Page 36 of The Monster's Daughter

Kage’s roar splits the sky. He grabs me, lifting me like I weigh nothing, his claws slick with my blood. His face is pure fury, grief tearing out of him like a storm. “No—no, stay with me, stay?—”

I choke a laugh, wet and bitter. “Bossy bastard…”

He stumbles forward, dragging us toward the wreck of the gunship, its hull half-pinned under Nulegion’s broken tendrils. Smoke pours from the engines, but one escape pod gleams red in the firelight.

The ground groans. The hillside is caving in, the pad shattering under the weight of the fight.

Kage hauls me higher against his chest, his frills slick with my blood. His voice is a promise and a plea. “I’ve got you. I’m not leaving you.”

I twist weakly in his arms, kick at the pod’s control panel with my boot. My blood smears across the steel.

“No,” I rasp. “You go.”

His silver eyes blaze. “What?”

“Get your parents.” My throat burns with every word. “GO!”

He snarls, shaking his head. “Not without you.”

I slam my hand against the pod’s launch lever, the metal slick and sticky under my palm. The hatch slams shut on his stunned face, his claws pounding against the glass.

“Go,” I whisper, though he can’t hear it now.

The pod ejects, engines flaring, shooting out into the dark. His face is the last thing I see—shocked, furious, broken.

Then the ground tilts. My knees buckle. My blood runs hot down my ribs. The hillside splits open under me.

And the darkness swallows me whole.

CHAPTER 22

KAGE

The pod bucks like a wild animal under my claws, metal groaning, heat bleeding through the walls. Every lurch slams me against the harness. My parents’ claws scrabble for purchase as the capsule tears down through atmosphere, rattling like it’s about to shake apart.

I pound on the hatch, my knuckles cracking the inner plating. “No! No—we have to go back!”

The memory of Bella’s face behind the closing hatch isn’t fading. It’s burned on the back of my skull, green eyes wide and blood streaking down her jaw. She slammed the controls before I could stop her. Shechose.

“She saved us,” Gake growls, his arms wrapping around my shoulders, pinning me to the seat with a strength he shouldn’t still have. “She made her choice, son.”

Sorena’s claws are over her mouth, tears leaking down her scaled cheeks. “Kage,” she whispers. “Please. Stop.”

The pod tilts, slamming us into the floor as gravity bites. Flames streak past the porthole, orange and white, hissing as they shear off the heat shielding. My frills flatten from the roar outside, a constant bellow like the sky itself is screaming.

I slam my fists again, denting the hatch. “She’s out there! We can still?—”

The pod shudders violently, the view spinning as the planet’s surface rushes up in a smear of gray and white. The air inside smells of scorched metal and fear.

Gake snarls in my ear. “If you tear through that hatch now, none of us will survive.None of us.”

My claws flex, trembling. I want to rip him off me. I want to tear through steel. I want to claw my way back through sky and fire and drag her out with my teeth if I have to.

Instead, the pod slams down.

The impact throws us forward. Harnesses bite into my chest. Sorena cries out, Gake’s head snaps back. A noise like mountains breaking cracks through the hull as the pod skips, bounces, then digs into the frozen earth of the northern wastes.

Silence.