“Did you think I wouldn’t find you, you stupid slut?” She heard the crunch of boots on stone, then something hard slammed into her side. The little breath she’d managed to recover whooshed out of her again as a new, even more searing pain tore across her chest. The beast had kicked her!
She wheezed in pain, then gave a strangled scream as a meaty hand reached down to grab the front of her dress and haul her off the pavement.
“You thought you could just run away? You thought I wouldn’t follow?”
The backhand caught her across the jaw. Blood filled her mouth as her teeth snapped together hard. She gasped and coughed on blood. The last blow had knocked most of the hair out of her face, allowing her to see at least the outline of her attacker. A big, hulking man, looming over her, his face cast in shadow. She blinked up at him, squinting against the light from the nearby streetlamp.
The man stiffened. He hauled her closer, pulling her into the spill of lamplight so he could see her face. “Who thefarkare you? Where’s my daughter? Why are you wearing her dress?”
And then, from the direction of the school, came Lily’s scream. “Da!”
“Lily!” Gabriella’s attacker released her, delivered one last, brutal kick, and took off in the direction of the school. “You stay right there, you worthless cow!”
Lily screamed again. A few moments later, Gabriella heard a blistering spate of swearing interspersed with the sounds of fists and booted feet battering against a closed door. Thank Helos, even drunk, Lily must’ve had the presence of mind to run into the school and lock the door behind her.
Summer rolled over to her hands and knees. A white-hot poker shot through her chest. She gasped, then doubled back over and coughed up blood. She was having trouble breathing, as if there were a heavy stone pressed down on her chest. He’d broken her ribs with one of those kicks, then must have driven that rib into her lungs with another.
The crash of the school door giving way brought her surging to her feet despite the searing pain. That brute was going for Lily. Pregnant Lily. One punch or kick like the ones he’d slammed into Gabriella, and Lily would lose the baby she’d run away to save.
Summer wrapped an arm around her torso and staggered towards the school. She’d seen the scars on Lily’s back and arms. She knew this monster must have been the one to have made them, and she’d be damned to the frozen fires of Hel before she let him lay another finger on the sweet, shy girl she’d come to care about.
She ran through the splintered doorway into the school. The halls were dark. The lamps were unlit, but she followed the sound of running feet and shrill cries and swearing. Up the stairs. Down the hall past the second-floor classrooms. All of the doors were closed except one towards the back of the hall. It was open, the door’s large glass viewing pane shattered.
Inside the room, desks lay overturned, haphazardly shoved aside like a jumble of child’s blocks. Lily’s father had her pinned by the neck against the stone wall, and his fist—that massive, hammer of a fist—was drawn back, ready to plow into her belly.
The pain of Gabriella’s ribs gave way to a different, familiar pain. The hot, tight stretch of terrible power roaring to life inside her. She hadn’t unleashed her most dreadful magic in almost twenty years. Not since the day she’d done murder.
She unleashed it now.
It roared out of her like a savage, untamed beast bursting from its cage. A violent, hot, incinerating firestorm of a beast. A fury that burned away pity, compassion, mercy.
“Get your hands off her!”
In Konumarr’s plazas, where the music was still playing, and the dancers were still dancing, every Calbernan suddenly stopped in his tracks with a shudder. A split second later, every one of them roared, a sound that tore through the peace of the night, brought the musicians to a shocked halt, and sent the waters of the fjord into a frenzy of wild waves.
Battle claws sprang forth. Battle fangs descended.
As one, they abandoned the dance, their companions—their veneer of civilization—and raced down the street.
In Konumarr Palace, Ari, Ryll and the rest of the fleets’ officers strolled the torch-lit garden paths and danced on the lantern-lit palace terrace, enjoying yet another cool, pleasant evening in the company of the lovely, accomplished gentlewomen who might be their future mates.
Then came the sound. A Shout the likes of which they’d never heard before. It tore through their beings. Pierced them to the core. Ignited a wild, furious flame that burned beyond all imagining.
As one, to the shock of their companions, they roared. Their voices shattered the night.
The water in the fjord rose up in response, cresting waves slamming against the banks.
Claws out, fangs down, they ran. Some raced across the bridge into Konumarr city. Others dove into the raucous, unsettled waves of the fjord, riding powerful jets of seawater to the other shore.
For she had Called. And they must answer.
Dilys stood on the edge of the dock, trying without success to remember the face of the golden-eyed woman in his visions.
And then his whole world turned on its head.
A Voice slammed into him with the force of a tidal wave. A Shout that emptied the seas, tore the fabric of the universe, exploded the sun. Claws and teeth of white-hot fire clamped tight around his soul.
Inside him, a cold, hard kernel dormant in him since birth erupted into fiery life. A nascent volcano ripping through the mantle of his soul. Spewing heat and flame and burning stone. Transforming.
