1
Marcus
I gently held her limp body in my arms, but it was the demon inside me that tilted my head back and shrieked.
A rumble of thunder answered, but my focus was on what I cradled. My human body wasn’t strong enough to do more than hold my mother’s torso off the floor.
Whatever had been in those darts had taken her down so fast. Isobel had also used poison on my father. My heart constricted, and the thing inside me clawed to be set free.
Iskar’s frantic voice echoed through my head.You can’t let it break loose here—Marcus, you have to breathe. Just breathe.
Our would-be rescuers shot around the corner and skidded to a halt as they saw me. Two male teachers, and the elderly groundskeeper who had been a warrior in his own right, once upon a time. He held a rake, while the other two were unarmed.
Triss was barely breathing. And I was seriously losing it. My arms were rippling with new size and muscle, and they were covered in dark scales. The crystals around my neck glowed as Iskar desperately pulled power from them.
By the expressions on the Centaur’s faces, my features were no longer recognizable. I didn’t care. My mother could be dying. Rafael and his cursed Sorceress hadtaken the children.
We need Cara,Iskar insisted.
“Get the Watcher,” I rasped to the Centaurs.
“What happened?” a teacher asked.
I focused on him through the rage that clouded everything in black. “Someone kidnapped the children by creating a gate, but it is gone now. I need the Watcher. Go to the academy and fetch her. Now, or my mother may die.” I could only hope Cara or Bess were there, because they could be involved with assessing Isobel’s hideout. But the Bellati at the academy gate would know how to find them.
When the teacher stared at me in growing horror, the elderly warrior snapped at him. “Go! Now!”
The barked command in his voice snapped the other Centaur into action. He vanished up the hall.
“But the children—” the other teacher began.
“We can’t go after them, we don’t know where they were taken.” Coherent thought was dissolving fast, and Iskar’s lack of running commentary was proof of how hard he was working to stop the monster from emerging. I needed it—my arms had grown huge. And they weren’t lengthening to form wings—they were doing something else.
Maybe they would be strong enough to carry my mother to the Watcher—even the thought of it elicited a panicked warning from my inner gatekeeper.
Dammit, Marcus. If it emerges, it’ll be more focused on shredding than saving. Your mother’s life depends upon you remaining human. So fight it.
I closed my eyes, and a shudder ran through me as I tried to shove it back.
It didn’t want to go back. It wanted to roar.
The other teacher had vanished, but the caretaker gently arranged Triss’s legs to lie in a more comfortable position. His calm gaze assessed me as I trembled with the effort of holding it together while supporting my mother.
“Anything I can do to help?” he finally asked.
I shook my head, just as the floor quaked and a group of Centaurs, the teacher among them, appeared around the corner.
These ones were armed. The monster in me reacted, and as the wind drove rain through the shattered window, I gritted teeth growing sharp.
“I sent him for a blanket,” the caretaker growled. Then he straightened, and barked, “Check the building, confirm who is missing. Send word to the governor, she will need to know the details and notify parents.” He gestured to the teacher, who did, indeed, hold blankets in his arms. “Give me those.”
The armed Centaurs trotted off to inspect the building, and the caretaker bustled to tuck blankets around Triss. She was shivering now, her breathing terrifyingly shallow. The teacher stood a distance away, his fingers tangling and untangling themselves as he stared at me.
I was likely worth the view. My human skin streamed sweat as Iskar and I forced the scales back, one by one.
But if what I held in my arms succumbed to whatever Isobel had shot into her—all bets would be off.
And I wasn’t sure I would care, then, what happened, one way or the other.
