“You had better. Or, I’ll hunt you down myself.”
“Oh, please,” I replied. “Bryson will beat you to it to get Quinn back here.”
She laughed. It was so real, light, and beautiful. I was jealous that she was capable of feeling so free after a day like today. I looked forward to getting back to that.
I opened my eyes to the elevator.
Quinn, Nat, Simone, and I were the only ones left standing, if you could even call it that. We were leaning on each other. Cole, Cody, and Maisie were slumped against the side wall. Theyfought for every breath. They hadn’t opened their eyes since they were first wounded. Their clothes were blood-soaked and singed in Maisie’s case. Simone had tried so hard to heal their wounds. She had managed to remove the bullets from Cody and Cole, and she had healed Maisie’s burns. The wounds had closed, sure, but the scars threatened to reopen and bleed again at any moment. Even Quinn’s were like that, like a newly stitched injury. They were too fresh. Too far from being whole and complete.
I nuzzled my face into Quinn’s chest. I didn’t give two fucks that we both reeked of blood, sweat, and smoke. She held me tighter. No words. Just warmth. Just her existing with me and not going anywhere. I wished we could just stay like this, catching our breath in a small, fragile bubble of peace.
Unfortunately, the elevator dinged, stopping on the penthouse floor and bursting that bubble. The soft, cheerful chime was so wrong that my skin crawled.
As soon as the door opened, I knew something was very,verywrong.
I felther.
What the fuck was Lilah doing here? Right now?I growled, feeling the unnatural, oppressive energy that I knew all too well to be Lilah.
Quinn’s head snapped to me. “Did you just sayLilah?”
Simone’s eyes widened. “Are you fucking serious? She’s here? Why?”
It doesn’t fucking matter. She diestoday, my dragon snarled just under my skin.
I couldn’t agree with her more.
The four of us who were still able to move hurried to pull Cooper and Talli’s dead bodies out of the elevator and to carry Maisie, Cole, and Cody’s barely conscious bodies into the foyer hallway. Then, we ran around the corner. We stopped in our tracks at the sight before us.
Everett, Teddy, Isidora, Rhois, and Journee were in the Great Room. They were kneeling with their wrists bound to their ankles behind them, with twisted veins of Lilah’s magic coiled there with sharp points like barbed wire. The unmistakable scent of blood slammed into my nostrils as the dark power cut into their wrists and ankles. The restraints pulsed with the life they were siphoning. I growled, still remembering them licking at my own wounds. I refused to let my loved ones know that pain and have those scars. A crimson tendril gagged each of their mouths, robbing them of their voices. The panic was clear in their wide eyes that pleaded for rescue.
Just behind them stood Lilah. She wore the same black bodysuit from before, her makeup still looking dark and immaculate despite the warpath she had just been on. A red snake of her magic coiled around her affectionately. Except, I recognized that magic, the glitter that tinted it into an almost coral orange under the bright lights of the condo. My mother’s obsidian pendant flared to life with a molten heat against my skin, unlike anything I had ever felt. It seared straight through my clothing to my sternum. I hissed from the burn that felt too unnatural, too focused?—
Wait.
Talli had made this necklace for Mom to control her shift. The stone was Mom, but the necklace?—
It felt Talli.
The necklace sensed her magic. It knew that it was twisted, corrupted, and defiled.
And now, it was another thing reminding me of what was taken from me.
Lilah tilted her head with that too-bright, smug smile already blazing across her mouth. “It’s about time you got here, ladybug.”
She spoke and acted so casually, like she hadn’t taken another member of my already small family. Like she hadn’t destroyed a family, leaving two innocent girls motherless and potentially fatherless if Talli’s mate was fated to her. Like she didn’t have my family kidnapped and poised to destroy that again.
In an instant, my grief collapsed in on itself like a dying star. As it went supernova, my sadness became something else entirely.
Rage.
It wasn’t the kind that boiled. This ignited and consumed in a moment. My roar tore through my throat before anyone could speak, shattering the lightbulbs overhead, the television screen, and any other glass nearby. The ground trembled in my wake.
I gave in to my dragon.
The chrysalis magic swallowed me in one furious breath, cocooning me in a storm of glittering shards. My magic wrapped around me like a second skin, humming with wrath and sadness and vengeance. The shift was hot and angry this time, not the usual welcoming and comforting warmth. It was fast, though, my body changing in just a moment or two. My full dragon form exploded free from the chrysalis with a shattering thunder and blinding light. She was in full control. My holographic opal scales glowed with their own light, sending blinding kaleidoscopes throughout the condo. My crystal crown and those going down my back to end on the spikes of my tail seemed sharper, more jagged than before, like those I had summoned to fight in Chicago. My dragonfly wings stretched wide, nearly brushing the vaulted ceiling of the Great Room. The air whipped into a frenzy with my fluttering wings. My talons clicked on the hardwood, thirsty for Lilah’s blood on them. I bared my rows of fangs down at the woman who had made my life a living hell for too long.
She didn’t even flinch. Instead, she tsked, shaking her head with mocking disappointment. “Ah, ah, Byrdie. Don’t let your revenge consume you now. That’s no fun! You don’t see me getting mad about what you did to Coopie, now do you? I would so hate for your uncles and remaininglivingaunties to meet the same fate as that Witch Doctor Auntie of yours.”
