She muses, “Gray beard… I don’t know. Seems a little more helpful for men than women.”
“She had the weirdest sayings. No, I was thinking of ‘don’t let someone take the butter—’”
“‘—off your slice of bread,’” we both chorus, and Noemi even manages a soft chuckle.
She holds the remains of her pastry up in front of her face, examining it. “Pretty sure this thing is chock-full of butter. So maybe I’m doing okay.”
Noemi faces me, and the lines of pain in her face have eased up, at least a little. Something tight loosens in my chest at the sight.
“You know, the pastries here aren’t half bad,” she concedes.
I stand, offering her a hand. Just as she’s closing her fingers around mine, a searing, shooting pain shatters my vision.
I double over, hitting the ground heavily.
Distantly, I can feel Noemi’s palm on my back, can vaguely hear her callingmy name. It’s as if I’m hearing her through layers of snow or from a long distance, echoed and distorted.
My vision blacks out completely.
When it comes back, it takes me a moment to realize it’s returned.
I’m fully surrounded by shadow.
Some kind of enemy magic? Killian using Meryn’s magic somehow?
Ignoring the pounding in my head, I raise both hands to gather up an impelling burst, ready to slam the shadows away and identify the threat. But… something is wrong.
I’m tapping into my power, pulling on that energy that lives inside me, but it’s strange, unfamiliar.
The well of power is deeper, so much deeper, than ever before. It’s strong and heady, tempting me to draw on it, fill myself with it, and damn the consequences.
It’s almost like being on the battlefield with Meryn, when she was channeling her overwhelming powers through me. And yet totally different, too, because while that power felt like Meryn in my head, it was completely and undeniably hers…
This power ismine.
I’ve always been strong, of course, adept at channeling the Daemos pack powers. But now it’s practically bursting out of me. And it’s somethingmore.
Then from nowhere and everywhere: voices.
I spin around, squinting through the shadowy landscape, trying to figure out where they’re coming from, but it’s strange; they don’t seem to have any specific source. They’re justtherein the twisting darkness around me, snatches of whisper, pieces of sound.
Floating by like wisps of wind or mist.
There’s the sound of someone crying, sobbing. Another cry—then a scream of pain. The sounds coalesce into battlefield noises, shouting and screaming and wailing and the clash of weapons.
And a clear full sentence: “The Sovereign Alpha is dead!”
My knees go weak.
Dead? Siegrid is… dead?
I fight to stay standing in this shadowy place as I realize what has happened—the intense mental links into other riders’ minds, riders from every pack and not just Daemos. The newfound power, strengthened Daemos magic, but also something else entirely, something I barely understand yet.
Siegrid is dead. I’m the Sovereign Alpha now.
Closing my eyes, I focus, thenpushit all away.
The light of the garden is almost blinding after that darkness; after a moment, my eyes adjust and I see Noemi squatting next to me, her face pale and etched with concern.
