer determination.”
