She’d been hit from above. Dani caught a glimpse of leathery wings—a third Wyvern, with another rider—before her world was obliterated.
Pain like she’d never before experienced, and considering her life to date, that was saying something. It ignited every nerve, and to her terror, her body responded the only way it knew how.
By calling on the beast.
She had no control over it as she writhed beneath the energy onslaught. Her inner animal burst from her like lava from a volcano in a blazing molten eruption of agony.
Desperate, she flung whatever she could touch. Out of what remained of the rock ridge, a barrage of stone catapulted toward her tormentor. None reached their target. Some disintegrated within the beam itself. Most were repelled about ten feet out, as though the rider had erected an energy shield.
It confused her. No Dire could do this. Who was riding that Wyvern? Dani’s gut twisted worse than her body. The contortions dropped her deep among the boulders, and the beams ricocheted off the stone. As the wings burst from her shoulders and her jaws gaped in anguish, she looked up to the Wyvern hovering above her.
Straight into a pinched, narrow face with eyes the color of blood.
Rindek. Here. How? Last she’d seen, he was flying over the main army...
Or not.She hadn’t seen any energy beams coming from that Wyvern rider hovering over the surging Dires . . .
Her heart slammed to a halt. It wasn’t Rindek flying over the larger force. He’d been here all along. Trying to sneak in behind the defenders.
Rage suffused her. Her limbs finished their contortions, the talons long and deadly. She pulled herself farther into the shadows.
Rindek will die.
The words rippled through her, resonating deep. Ash’s voice, not her own thoughts. They brought with it a rage that mirrored and merged with her own.
Rindek was there, right above her. Unafraid of what she could throw at him. But he wouldn’t be expecting a Dragon lurking in the darkness below. He might shoot her full of the parasite, but if she could take him out fast, it wouldn’t matter.
Dani got her legs beneath her. Her wings hooked on the rocks, she had to wrench them loose. Bits of displaced fur drifted to the ground—the scales seemed confined mostly to her extremities, and she still had the long ears of the Dire, along with a furred body.
She wasn’t Dire, or Dragon, but something in between.
But she looked up to where Rindek hovered, and promised him death.
* * *
When Rindek’s strike force winked into view, Tyrez thought he was hallucinating. Was this one of Ash’s alternative timelines? And a third Wyvern, as well. Where the shards had they come from?
But when he reached for Ash—the golden Dragon shifter wasn’t there.
Ice chased down his spine when he realized the truth. A Blocker had been hiding a stealth strike force. Now, somehow, exposed?
Then rocks started flying through the air, and a channel ripped open in the ridge between it and the main army.
Dani.It had to be.
The Wyvern dove toward the flying rocks, and the figure on its back opened up. The beams focused downward.
No.His gaze flew to the other two Wyverns. Demeti, his hands aglow as he sent beams scorching into the Dires below. But the other rider, the one they’d thought was Rindek...
Wasn’t.
The figure was thin, with long, flowing white hair. But Tyrez hadn’t seen a single energy beam come from that individual.
Ash...He reached again for the Oracle and found—a wall. Ash had blocked him off. He hadn’t even known that was possible.
Panic flowed through him. Dani needed help, like, now. He activated his comm. “We have a strike force coming in from the West, on the other side of the rock ridge. We need to stop them. Dani’s in the rocks, and Rindek is above her.”
“But Rindek’s out here...” Kade was barely audible above the battle’s snarls and slashes.
