Destroy it.
Now.
Before interference becomes impossible to overcome.
The voices are relentless.
They echo through my consciousness in layers that overlap and reinforce each other—not hallucinations, not madness in the traditional sense, but the particular chorus that hellhound nature apparently includes as standard feature. Instincts given verbal form, urges transformed into commands that my three-headed body desperately wants to obey.
The world around me screams for it to transpire.
The volcanic landscape that I apparently triggered adds its own voice to the cacophony—lava churning with hunger thatmatches my own, heat radiating with intensity that fuels the flames building in my mouths. Everything in this environment wants destruction. Everything supports the annihilation I've been gathering toward.
And I can't ignore the woman's voice anymore.
Woman's voice.
Elena.
The name surfaces through the chaos of instinct with the particular weight of hatred that has been building since she first cursed me into this form.
Whispers through channels I can't block, encouraging the violence that this body was designed to deliver.
You have no master.
No outlet.
You need to ruin, because that's your purpose in this form.
That's all you're good for now.
Destruction incarnate.
Nothing more.
She's right.
The admission costs more than I want to acknowledge, but the truth remains regardless of what I wish were different. Without a master, without someone whose authority this hellhound form recognizes and obeys, I'm nothing but weapon without direction. Cannon without guidance. Power that will continue to destroy until either everything around me is gone or something finally manages to destroy me in return.
I'm seconds from unleashing the ball of flames.
The hellfire has reached its peak—concentrated destruction that could obliterate the gates and anything else unfortunate enough to exist in its path. My muscles tense with the particular anticipation of release, of finally letting go of power that has been building since this confrontation began.
Then I sense it.
Her.
The familiarity cuts through the chaos of hellhound instinct with force that nothing else has managed—recognition that transcends the curse, connection that apparently survives even the complete transformation of consciousness that this form requires.
Gwenievere.
The name surfaces with the particular weight of everything I've been fighting to protect since she first arrived at the Academy. The source that I wanted to shelter from the dangers that Elena and her disciples were planning. The woman whose safety I prioritized above my own wellbeing, my reputation, my very identity.
I sense her aura.
That power that made my heart skip and my blood boil when circumstances forced me to betray her—when I had to wear the mask of enemy to protect her from threats she couldn't yet see. The particular resonance of hybrid existence that has become essential to my world, to my purpose, to whatever remains of who I was before this curse claimed me.
She's there.
