I lost my fucking mind.
With a terrible roar that lacerated the air, my dragon soul exploded free of my skin. The rope binding my wrists turned to dust, and the wooden post shattered into a thousand splinters. I landed with a thud on all fours, wings jutting out and tail thrashing.
I couldn’t think straight. Didn’t want to. Every cell in my body was on fire. It hurt. It burned.
Konrad barked out a bitter, expectant laugh. He didn’t run. He was raring for a fight.
“Kill the dragon,” he ordered his alphas.
Sheba and Knox hesitated. Their animal instincts warned them something about me was different this time. But they obeyed their clan alpha all the same.
I didn’t care. They were insects to me. Weak. Insignificant.
As the bears charged, I swatted them away with a vicious strike. Their heavy bodies collided in a heap a few yards away. They groaned in pain, but didn’t get back up.
Konrad’s expression steeled. The black eyes glaring at me belonged to an apex predator. His stance stiffened, hostile and serious. He shouldered Poppy aside as he stalked closer, and the force of it knocked Poppy to his knees in the snow.
That was Konrad’s final mistake.
By now, the commotion had pulled the omegas out of their hiding spots. Frightened bears and wolves gathered outside just in time to see me jab their clan alpha in the throat. My talons sliced through Konrad’s dense fur to wrap around his windpipe.
The bear’s eyes widened in real terror as he finally understood the depths of hell closing in on him. I was glad. I wanted him to experience it. I wanted him to be afraid.
I unfurled my leathery wings with a loud snap. Pushing off the ground, I leapt high into the air, dragging the bear with me. He let out a choked snarl, thrashing wildly in my grip. His claws ravaged my forearms, but my scales and willpower were tougher than his weapons. A little spilled blood meant nothing to me.
Nobody helped. Konrad’s alphas were down, and his omegas trained as fighters were all too shocked by the graphic scene to intervene.
Besides, what could they do? Their clan leader—a massive alpha polar bear—dangled helplessly in my grasp. He was power. He was everything.
And now, I was going to destroy him.
Flames kindled in my throat. My rage, white-hot and molten, sought escape.
I wanted to destroy this place.
All of it.
I twisted my head and exhaled a volatile column of fire. It spread like a disease from building to building, flames chewing hungrily through the wood. As Konrad writhed in my grip, he watched his home—and his clan—go up in smoke.
The omegas screamed as they scattered. Some were caught in buildings. I was in no state to help them. But their cries reminded me I had someone precious down there.
As I swooped low, my wings cast a dark shadow across the snow. Bears and wolves shrieked while darting out of my path. There was only a single animal that hadn’t run, and he was the only thing I cared about.
Sometime amid the chaos, Poppy shifted to wolf form. I was grateful. It made it easier to gather him. When he was safely in my grasp, I crushed his metal collar between my teeth. The pieces fell down to the earth, along with the chain. Poppy was free now.
I flew higher. Higher. The burning village below was already forgotten. I didn’t care when I was with Poppy.
In one hand, I tenderly held my fated mate, the man I loved more than anything in the world.
In the other, I gripped a creature I despised so violently that it had driven me to madness.
Don’t watch me do this.
But I was too far gone for language. I couldn’t voice my plea out loud to Poppy. I could only hope that he looked away as bloodthirst consumed me.
Konrad’s final roar was weak. My talons had already done their damage to his throat. I snapped his neck between my teeth and let his lifeless body crash back down to earth.
The next few seconds were awful and dreamlike. Screams and smoke from below. A deep rumbling from above.
