Nyctima reared, her sheer size absorbing the blast.
And then, for the first time in nearly three-hundred years, Ronin Matakos shifted into his magnificent white wolf.
His massive paws slammed onto the gravel as he bared fangs nearly half the size of Layla herself. Panting breaths clouded the air as Ronin shook his enormous body, then crouched onto his haunches.
“My fucking turn,” he rumbled.
He sprang off his heels and launched himself for Nyctima.
Ronin had nearly forgotten what this felt like. To be himself but not himself. Intoxicating power coursed through his veins.He chomped down on the snake, just behind its head, the scales no longer impenetrable thanks to his colossal fangs.
She twisted and thrashed, her body a solid column of pure muscle. As large as Ronin’s wolf was, Nyctima was at least three times larger.
Something wrapped around Ronin’s left paw and squeezed. Unbearably hard. Her tail.
With a swift jerk, Nyctima whipped Ronin across the courtyard. He skidded through gravel and snow, slamming into the fence and scattering the dazed, terrified guests.
“Get them out of here,” he yelled to Layla in a low, burbling growl as he lurched back to his feet, shaking stones from his gleaming white fur.
Layla slid a hesitant glance toward the manor, then herded the guests up the steps and through the destroyed doors as Ronin turned his attention back to Nyctima.
The two puncture wounds near her head oozed an iridescent substance that Ronin couldn’t say for surewasn’tblood.
He readied for another assault, hackles raised, muzzle dripping saliva.
Nyctima pushed upright, half her body towering over Ronin, her forked tongue darting out to sniff the air. She swayed as if trying to throw off his aim.
Ronin rocketed forward, his paws pounding the gravel, then broke left as the serpent struck forward in a shining black blur.
Ronin leapt onto her back and sunk his claws in, and she flipped over, wrapping her body around him. Smooth, cool scales slid against his fur as he dug his claws in deeper, trying to rip through skin and muscle to get to the vital bits.
Nyctima barely noticed.
And before Ronin knew it, the snake had coiled around him entirely, her muscular body crushing his too-recently healed ribs.
Dimly, he heard Layla shouting for him as his bones crunched and his lungs compressed. He couldn’t breathe, could only manage whimpering whines as Nyctima crushed the life from him.
If this was how he was meant to go, so be it.
At least he’d reunited with his wolf, one final time.
At least he and Mireille had made peace. Had become true partners. Friends. Maybe even something more than that, for one blissful night. Perhaps he’d find her again one day in the Halfway.
As the darkness crept in and his consciousness faded, his last thoughts were of her.
His little she-wolf.
CHAPTER FORTY
Mireille.
Mireille.
Wake up, my pup.
Cool grass tickled Mireille’s cheek, and a child’s buoyant laughter floated through her mind.
Along with a voice that, centuries later, she still recognized. Stillachedfor.
