Page 64 of House of the Iron Reaper

Moonlight bathes the arena in a silver glow. Ronan tips his face up, towards the moon, and shudders violently. I shuffle forward in my seat, concern rising.

Ronan does not make a sound, but his body does. Several loud snaps make the crowd gasp. His body lengthens. His hair thickens, pushing through his skin. His joints twist and his skin tears. He falls to his knees.

I nearly leap from my seat, and both Novalie and Deimos do the same.

“Is he alright?” Deimos asks, alarmed. “Is this normal?”

Only Cahir does not move from his seat.

“This is normal,” he confirms.

Ronan shudders again, now with his hands flat to the ground. Except… no. Not hands. Ronan stands, but on four legs instead of two. He has grown three times his size, no longer a man but a towering hulking wolf, the size of a building and with claws as big as any dragons. Dark umber fur coats his body, rippling in the evening breeze. His clothes are torn to shreds beneath him. Only his eyes betray who he is, one still scarred and the other glowing a bright amber.

He flings his head up to the moon and howls, long and mournful. Everyone falls silent, the sound haunting.

“Saints…” Novalie whispers. “This is a werewolf.”

“This is a werewolf,” Deimos echoes, disbelief in his voice.

I do not have the words to reply. My mind struggles to consolidate the grinning, guffawing man I know, and the terrifying beast in his place. Any concerns I had about Ronan’s survival disappear like smoke in the wind.

“Incredible,” I eventually murmur.

I understand now, looking at Ronan, why Cahir was so concerned about the arena being damaged.

Destruction. Power. Two sides of the same coin. There is something comforting in that which I cannot place.

The crowd bursts into cheers at their first sighting of a werewolf. The guard dragons lift off into the sky, pulling the cage open and releasing the doomkin. And suddenly, my concerns come flooding back.

It rapidly becomes clear the doomkin was hunched over in its cage. As the roof is lifted and the bars fall, the beast stands and stretches to its full height.

“Shit,” Novalie breathes.

The doomkin is several heads taller than Ronan, even fully transformed, but it is lanky and thin. Long, twisted arms trail down to knee height, ending in large, sharp claws. Two antlers protrude from its head, bone white but blood-stained. Its head is wrapped in strips of skin, with only two bright pinpricks of light for eyes. Its entire body appears to be cobbled together, supported by assorted bones, and held together with strips of decaying skin.

“What the fuck is that?” Novalie exclaims, nose scrunched. “I have never seen a doomkin like it.”

“How interesting,” Cahir pipes up, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His eyes are alight.

“You know what it is,” I say, and it is more a statement than a question.

“The werewolves call it fymian,” he says. “They are unlike the other doomkin we find and catch. These were not just born from evil acts—they were born from one specific evil act.”

Deimos regards him warily.

“What do you mean ‘they’?” he asks. “There is more than one?”

Cahir nods vigorously, almost smiling.

“Oh, yes.”

The doomkin takes a step towards Ronan, long arms swinging. The crowd cheers, crying Ronan’s name, as the fight begins.

The doomkin chitters, an odd noise that makes the hair on my arms stand on edge. It cocks its head, and I have the strangest suspicion it is actually listening.

“Ronan!” a strange voice calls, mixed in amongst the crowd. “Ronan!”

The doomkin chitters again, and horror creeps up my spine—the voice is coming from the doomkin.