Hearing it crashing behind her, Isi stopped and spun, a pathetic stick raised in her hands as defense.
“Mine,” I growled, the word detonating inside me, instinct and fury forging into a single, burning need to protect.
As I leaped onto Lakast’s back, my dragon responded to the threat in my voice with a bone-rattling snarl. His wings stretched wide, the membrane snapping taut as he took flight.
My group launched skyward in formation, dragons climbing through the rain-heavy air. But I was no longer with them. I plunged into Gavelle’s mind as the stalker lunged, my muscles coiling in response. The predator in him flexed, ready to strike. I let instinct take over, every fiber of his being, every reflex, aimed to protect her.
Gavelle shrieked as I triggered the shift, his body twisting and bulking mid-air. Muscles. Fangs. Rage.
His mass expanded, bones stretching and reforming with wet, tearing sounds. Feathers dissolved into muscle and fur, his wings becoming powerful limbs. His delicate frame bulked outward, growing, growing. Transforming.
I felt every sensation as if it were my own body going through the change, from the burning stretch of ligaments to the crack of reforming joints, to the surge of predatory hunger that came with the firecat’s form. Agony and ecstasy blended together as cinderhawk became its alternate form, an apex predator.
Pain didn’t matter. Nothing did except reaching her. She was mine to protect. Mine to claim when I was ready to do so.
The great cat rose, not born, but summoned, ancient and terrifying.
Through his enhanced senses, I could smell Isi’s fear, hear herrapid heartbeat, and feel the heat of her blood calling to his ancient instincts. The scent of her drove the cat wild with protective fury.
The stalker lunged.
And I leapt, death and fury and flame.
16
ISI
The ground thundered beneath massive feet.
I spun, brandishing my stick, and saw my death charging down the muddy slope toward me. The creature was wrong in every way that mattered. It was too long, too flexible, its body undulating like a serpent with six legs as it ripped through a grove of stubby trees as if it wasn’t there. Each stride covered an impossible distance, its limbs bending at joints that dislocated and reformed with wet pops. Bone plates split its skull into sections, revealing a tri-sectioned maw that opened wide, lined with rows of needle-sharp teeth that gleamed with saliva. Six black eyes tracked my movement with hunger, unblinking, ancient, filled with the promise of pain.
This was what had killed Fara.
And now it was after me.
There was no way I could outrun it, but damn, I wouldn’t go down without fighting with everything I had. Terror tried to lock my muscles. My lungs seized. The stick in my hands felt like a twig against the approaching nightmare. I doubted this thing woulddeliver my death quickly. It would take its time, savoring every scream.
The stalker’s claws gouged trenches in the muddy slope as it bounded closer. Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten. I could smell it now, the reek of old blood and rot. My belly heaved, shoving bile up my throat.
It gathered itself to leap, its muscles bunching under its chitinous hide.
I shrieked and swung my stick…
A cat half the size of a small dragon exploded from the jungle to my left.
A bang like thunder echoed when the two creatures collided. The earth shook beneath my feet, and it was all I could do to remain standing. Trees older than kingdoms groaned and snapped as the beasts crashed and rolled, a blur of claws and fangs and raw violence that made my earlier fear about carnivorous plants seem like children’s nightmares.
The stalker shrieked, a sound like tearing metal that made my bones ache and my teeth feel loose in my skull. The great cat answered with a roar that lifted every hair on my body. Flames erupted from its mouth.
Firecat.
I’d only heard of them in myths, and now one battled right in front of me.
They rolled across the mud, tearing gouges in the earth deep enough to bury a man. Ancient roots thick as my waist snapped like kindling. Boulders cracked under the force of their impact. They were remaking the landscape with their violence.
I stood frozen, watching the monsters fight.
The creature was fast. Its impossible joints allowed it to twist and strike from angles that broke every law of anatomy. One moment it was beneath its opponent, the next, it had somehow flowed around to attack from behind. Its tri-sectioned maw snapped at the firecat’s throat, missing by a whisper.
