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“It has some magic for defense, like your sister’s tomahawk, but nothing like your own. Be quick, Rowan. Light on your feet, heavy on the hit.”

She nodded and took the encrusted hilt. The magic licked against her palms, comforting, familiar.

Annabelle looked thunderous. She turned and stormed away. A flurry of Spanish Rowan had no hope of translating flying behind her. It was so rare for Annabelle to turn to what she called the tongue of her past that it had become a marker of her anger surpassing reasonable territory.

Rowan grimaced, “Sorry, dad.”

He sighed, “I think I’ll just have to treat her to that five-day getaway to make it up to her.” He didn’t look the least bit sorry about it.

Frowning, Lexine kissed her and Axel’s brows. “Come back to us whole.”

Zeva, who’d looped her arm around her father, simply waved and bit back a yawn

Rowan snorted and tipped her head to Louisa. They phased.

When the world reformed, Rowan found they were at the gates of Draconis.

The lights of the residences were out, but that didn’t obliterate the view of thousands of Black Cove residents overwhelming the market street and squeezing through the hole in the barrier that was no longer charmed to keep intruders out.

Most of the trespassers were humans, but mystics scattered amongst them, varying in shape, size and race.

“Is that a fucking djinn?” Louisa cursed, pointing overhead at where Alessandro’s black dragon form zoomed against the form of the djinn Rowan had ever only felt in the city.

“Yes. Yes it is.” Kin rolled his shoulders. “Remember what I’ve asked you to do if I lose control, Rowan?”

“Something about owing me the rest of your life once I calm you down again?” She grinned.

He rolled his eyes. “Just remember your limited magic, alright?”

She waved his concern away and turned to Axel as the giant kitsune unfurled to his full size behind her. “Incapacitate only, they’re under Barros’ control. I can feel him somewhere in themiddle, but the spell is taking its toll. He’s too weak for me to pinpoint a precise location”

“You got it, boss.” She saluted as she raised her weapon and began carving a path with the efficiency and grace of a dancer.

“I smell vampires.” Louisa hissed from behind her. “And I don’t think they’re under Barros’ control. They’re just taking advantage of the chaos.”

Rowan scowled, “You should definitely let them know why you’re Rosario the Cruel’s chosen heir. I got this.”

Once having witnessed Louisa lose her shit on a vampire who had drawn blood without consent, Rowan was wary of accidental death resulting from her confrontation, but she also knew there was an instinct in the vampiress that she lost control of once incensed.

Light on her feet, Rowan plunged into the darkness of the body of moving victims and weeded out the weaker fighters, careful to hold back anything that would cause lasting damage.

Her swings were strong, her mind sharp as she distinguished the bodies of dragons who were taking just as much care. No doubt it was on Alessandro’s command. It wasn’t until she had to disassemble a knot of banshees screeching at the top of their lungs that she actually had to interact with the dance of the dragons during battle.

Unlike her style, which was airy and flexible, the dragons fought, grounded and powerful.

An air-dragon blasted the knot into the sky and an earth-dragon sent walls of earth shaped like hands to undo the banshees from one another and place a wad of grass in their screeching mouths.

“Nice.” She praised as she dodged a swinging knife from a giant man and used her tail to swipe his legs from under him. Her free hand caught the weapon that went flying with his fall. A water-dragon dragged him to join the other bodies floating in midair, everything but their heads covered in turbulent water cells.

She grinned as she joined their ranks, cutting into the still overwhelming numbers.

It wasn’t long before she ran into a form she recognized almost instantly. “Harris?” She asked, unsure as the giant white wolf was carefully holding his paw over the neck of a teenage kappa. She watched as he fell unconscious.

“Princess Rowan.”He took a deep inhale and his green eyes shone.“Or should I refer to you as Queen Consort of the Dragon King?”

“Sure, don’t forget the bow when you utter it, though.” She took a step back as a bear shifter jumped through and swiped three armed civilians deeper into the crowd.

The action created a ripple effect and, like dominoes, the civilians fell.