Page 49

B ronwyn whimpered as she tried to push herself up. The arm she’d landed on barked in pain. Her head throbbed. She managed to twist around enough to see Malik and Lord Griffith a few feet away. The latter’s hands were elongating into sharp claws. A shiver stole down her spine.

Malik had said to get away, to hide, but how could he expect her to leave him when he’d come to save her? She’d stayed by his side when they’d faced his father. She wasn’t about to leave him now. It would be impossible to forgive herself if she fled and something happened to him. To say nothing of the other monsters waiting in the stormy night. Unless it was some trick of magic, she’d seen them waiting on the other side of the glass.

Was Drystan coming to their aid as Malik said? If so, would he be quick enough? She believed in her sister’s husband, but there were far too many adversaries for her to trust that would somehow turn the odds in their favor. Even if he had a company of guards with him, she and Malik would still need to hold Lord Griffith here until they arrived. An escape could easily mean Ceridwen’s death. And this man already had too much spilled blood on his hands.

The bloody blade Lord Griffith had held landed several feet away. Her eyes locked on it. She needed that. Anything to defend herself. Without a weapon, she was as good as useless.

Bronwyn scurried over the wreckage of the table to get to the blade. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt just as Malik’s words caught at her awareness. “The woman I love.”

Her heart swelled. He faced down a beast for her. There was no way she’d let him fight alone.

Then, the most unexpected thing happened.

Malik’s body shuddered violently. His head whipped side to side, his limbs twitching as if caught in a seizure.

“Malik!” Bronwyn’s shrill cry cut through the room.

She ran for him as he dropped to all fours, back bending oddly. Clothing ripped. A pained cry tore from his lungs, and his face contorted.

Horror rooted Bronwyn to the spot as understanding dawned on her.

No. No, no, no!

He couldn’t. He didn’t—

But he had. Her whole body seemed to cave in on itself at the realization that he’d done it for her.

Two leathery wings unfurled from his back, rising into the air.

She gasped and took an instinctive step back. Wings? The monsters the others became never had wings.

The beast taking shape was dark as all the rest, but where the others had been hairy, the skin of Malik’s beast was smooth, almost shimmering. The tail was longer; using it, he whipped a chair into a bookshelf, sending its contents spilling to the floor. When he raised his head, his profile was not that of a wolf.

Lord Griffith, who had not moved from his spot a few feet away, stared transfixed. “Impossible.” He adjusted his stance, clawed hands raised. Fangs glinted in his mouth as he roared, “No! It’s not possible!”

Malik had not transformed into a wolf-like beast, a nightmare, a monster.

No, instead, he was a creature of myth and legend. An impossibility, as Lord Griffith had screamed, yet it stood proud before them. The thing Lord Griffith and all his followers aspired, but failed, to become.

Malik was a dragon.

With a roar of fury, Griffith shifted fully into his monstrous form. The change was swift and smooth, the opposite of Malik’s. The beast he became was vicious, a thing of nightmares, but smaller than the winged legend it faced. The hulking dragon crouched low on his front haunches, a deep and haunting grumble slipping from his jaws full of sharp, white teeth.

Quick as a clap of thunder, the beast sprang at the dragon. They met in a flurry of wicked claws and sharp teeth, bodies clashing together only to spring apart and then meet once more.

The dragon was not easy on his feet. He wobbled, his steps unsure. Almost like… Goddess above, he moved like a hatchling, a newly born thing still finding its footing. Hesitant and unsteady. Yet still he fought.

They paid no mind to their surroundings. Tables and chairs were knocked aside or crushed. Malik’s dragon slammed into the sofa she’d been on minutes before, sending it sliding across the floor.

It narrowly missed Bronwyn. She gasped and leapt backward, then continued back one step after another until she felt the wall behind her.

A humorless laugh slipped free as she glanced at the bloodied blade in her hand. What good was it against monsters like these? It wasn’t enchanted. Not like the Gray Blade that Ceridwen had used to nullify King Rhion’s magic in the battle against him. Oh, to have that blade now…

But she didn’t. There was no point musing on wishes that could not aid them.

Outside, a sharp howl rang through the night. The eerie wail was loud enough to reach her over the chaos in the study—growls, thumps, the clatter of furniture as it moved or broke.

Through the windows, she spied light. Not the quick flash of lightning, though some of that momentarily brightened the distant sky, but orange spots that wavered like flame and seemed to be getting closer. Drystan?

A terrible roar shook the room.

Bronwyn’s attention snapped back to the battle. Malik had reared back, his tail and wings making a mess of the bookshelves and knocking art from the walls. Lines of crimson marred the shimmering black scales of his shoulder.

Damn it!

The dragon swiped, but the beast danced away, light on his paw-like feet. Malik may have him in size, but Griffith’s beast was faster and more experienced, and the bastard used that to his advantage.

She had to do something. Watching and waiting was agony.

Amid the shredded clothing that had been kicked to the side during the initial scuffle, Bronwyn spied Malik’s sheathed sword. It was longer than the dagger. It might give her the reach she needed to be useful.

Careful to stay back from the fighting, she made her way to it. She wasn’t used to holding more than a paintbrush; the sword was heavy. Pulling it from its sheath alone took more effort than it should. It didn’t help that her non-dominant arm still radiated with sharp pain. Fractured, perhaps.

