Yet I’d woken to a jolt of pleasure I’d never felt before, like electricity under my skin, like something dormant suddenly stirring to life. Shit. I didn’t need another thing waking up inside me. I already had a demon. Though the creature insisted it wasn’t a demon.Not exactly,it had said once, cryptic as always. It loved to taunt me, hiding knowledge from me even as I knew it was ancient, older than civilizations.
They have a team waiting,the demon informed me again. Unbidden and unwanted.Seven in total. We’reriding with the redhead. He’s carrying you like a prize he won’t share. The red-eyed one trails three paces behind, and he hasn’t stopped staring at your neck since he picked up your scent. But the third one—Aelindor, they called him— is whom you should watch. He’s hard to figure out. More dangerous. This is great, Max! This is the adventure I’ve been waiting for. We’re finally among equals. You made the right call escaping the mines, and the deaths of your boyfriend and friends were worth it for this?—
With every ounce of strength, I shoved the entity back into its cage. The mental effort left me gasping.
I sank back into utter blackness.
Silence was gold.
Silence was survival.
I didn’t knowhow much time had passed. Could have been hours. Could have been days.
But a great sense of danger slammed into me an instant before the demon in my head screamed,Wake up, Max! Battle ready!
Battle ready? Seriously? Even fluttering my eyelids and moving my eyeballs was a struggle. My body felt like it had been buried under tons of rock. But whether through pure fear, a desperate rush of adrenaline, or whatever energy the creature pumped into me, I forced my eyes open.
And regretted it immediately.
Everything happened at once, chaos erupting in every direction.
Just as several pairs of hands lifted me onto a stretcher, a giant man built of muscle and barely contained violence advanced on me, radiating menace. His cold gray eyes locked onto mine, surprise and suspicion flickering there alongside something else I didn’t want to name. My body responded in a way I didn’t understand and appreciated even less. A need pulled taut in my chest. It felt like my soul recognized him, even though I’d never seen him before in my life.
He wore a high-collared dark charcoal uniform, twin gold stripes at the shoulders. A roaring dragon crowned with flame gleamed in gold over his left breast. High-ranking, then. A commander, at least.
Behind him, a woman in her thirties wearing a white doctor’s coat struggled to keep up with his long strides.
I’d arrived at an enormous courtyard of weathered stone with impossibly high walls. The symbols of four Zodiac Houses—Leo, Virgo, Sagittarius, Aries—merged seamlessly on banners hanging from the ramparts, marking the alliance of heirs.
Just as I registered this as a military stronghold built for war, the world exploded into chaos. Piercing shrieks tore through the air, icing my blood. I needed to cover my ears, but lifting my arms was beyond me; they felt bound by invisible weights. It was a miracle I’d even managed that punch to the red-eyed man earlier.
Urgent shouts rang out across the courtyard, overlapping.
“Wyverns have breached the wards!”
“Defense positions!”
“Move, move!”
What had appeared as distant dots in the sky suddenly enlarged with terrifying speed, taking shape— leathery wings, sharp talons, dagger-like fangs. The wyverns came in a swarm.
The men who’d brought me here snapped into battle mode. The red-eyed one and the redhead drew their weapons as they barked orders. Aelindor flicked his wrist, and thick, thorny vines shot out from the ground, rising with impossible speed to meet the attacking beasts.
Archers on the walls notched arrows, aiming skyward.
Fire and wind hit my face as the giant with cold gray eyes—the one who’d been advancing on me—shrugged off his clothes in one violent motion. Flesh rippled into scales. Bones cracked and reformed. Man became beast in the span of a heartbeat.
A black and golden dragon emerged, the size of a building. Wings blotted out the sky.
“I’m your backup, Drakken!” the redhead shouted, launching himself onto the dragon’s back and landing in a crouch between its massive shoulder blades. The moment his boots made contact, the beast launched skyward with a deafening, enraged roar that shook the ground beneath me. Together, they tore into the mutants with fire and savage claws.
“Get the boy to the infirmary! Now!” Aelindor’s voice cut through the chaos. He didn’t look at me. His focus remained locked on the monsters descending from above.
The men carrying my stretcher ran toward a concrete building, boots pounding against the stone.
Three wyverns dove toward the courtyard in a screaming mass, one breaking through the defensive line, faster than the others, coming straight for me like I was a beacon drawing them in.
Fight!the demon in me screamed, as if I could do anything.I’m still weakened from a decade of exposure in the mines.
