I’m coming for you.
There was no point in deception or concealment anymore. Not when Scarven knew I wasn’t his submissive little lapdog. I wanted him to see me coming. I wanted him tofear.
My navy wings spread out at my side as I glanced down to find Tessa and Kieran still sprinting along the forest floor beneath me, pushing the limits of their Shifter speed. I’d expected them to tell me I was crazy, to try and convince me to play this smart or simply leave Devora behind for the greater good of the entire Keep.
But to my surprise, my second and third geared up without a single complaint, refusing to let anyone volunteer in their stead.
“Our place is beside you,” Kieran had said to me.
“Through flame and ash,” Tessa agreed.
A rumble shook the sky, right down to my very bones. I smelled a storm on the horizon—the clouds were laced with a sweet, metallic scent, and a spark of lightning struck to my far left. Withinmoments, the forest below me expanded into the outskirts of Scarven’s manor.
We gave the property a wide berth and circled around to the south side, where the servants’ quarters were. This was a fairly regular raid we’d made over the years. The tunnel system on this side of the land held his most commonly used cells. Usually, we broke in undetected, relying on stealth.
Not tonight.
I tucked my wings and dove, extending them at the last second as I breached the tops of the trees and landed with a resounding crash on the open grounds. The earth trembled beneath my feet, tree branches and limbs blowing backward from the force.
Tessa and Kieran bounded from the forest to stand at my side. A dozen guards came rushing out of the manor, some shifting into their animal forms while others wielded weapons of steel, shadow, and light. My rage and power twisted together in my core, rising through my chest.
When the guards charged, I opened my mouth and released my magic.
Dragon fire funneled up my throat and burst from me in a stream of white-hot flames, torching everything in my path. The blaze consumed the guards within a heartbeat. Their ashes scattered in the wind, still echoing with their final cries.
Kieran raced to the servants’ quarters and shifted into his human form. Within minutes, the servants who had been inside fled the quarters, only stopping to take in the sight of me before Tessa snapped her teeth in warning. When Kieran came back out, he shot me the “all clear” signal, then darted out of the way.
With a growl, I covered the ground in a single step, my foot landing with anotherboom. I stretched out a wing and swiped it through the servants’ quarters, bringing the entire building crumbling to the ground. Broken wood and stone scattered across the clearing, debris thick in the air.
Beneath the rubble rested a wooden door in the center ofthe ground. I elongated my sharp talons and shredded it from its hinges, exposing a set of stairs leading to the cells below.
A horde of arrows dipped in a green sludge shot from the underground opening. I batted them away with my wing before they could reach Tessa or Kieran, but one of the tips caught the very edge of my wing’s underside. I let out a snarl as the dark green substance burned momentarily.Fatesprig.
It hadn’t been enough to do damage, and my Shifter healing kicked in to banish it. But the distraction allowed other guards to emerge. They shot more of their weapons at me, which merely bounced off my scales. With another roar, I summoned my dragon fire and aimed it at them, smoke rising from my nostrils with each heavy breath.
Their weapons clattered to the ground as their bodies burned to ash.
I turned my snout to Kieran and Tessa, then motioned to the tunnel entrance. Tessa shifted to her human form as the two of them disappeared underground. I took one last look at the mansion and pushed off from the ground with a powerful flap of my wings.
I dove straight for the opening, shifting midair and sliding through the trap door.
A myriad of bodies already littered the bottom of the rickety staircase, courtesy of Kieran and Tessa. I quickly adjusted to the darkness of the tunnel and saw the two of them at the end of the path.
I caught up to them and took the lead. We moved as one, years of conducting raids together allowing us to instinctively know one another’s patterns and habits. I stayed on the alert as we stalked forward, my claws half-formed and gleaming, waiting for a sudden attack. But we were met with only silence. No guards, no lion-masked lackeys, no traps.
It was too quiet.
Before long, we reached the start of the cells. The overwhelming scent of piss, sweat, and too many herbs to identifyslammed into me, making me grit my teeth against the wave of memories.
I caught Tessa’s eye and lifted two fingers, pointing them straight down the hall. She nodded and immediately shifted into her smallest cat form, her lithe figure able to slip between cell bars with ease. While she worked on releasing Scarven’s captives, Kieran and I set off searching for Devora.
The halls were quiet, save for the occasional groan or screech of metal coming from behind us, indicating Tessa opening yet another cell.
My eyes slid over to Kieran, who was already looking at me with his lips set in a grim line. “This is far too easy,” he hissed.
The hair on the back of my neck rose, suspense snaking through me. If this was a trap, where was the catch?
We stuck close to the stone walls, listening for anything out of the ordinary. As we drew nearer to the hallway with the row of cells I’d once been kept in, my muscles tensed. Even after more than a decade, it was as if my body was preparing for the torment that once awaited me. My Shifter healing made the scars vanish, but I’d never forget each dagger against my skin, each needle driven into my veins, each blow dealt to my flesh.
