She fought through it, just in time to see Ash tumbling from the sky, totally out of control.
“ASH!” His name shrieked from both her lips and mind. A huge form already arrowed toward him, wings thrashing so fast they were merely a blur. Tyrez smashed into the golden Dragon no more than thirty feet above the ground, far too low for him to stop the crash. They vanished in a cloud of displaced dirt.
NO!Her heart was tearing in two. Both men she loved, buried in the ground, crumpled and broken...
She loved them? Her mind spun.
Splat.Ash’s comment unchained her panicked heart, setting it free to trip-hammer away. Tyrez’s answer cleared her mind, and she became aware of her own predicament.
Her body had responded to her fear the only way it could—by transforming. She hadn’t even felt it happen, but now she teetered half over the ledge, her talons sunk deep into the stone. Scales chased up her arms, pushing back the fur.
A new terror seized her, and she backpedaled, pulling her foretalons free, sinking her hinds deep to pull her back from the edge. Her wings beat frantically to keep her from falling—
Wait.What?
Wings. She hadwings. Jet black, and covered not in scales, but in tufts of fur. Some of which fell out, as the scales fought for supremacy.
She reached talons to her face—her jaws were longer than a Dire’s. A Dragon’s jaws.
Panic flooded her. Dani was trapped not only between human and Dire, but now her two beasts were at war with each other. She could die a twisted mess on this ledge.
No.She hadn’t come this far to die like that now. And they would need her in the battle to come. She had to fight through this.
She visualized herself—every inch of her skinny body, only just starting to fill out due to the culinary skills of both Dragons and Gryphons. Her hair with its odd white streak. Her fingers and toes. Her tattoos: the stylized Dragon on her chest, and the diving one on her arm. Her scars, both inside and out.
Slowly, one cell at a time, she fought herself back to human. It hurt way worse than usual, her body unfamiliar with the intricacies of being a Dragon—those damned wings. They shrank, and folded, and vanished into her shoulders in an excruciating series of maneuvers. If she hadn’t seen Tyrez do it many times, she might never have managed it.
It seemed to take forever before she lay, gasping, on the cool stone. She lifted her hand and wiggled her normal, human fingers.
Close. That had been way too close.
Far below, she saw Ash and Tyrez flying, mere feet above the ground. They were racing for the base of the mountain.
Ash’s vision flickered at the edges of her mind. And with it, came a sense of pace. Of timing.
They didn’t have much of it left.
In just over twenty-four hours, Rindek was coming for them.
42
Tyrez stood beside his brothers and stared across the grasslands.
From where they stood, they had a Dragon’s-eye view of the battlefield and would be able to direct their army through the fight.
They’d split the soldiers up between them. Razir and Taran each had half the Dire component with comm connections to the alphas. They’d united the Dire packs along family lines and given the most senior alphas command over them. As it followed a hierarchal structure that they respected, it just might work.
Taran had given Tyrez control over the Sabres, including Alex’s Dires and their small group of psychic Cryptids. An easier duty, deliberately so, he also had the important task of coordinating with Ash in an attempt to foresee developments as the battle unfolded.
At the moment, Tyrez watched the horizon. If Ash’s vision was correct, it was time. They’d been granted just over a day to finalize preparations. It hadn’t been enough, but it would have to do.
The sun broke at the horizon, sending its first bright rays across the darkness. And seven points of light ignited over the rock ridge in the distance.
Just as Ash had foreseen, the gateways opened and the Dires poured through them.
When Ash and Tyrez had taken their news to the Watchers, their eyes had widened in alarm. Seven gates, created simultaneously—impossible, argued Cara. Bess debated aloud that perhaps Ash had been mistaken?
But now, over Tyrez’s comm, their incredulity reached new levels.
