“You think you can stop me?” Derren’s voice was wet, bubbling up from somewhere that should have been destroyed. “I’ve existed for centuries. I’ve killed thousands. One half-feral panther means nothing.”
Wyatt’s answer was to tear out what might have been Derren’s throat.
It wasn’t enough. The Devourer kept moving, kept fighting, impossible to kill through physical damage alone.
But it was enough to hold him in place.
“Avine!” Aero’s voice thundered across the battlefield. “Again!”
Avine called deeper.
The pull hit Narla like a riptide—the ocean demanding more, Avine drawing from the seabed itself, channeling through eighteen months of bonded partnership with Theo. Narla felt her own truth magic swept up in the current, woven into the surge like a thread caught in a wave.
Aero dove.
The combined fire hit Derren with the force of a dying star.
Wyatt barely rolled clear in time.
This time, Derren didn’t scream. The sound that emerged was beyond screaming—a vibration that shook reality, that made Narla’s teeth ache and her vision blur.
Delos dove in behind Aero, adding his own fire to the inferno—younger, fiercer, the flames of a dragon who’d chosen this community as home. Not enough to kill a Devourer alone, but enough to ensure nothing survived.
And then, finally, mercifully?—
Silence.
Where Derren had stood, there was nothing but ash.
FORTY-FOUR
NARLA
For a long moment, nobody moved.
The constructs had collapsed the instant Derren died—whatever animating force he’d provided vanishing with him, leaving only sad piles of bone and dead flesh. The harbor was a mess of destruction, dock boards splintered, seawall cracked, fishing boats knocked loose from their moorings.
But Haven Shores still stood.
And Derren was dead.
Narla’s knees gave out.
Wyatt was there before she hit the ground—shifted back to human, naked and bleeding from a dozen wounds but moving with the same fierce protectiveness he’d shown all along. His arms caught her, lowered her gently to the ground.
“I’ve got you.” His voice was wrecked—raw, ragged. “I’ve got you.”
She looked into his face—his beautiful, human face with its sharp cheekbones and worried eyes—and felt something break loose in her chest.
“He’s dead.” The words came out wondering. “He’s actually dead.”
“He’s dead.” Wyatt pressed his forehead to hers. “You killed him, Narla. Your magic. Your truth.”
“Aero’s fire. Avine’s sea?—”
“Wouldn’t have worked without you. He’d have absorbed it, turned it against us.” His hands cupped her face, trembling slightly. “You’re the reason any of us survived.”
“We made it.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
