Page 72

Aithne

YVESWICH, STATE OF KER

A spearof lightning slammed into the cobbled road, illuminating the area with a crackling blue glow.

Screams and primal, gut-wrenching cries sliced through the charged air like newly honed blades.

Shay scrambled backward, crab walking on her hands and feet, as pale lightning skittered across the rain-drenched ground. The bolts dispersed in all directions, missing her and Tanner by inches.

The wall of fire confining them to the immediate area had fallen, not one flame left. Because Sybil?—

Sybil was on the ground. Unconscious, no pulse. A screaming Eilidh had thrown herself to her knees beside her, her face a twisted mask of rage and terror as Austin began chest compressions on the black-haired Wyvern, whose heart had been electric shocked into cardiac arrest.

“—now,” said a male voice.

Shay’s head swam—from panic and confusion and debilitating dread as she tried to make sense of who was talking, what he was saying, where he evenwas?—

“Shay.”Male hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her.

Shay looked up?—

It was Tanner—bending over her, his eyes wild with panic.

“We need to go,” he said.“Now.Right now—come on,let’s go!”

Shay twisted around, planting her hands on the ground to push herself up?—

Not the ground. That wasn’t the ground she was touching, it was abody?—

She recoiled, falling backward as nausea surged through her gut.

Holy Star, her lightning had scorched Brock Pierson from head to navel, his shirt rucked up so she could see his midsection. Every inch of visible skin was covered in bright red scars that were shaped like ferns, his face utterly mangled. And thesmell?—

Good gods, she had roasted him. Cooked his organs inside his body.

“Let’s go!”Tanner pulled her to her feet just as Eilidh started screaming bloody murder at them, her hair wet and sticking to her enraged face. Her sister was still unconscious, her body not responding to the breaths Austin was blowing into her mouth, his hands pumping her chest.

“I’m going to kill you!”Eilidh bawled.

Oh shit.

Shay bolted just as Eilidh lurched to her feet and tore after them—a starved predator bounding after her prey.

Shay’s heart was beating so fast she thought it might burst as she ran and ran for the truck, arms pumping, damp air scraping down her throat. She was almost at the driver’s door when she heard the wet slap of Eilidh’s swift boots, the moon-haired Wyvern right on her tail.

No.No, this couldn’t be happening, not when they’d made it this far!

“STAY BACK!” Shay roared, whirling around mid-run, her hand lashing out as if to push Eilidh?—

Instead, more veins of lightning slammed into the road with bone-rattling force, their glows blinding. Shay’s ears rang as she lost her balance, staggering without sight. Her skin was buzzing, her mind short circuiting as if she’d grabbed onto a high voltage electric fence.

The wash of white light began to fade, and the world reappeared in pieces as her eyes adjusted.

There were the trees, the road, the truck.

And there was Eilidh, lifting herself up from where she’d taken cover on the ground. She bared her dragon’s teeth at Shay, smoke jetting out of her nostrils. With a feral scream, she ran toward Shay head-on?—

BOOM.