Page 148 of Flames and Blood

The hall doesn’t move for a second. Then it does, benches coming up and voices from every side, the whole room turning on him at once.

That’s when he moves.

I understand it half a second before it happens. I’m out of the line. I gave the seat up, and the whole clan knows it, so killing me buys him nothing now. But my mother rules this clan, and with me gone from the succession, the seat is his the day she’s gone.

He goes for her.

“No!” I scream. I don’t remember deciding to move. I’m the closest one to the raised end, and I get there first. I get my body between them.

Something opens my shoulder before I realize it’s a claw, not a hand. White flash, then a low burn under it, and my arm stops doing what I tell it. I use the other one. I get my mother down behind me, and I don’t let go.

He’s changing as he comes. Half man and half something with teeth moving at speed. A bench goes over. A table splits under somebody’s weight.

Two Cravens are coming, and they’re too far and boxed in by their own people. I have my mother’s whole weight against my back and blood running down my arm, so I put myself flatter over her, because it’s the only thing I can do.

Then Gideon is there.

I don’t see him move. It’s fast, and it’s quiet while the rest of the room isn’t. He doesn’t say one word—not to Sereth, not to the hall, not to me. That silence is more chilling than any dragon roar because it’s lethal.

He’s on Sereth’s half-shifted form before my cousin knows what hit him. Clawed hands scrabble at Gideon’s chest, but it’s not enough to stop fangs from sinking into his scaled throat. There’s a low snarl that I don’t recognize from the man I know. I hear the crunch as his teeth close around Sereth’s windpipe, then the gurgled scream as he rips the front of Sereth’s throat out.

It’s over before most of the hall understands it started.

He drops him, and Sereth lies twitching on the hall floor as his life drains away.

People who liked him an hour ago are standing around what’s left of him, and nobody moves, because nobody knows what to do.

I fight down a sob.

I loved him my whole life. That’s still true. What’s also true is that the childhood friend I loved tried to kill me to take my place as clan ruler. I don’t try to make them fit tonight.

My mother is hurt. A graze along her side where she went down too fast. Nothing that won’t heal. She’s shaking, though, and I have never seen her do that.

“Kalli,” she chokes out.

“I’m here.”

Her hand finds mine, careless of the blood on both of them, and holds on. Neither of us says anything else.

Gideon stands a few feet away, his features settling into something more human. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand as if the blood disgusts him.

I let go of my mother’s hand, close the distance between us, and throw myself against his chest. His arms close around me. For a moment, I just breathe him, until he pulls back and looks down at me.

“You’re bleeding,” he says.

“I noticed.”

“Sit down before you don’t get a choice about it.”

“Is that concern, Gideon Crowe?”

“Call it whatever gets you sitting down faster.”

I don’t sit. “It’s over,” I say, “we got him.”

“I don’t think so,” he says. He’s looking down the hall at the far door behind the last bench. “When your mother stood up. Before any of it started. Somebody went out that door. Nobody was watching it, and I haven’t seen them come back.”

My arms go cold before I’ve finished working it through.