As I watch, oddly stuck in the moment, a large flying creature — a bronze gryphon with golden-tipped wings — streaks through the sky in a sharp dive, trying to reach the falling dragon before he hits —
The dragon — Rath — impacts the ground so hard that a plume of dirt and dust rises, visible even from miles away. It takes another moment for the echoed crash of that landing to audibly reach us.
The gryphon’s golden-threaded wings snap out, talons raked downward to land by the dragon’s crash site. Not that my eyes are keen enough to see anything at ground level.
Another of those energy bolts discharges, angled lower across the ground now. The shooter has clearly repositioned. A mage, maybe? But I’ve never seen that sort of firepower in action before.
The gryphon — Rought — veers away from the projectile aimed his way, but he still gets clipped hard enough to be driven into a spiral fall. Then he too crashes to the ground.
That voice whispers across my mind again, then snuffs out.
“Zaya?!” Presh cries.
I can’t tear my gaze away from the horizon. From where the storm is now rapidly clearing, sunlight and light-blue sky filtering through the clouds as they lighten. Because the celestial dragon has been —
I press my hand to my chest, forcing myself to focus on the now, on what I know. I can feel the thread knotted into my rib cage over my heart, the soul bond that connects me to Rought. It’s steady, though quiet.
Rought was the source of the telepathic whisper that brushed my mind. But either I was too far away, or touching me telepathically is still complicated despite our soul bond. Not only because my essence is naturally resistant, protective, but also my bond with Rought, and with the gryphon, is newly anchored.
But I’m not bonded to Rath. So I have no idea if —
“Please, please,” Presh sobs, confused more than terrified, as she tries to look around Reck’s shoulders. He’s struggling to load her into the SUV without actually hurting her.
DeVille is still standing a few feet away, staring in disbelief at the horizon with his hand forgotten on his head, as if he’s brushed back his hair to clear his sightline and just left it there.
“They’re not dead,” Reck shouts at Presh, trying and failing to moderate his tone. “But we have to fucking move because whoever took them out of play did so to stop them from reaching us.”
At my feet, Bellamy rolls over on her side with a groan. “He’s right,” she rasps. Her naturally dark-olive skin is pale, her lips thin and blue-hued, features hollow.
Being reborn, even if Bellamy wasn’t all the way dead — or perhaps I held her on the edge of that death — seriously fucks with your entire system.
I know.
I do it often enough.
“The Authority asshole is right,” the dire awry mutters, meaning Reck. “You have to run. You should have run ten minutes ago.”
“I never get to run,” I say, repeating my words of just a few moments before. As a reminder to myself, again.
Also, I can’t run. Not even if the universe starts tugging me away.
Because I’m not the only target just standing out in the wide, wild open, watching two extremely powerful shifters get taken down. Possibly even two demigods, at least as far as I’ve figured out.
Presh has no offensive capabilities. I’m not certain she could manage a shield or barrier spell even if I had taught her one. Not with her slowly awakening healing-focused abilities. DeVille is still shaky on his feet from his first transformation. He’ll heal faster now. But whatever enhancements his beast will lend his human form, he’s months, even years, away from learning how to purposefully harness any of them.
And there’s no guarantee that Bellamy will fight for us, even if she weren’t currently half-dead and not using her power properly to begin with.
Reck is unarguably powerful. But he’s only one person against whoever just took both his half-brothers out of play, if only for the few moments it will take for that assailant to focus on us. Plus, the cu-sith Reck holds at bay only skin deep is … unpredictable, at best. I don’t even need to meet his beast a second time to know that.
I’m not certain the cu-sith’s energy can be directed. I’m not certain his bark — a literal death sentence — can be targeted away from Presh and DeVille. And whatever Reck can harness of that voice while in human form seems inadvertently done. Though his earlier command to ‘stop’ during the skirmish with his Authority agents didn’t touch me, it affected everyone else.
A twist of energy close by draws my attention away from scanning the horizon. Despite Presh’s cries and Reck’s demands, my eyes have been riveted to the skyline. With my heart thumping in my chest and all these thoughts tumbling around in my head, I need a glimpse of wings. Just a glimpse. So I can move on from this moment.
Hovering over Agent Wilson’s prone body to my far left, that pulse of power tightens, resolving into a swirling shadow of blackened molten energy about the size of a fist. As if someone has punched through the fabric of existence.
No, not a shadow. A sucking, writhing void.
Wilson’s body is still situated within the perimeter of the essence barrier the mage previously erected to hide herself and Shaw, then drained of energy in an attempt to capture us. The shadow void continues to writhe, seething and sparking, about five feet above her shoulder blades. Her face is twisted away from me, staring sightlessly at the once-again cloudless horizon. Her life force snuffed out by Reck’s hands, her superior in the Authority, while in the middle of begging for amnesty and without answering any of my questions.
