As if he’d been transformed into a being of pure fire. One her sword would be useless against.
He bucked up, throwing her off, then sent a blazing stream for her head. She raised a forearm to block it, and the fire scorched across the leather. She rolled away, dropping her sword and dousing the flames.
Time to come out and play, she called to her wolf.
Her limbs popped and lengthened, her muscles strengthening, fangs and claws elongating as she shifted into her copper-furred wolf.
She sprang for Otto, but he threw up a wall of fire, undisturbed as the flames poured off him, consuming his hair, clothes, and limbs.
She whined, backing away and crashing against the fence as Otto strode toward her, each careful step agonizingly slow. As if he had all the time in the world. As if her end was inevitable.
“Please,” Mireille blubbered as Otto towered over her, his flames singeing her fur.
She swiped a paw at him, then yelped when he grabbed it, burning her skin and crushing her bones with unnatural strength.
She howled for Ronin and Layla, but couldn’t see anything beyond Otto’s dancing flames.
A shadow crawled over them, and Mireille tried to howl again.
No sound came out as Nyctima’s massive jaws closed around her and Otto.
Ronin could donothing but watch in abject terror as Mireille and whateverthingJurgev Otto had become were swallowed whole by Nyctima.
For a moment, time froze. The screaming of the guests, the metallic whine of Layla’s knives scraping the impenetrable scales, the cold tang of snow, and the acrid bitterness of the guests’ fear all faded away.
Ronin dropped to his knees, adrenaline fleeing his body, and Bonecleaver crashed to the ground.
The sound broke Layla’s trance, and she paused her useless slicing to rush to him.
“Ronin.” She shook his shoulders. “Ronin!”
He glanced up, jaw slack, limbs numbing as the fight seeped out of his muscles.
“Don’t you fucking give up!” she screamed in his face.
As if lured by her scream, Nyctima twisted toward them.
Manic delight flashed through her rainbow eyes.
Manic delight andchallenge.
It lit something within him. Not something. Hiswolf.
The creature howled to the sky, the most feral, furious sound Ronin had ever heard.
A howl borne from centuries of restrained misery.
A howl of world-ending fury.
A howl to cleave the cosmos.
Ronin staggered to his feet. His chest heaved, his muscles bulged, and his wolf’s howl echoed up his own throat. His tattoos glowed, throwing off pulses of ice-blue light.
Layla backed up a step, muttering, “Bless the Creator.”
The sound of Ronin’s cage breaking was the sound of a fissuring glacier. Deep. Thunderous.Bone-shaking.
A shockwave burst across the courtyard, knocking Layla off her feet and sending her skidding into the fountain. The guests slammed against the fence in a series of thudding clanks.
