The horn helped,Matt said as he loomed over us. He was unfamiliar but awesomely beautiful as a Dragon. The courtyard had quieted—the fighting moving deeper into the castle. I leaned to pick up the horn—it no longer glowed, but the spiral edges still bit into my hand.
I don’t know how to do this,I confessed. I laid the horn along his cheek and brushed the heavy hair off his forehead.
A horrible wound marred the center. Circular and raw, the place where his horn had been severed hadn’t even begun to heal.
It’s going to take all of us to help him,Matt said.
I reversed the horn in my hand. Matt laid his beast head alongside me, its warmth giving me comfort even as he flooded the link with his strength. A hand rested on my other shoulder—Talakai, struggling to be as open as Matt. And Lucas moved around in front of me, returning once more to human. He laid slim hands over mine and met my eyes.
“You take the lead on this,” he said. “Nikolai will send the power.”
I nodded. Wasn’t sure either he, or I, was ready for another round of that energy, but Sebastian would die if we didn’t try. I had no doubt about that. So I took the horn and gritted my teeth as I placed the natural edge up against Sebastian’s head.
C’mon, mate, open up.Matt pushed at Talakai.
The Dragon was trying. The beast inside me was sated from Nikolai’s crazy power, but now I sensed it uncoil, reaching tendrils to our mates. Talakai flinched as it wrapped around his energy.
It’s okay,Matt encouraged.Let it happen. It will help.
The Aussie opened himself fully to it, letting the tendrils weave into his energy. Following his example, Talakai relaxed just enough to let me in.
Sebastian.
I could only sense the tiniest flicker from the Bellati as I pushed into his energy. When I’d wound myself in all three of them, I glanced up at Lucas.
“Okay,” I said.
He nodded. And a split second later, Nikolai’s power surged through us. I shuddered with the chaotic strength of it, and Talakai hissed as I struggled to pump it through my hands to where the horn rested up against Sebastian.
It glowed and grew almost too hot to hold. I wrapped my fingers around both it and the raw wound, struggling through the cascade of red lightning in my brain to envision it, once again, as whole.
The power scorched me from the inside out. Matt groaned, deep and low. Talakai’s fingers had sprouted talons that dug into my shoulder. Black fog rolled off Lucas, and his hands shook as he kept them over the top of mine.
Sebastian’s ears flicked. Forward and back. And suddenly, his energy expanded, touching all of us, and reaching outward.
That’s good, Angel. You’ve done it.
I was terrified of what might lie beneath my fingers, but I couldn’t hold on to the power any longer. Talakai’s hand shook on my shoulder, the talons sinking into me.
Let go, Angel,Matt insisted.
The energy shut off, and Lucas pulled his shaking hands away. I was trembling, too, my fingers still wrapped around the spiral.
Long fingers folded over mine. When had Matt gone back to human? But he had, and now he unwound my fingers, one at a time, from the horn.
Talakai removed his talons, but my wounds didn’t even bleed. With Nikolai’s power still coursing through me, they just sealed right up. My gaze fastened on Sebastian’s horn. It still glowed, and as my grip fell away, I saw a ridged line where the ragged severed edge met the smooth shed one. Like scar tissue, but the horn rose strong and true from his forehead.
He was gasping for breath, his beast nostrils flaring. And then, the Unicorn shimmered, and morphed its way to man.
Sebastian pushed himself up on hands that shook. The silver hair slowly chased across his skin. His head remained bowed. The long strands that cascaded over it were so tangled I couldn’t see his face.
But then he raised it and looked up at me with beautiful silver eyes.
Thank you, Anna,he said.
* * *
Sebastian refused to be carried.