It seemed a shame to leave the dagger behind, unused. Well, not used again. So, as the fight edged back her way, she gripped the dagger, waited for just the right moment, and hurled it with all her might at Lord Griffith.

The handle hit him in the side, and it clattered to the ground. He didn’t even seem to notice.

“Damn it!” Bronwyn lifted the sword. Time to make better use of it.

She’d ended up near the back of the room, a few steps away from the piano where he’d played that haunting music and drawn her into his web. The beasts traded clawed blows. Blood bloomed from lacerations on each of them now. Much of the furniture of the room was destroyed.

Lord Griffith leapt onto the desk and leaned back, ready to spring. With a swipe of a powerful arm, Malik sent the desk careening to the side. The beast tried to jump free but slipped, tumbling back—straight into a floor-to-ceiling window, which shattered in a rain of sparkling glass.

A pained howl ripped from the beast, but it was the other sounds from outside that snared Bronwyn’s attention and beckoned her closer. The distant clash of metal. A deep groan. A shout. A few more flickering lights—torches—illuminated bits of the grassy expanse beyond.

Help had come. They were fighting the fake dragons that Griffith had called to his aid. She only hoped that whomever Drystan had brought, they were enough. The fighting was far yet. Too distant for her to see, to know—

The beast sprang back inside through the shattered window. He landed on Malik’s side, his claws ripping into a wing and eliciting a roar that nearly cleaved her heart in two. The dragon fell back, the beast still upon him.

Bronwyn snarled at the sight. “Oh, no, you don’t!” She charged forward, her sword raised with both hands.

Neither Malik nor Griffith looked at her, both locked in the battle as they were. But she watched. She was ready. Malik finally dislodged Griffith with a kick and sent him sliding across the floor, but he dug his claws in, splintering wood and leaving grooves in his wake. He ground to a halt a few feet from Bronwyn, his rat-like tail nearly whipping her as he spun to snarl at the dragon.

It was her chance. Bronwyn hurried forward and swung.

The beast leapt aside at the last moment, dodging most of her swing but not all of it. The blade bit through fur and leathery flesh, gliding down the beast’s side. He growled in fury.

Before she could recover from the momentum of the swing, he lashed out, swiping the sword clean out of her hands and sending it careening away.

The dragon roared and sprang, but not before the beast swiped again. Before she could lunge away, he caught her arm with his claws.

Fiery pain erupted. What might have been a fracture was surely a break now, and as she clutched the injury tight with her other hand, unmistakable wetness coated her fingers.

“Fuck!” she cried over the pain. So unladylike, but she’d wager most ladies were never clawed up by a monster.

The only bright side was that her attack had offered a distraction. Malik crashed into Griffith, pinning him to the ground. The dragon’s claws dug into fur. He snapped his fearsome jaws, trying to bite down on his opponent even as the beast struggled under him, swiping his wicked paws at the dragon’s face. Malik had the top position, an advantage.

Or so she thought. But Griffith wasn’t through. He kicked with his hind legs, claws slashing at Malik’s exposed and vulnerable stomach.

The dragon roared in agony and sprang away, blood spraying from its ghastly wounds as it did.

“No!”

Goddess, help us!

Bronwyn cast about, trying to find the sword amid the wreckage. “Shit!” It was lost in the mess, and there was no time to search for it. Only one thing nearby showed real promise. The splintered wood was nearly as long as she was tall, part of the frame holding a serene painting that had been knocked from the wall and ruined amid the fray. Bronwyn grabbed it.

Her heart lurched as the dragon slipped in his own blood. Malik was in there somewhere, bleeding out on the floor. Her Malik. And as the beast crouched, wiggling his hindquarters like a feline about to pounce on its prey, her sanity snapped.

She would not let the man she loved die.

“Over here!”

The monster stilled. His head turned in an entirely inhuman way, red eyes glinting.

“Are you in there, you bastard?” she snarled.

Her throat tightened as the beast turned fully in her direction, seeming to assess her anew. A low growl rumbled in the air. His lips pulled back to expose sharp fangs.

A tremor tried to take hold of Bronwyn’s limbs, but she notched her chin higher. She would not be afraid. She would not back down. “That’s right. Come and get me.”

The beast launched into the air.

Uttering a silent prayer, Bronwyn adjusted her hold on the wood and braced one end against the floor. Her knees slammed the ground as she dropped into a crouch, holding the sharp shaft as tightly as she could.

The impact wrenched the wood painfully from her grip. A sharp whine split the air, then a thud as the beast hit the ground, the broken frame sticking out of his chest. He thrashed, whimpering and groaning before dislodging the wood. But he did not rise. Blood ran. Pooled.

Bronwyn stared, frozen in shock, breathing hard.

The beast’s body twitched and shivered, then suddenly, it was no longer a monster but a man. Lord Griffith looked up at her, blood dribbling from his mouth. “Bronwyn?”

Of all things, he reached for her. As if she hadn’t been the one to stab him.

Some tiny speck of pity reasoned that he was a dying man. Beaten. What harm could he—

With a swipe of massive claws, the dragon hefted the broken man’s body into the air and flung it across the room. Griffith hit the wall with a sickening crunch before falling, lifeless, to the floor.