“Run,” she chokes out, then takes a breath before she expands like a bomb. Savage, Scythe and I are blasted off the roof, right for the water, but I snap my power around the three of us, drawing us back to the hut’s roof as our regina?—
Doesnotsweep into the sky on dragon wings as I expect.
She has no wings at all. She is scaled and huge, just like in her dragon form, only her scales are a deeper navy of the pre-dawn.
“Don’t look!”Xander screams into every head in the vicinity, and I get to see a glimpse of a blinding ultraviolet blue beam through the night.
There are multiple male screams and crocs’ bellowing roars, and though there is no fire to be seen, acrid burning fills my nose, and a sound like nothing I’ve heard before. Like electricity. Like a live wire humming with lethal power, but on a large scale. My primitive instincts are roaring at the danger, at the pure lethal monster that has appeared before us.
Suddenly, there is a deathly quiet. Only Sabrina’s sobs can be heard from Xander’s back.
“It’s safe.”My regina’s quiet voice is in my head this time.“You’re safe now.”
We find her on Xander’s back, in human form, with Sabrina in her arms, an opposite power to the one she’d just displayed working on her friend’s mangled arm.
Around us, where living bodies had just stood, now only lay piles of steaming ash.
Chapter 35
Scythe
Iswim to the surface of my consciousness, my shark giving me a way to process the shock that broke his cold.
Savage gapes at the ashes on the river bank. “What was?—”
“We’ll talk about it later,” I say.
Savage instantly forgets what he was worried about and grins at me, now clear-eyed. “You missed it, brother!”
“I’ll find out,” I assure him. Because I can feel the night’s events in my bones. The shark’s memories are mine, he just hides them when convenient. Now I’m back in control, the memories will unfog themselves, one by one.
My eyes search for my regina in the night, finding her on the other side of the river bank hugging Celeste Agnis. The backs of my eyes burn as I lay my eyes on Aurelia, the woman who has become the light of my life. Who has used her light to destroy our enemies.
She came for us, primal and raw, taking our fate into her claws, taking what is hers. I can’t even describe what I feel right now. But my skin feels tight around my muscle and the dark whisperings have started back up. I blink hard against the hallucinations that want to make their way back in. I’ve beenaway from her for too long. I need the sea and I need her, but we have business to attend to first. Much has happened tonight, and much more needs to happen still.
Lyle has levitated himself toward a sweating Lady Agnis, and they speak softly to one another. She takes Aurelia’s hand to steady herself, and together, the three of them make their way toward the hut whose roof Savage stands on.
I wrench my eyes away from Aurelia long enough to climb down to the platform the hut sits on and I use a power I don’t often get to use, clearing a path in the water so they can walk up to the hut without getting wet.
Lady Agnis nods appreciatively at me, while Aurelia, her face flushed with adrenaline and bloodlust, Katerina’s blood smeared on her face, meets my eye. I see only determination and a fierce will in those blue eyes and have never been prouder to be in the Boneweaver pack. A goblin hallucination appears behind her, dogging her steps like an ugly shadow, and I turn away to study the security sensor on the door.
“Hut hut!” Minnie cries, and while standing on Xander’s back, she kicks something into the air like a football. Her aim is accurate, and Savage leaps up and catches the thing like a professional AFL player, before landing in the squelching mud. He holds up the head of Katerina Crocodylus by the hair like the Grand Final trophy before climbing back up to the platform and holding her up to the retinal sensor. The door hisses as it unlocks.
Aurelia and Celeste levitate themselves up onto the platform and surge forwards, pushing us males aside to nudge the door open. It swings inwards, revealing a silvery-white glowing beast, lying on his side in the dark. Celeste gasps and leaps for him.
“He’s not dead,” Aurelia says, reassuring herself and following her in.
“Lorian,” Celeste chokes on her knees, her cheeks glistening. “Speak to me.”
The beast breathes, his sides expanding with air.“It will take more than the likes of The Collector to kill me.”The voice is both light and heavy in our minds.“And the tears of my beloved will help.”
“Oh!” Celeste buries her face in his silvery mane, and a sick feeling twists in my gut. Healing wounds on his flank bear an awful scent, but I have a feeling they’d been much worse. I’m suddenly glad he found kinship with a powerful and kind anima such as Celeste.
“You need to see the moon,”my regina says. “Let’s get him out of this cursed place.”
Aurelia and Celeste carefully levitate the unicorn out of the hut, through the mud, and onto dry land. Once we’re all safely on the other side, I wave a hand to release the water back to its original flow.
Savage won’t leave Aurelia’s elbow, carefully studying the unicorn with a lopsided grin of wonder and delight. Lyle is more concerned about the remaining crocs in the river. There are more further downstream that might get brave and stray back here. Xander is speaking with Connor and some of the freed captives, some of whom look unwell. To my surprise, Hyacinth and her mates are also present, the hyena’s sharp eyes surveying the captives in a maternal fashion.
