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“Zepheren!” I yelled on instinct as I thrust out both arms, palms out, and a gust of air exploded from my hands and blasted into the creature, sending it flying across the ground.

But the other one lunged for me in the next instant, and I narrowly jumped to my right before its claws could strike me, and it slammed into the invisible barrier.

I didn’t wait for it to recover, didn’t stick around to watch as Jax and Tannin clawed and rammed into the barrier in their attempts to get to it. I just ran.

My feet hit the ground with a pounding thud as I trailed the castle wall within the ward, desperate to put as much distance between myself and those nightmarish monsters. But they were fast on my tail, one of them shredding the ground behind me, and the other one impossibly scaling the wall above me.

What was I going to do? There was nowhere to run. I had created the ward to keep monsters out, and I had inadvertently trapped two demonic beasts inside it that would stop at nothing to tear me limb from limb.

Why hadn’t I learned more defensive magic? Dammit, I was such a fool! And now I was going to die for it.

“Aliya! Let us in!” Tannin barked as he and Jax ran along the outside of the ward, continuing their attempts to force their way through it.

“Don’t make me watch you die!” Jax roared desperately.

But I couldn’t hear their pleas, couldn’t focus on anything but staying out of the cusith’s reach.

The chicken yard loomed around the corner, an obnoxious obstacle in my path. Kicking my feet faster, I rushed at it, then hurtled over the fence, wind whipping around me as I flew off the ground for two heart-stopping seconds.

The tip of my boot caught on the top of the fence, stopping my ascent and forcing me face-down onto the filthy ground of the yard. The hens slumbering in the coop exploded into a frenzy of wing flaps and startled clucks at my rude arrival, and I frantically scrambled to push myself up.

But I’d lost all momentum, and the cusith scaling the wall flung itself off, dropping straight for me.

“Aliya, please!” Jax bellowed.

There was no more time to think. My brief, pitiful life flashed before my eyes in an instant, and I did the only thing I could.

“I invite you in!” I screamed, shielding my face with my arms as the cusith dove closer.

Two large black forms shot over the fence above me, one of them tackling the falling cusith into the wall, and the other catching the second cusith as it broke through the fence.

For a moment, I was too terrified to move, petrified into a turtling position. Finally, I broke free of my paralysis and jackknifed upward, watching in morbid fascination as the two wolves crushed the two cusith between gnashing teeth and powerful claws.

Blood sprayed out from their mutilation, splattering the wall of the castle and staining the wood of what remained of the fence. But Jax and Tannin didn’t stop their savage assault until the beasts were nothing but pulp and shattered bone beneath them.

The two wolves backed away from their slain prey, panting and stumbling. Over the next few seconds, their forms shrank, their postures righting on two legs as their fur rescinded, and they once again became the two men I knew...and still loved.

Naked and covered in blood, they turned to face me, looking exactly as they had the night they’d come to me. Only this time, they had savedmylife.

They both made a move toward me, and I ran to them without thought. They caught me as I threw my arms around each of their necks, wrapping their bodies around me and clutching me for dear life.

We held each other like that for a long time, and so many emotions were flooding over me that I couldn’t name a single one.

I loved them. I hated them. I needed them. I couldn’t trust them.

But right now, I didn’t care about any of that. I was just glad we were all safe, and I was so overwhelmingly grateful to them for saving my life.

It was Jax who finally pulled away. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”

I nodded, letting them each slip a hand into mine and guiding me toward the castle entrance.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked softly as we went through the large pair of doors.

“I don’t know,” Jax said. “But we’ll figure it out together.”

“Together,” Tannin agreed.

They both looked down at me, and I could feel the love in those intense gazes. My fate was in their hands now, whether I liked it or not, and I had no choice but to have faith.

I nodded. “Together.”

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