Page 119 of Vengeance of the Gods

Marlena never moved, didn’t even fucking blink. A scream shrill enough to break glass ripped from Delori’s chest, startling everyone.

By the time Vega had a chance to turn around, Delori’s red wings were shooting out of her shoulder blades. People jumped out of the way, giving Delori enough room to shift without crushing them.

Within a breath, Delori was no longer the small redhead she’d been. In her place was a crimson dragon, somewhere in between Khort’s and Avi’s sizes. She stumbled on her legs, tripping over herself. Her wings rose, muscles flexing in a long overdue stretch.

Delori found her footing quickly. Her serpentine neck reared back, a piercing roar at the top end of her vocal range rattling Vega’s eardrums. She lowered her head, bringing it down low to eye the length of what would become their battlefield. Steam shot through her closed jaw, slipping through the spaces in her giant teeth.

Vega pulled from the damp air around Lake Vehemens to conjure up a quick storm. She’d never needed the spark from a storm to control her lightning; her electric current was alive somewhere deep inside her. Some rain would make the battlefield more difficult, bringing a slippery edge to the fight, and it would give Vega the upper hand with more control—putting more power in her hands.

As if I need any more…

Vega was no longer the lost twenty-year-old she’d been when this started.

People martyred her, seeing Vega as the hero… but heroes didn’t really want the villain to die, did they? They wanted a happy ending where the villain changed—became a trusting individual who understood everything they’d done was wrong and learned from it.

Heroes wanted the villain to get redemption.

Vega wanted Marlena to die, and above all else, she wanted her to suffer—to feel every ounce of pain she’d caused the people who’d once loved her.

The Marlena Vega had loved was dead, and she didn’t know when it was she’d actually lost her, couldn’t go back to the exact moment she’d watched the real Marlena fade away completely. And for that, Vega would hold a shred of responsibility for the rest of her life. For eternity.

Marlena could have been saved.

But it was too late for that now.

Death clicked inside her head, sounding like an alien hiding in the shadows of a dragon.

Vega understood without words. Where’s Marlena?

They lost sight of her in the commotion, but Vega knew she was around… Death could feel her.

Lightning bluer than the coldest ice cracked from the sky and scorched the ground in four points, shaping the clearing of trees in a rectangular box. Vega’s electricity followed a direct path to her, hitting every corner, singeing the ground in its wake until it crawled up her legs and into her palms.

Avi’s battle cry was unmistakable as she appeared out of thin air across the horizon, dipping down into the tree line with her bottom claws set to strike.

Screams of shifters as they were ripped apart faded behind the sound of Vega’s growing thunderstorm.

Rain started to sprinkle from the clouds, giving everyone a fair warning of what was to come.

Khort stood nose to nose with Delori in her new form—a fire-breathing dragon who didn’t have the same kind look in her eyes she’d had when she stared at her brother moments ago.

It wasn’t the mother of two daughters or the leader of a territory that had been left to die. It was a starved dragon who’d been locked away without food for half a century.

Delori clacked her jaw together in warning, saliva dripping from the teeth longer than Khort’s human leg. Khort didn’t back away, his lips moving frantically. Vega couldn’t hear him, but she didn’t need to, knowing he was begging Delori to listen—to see him.

Delori stalked closer, and a screech from above might have saved Khort’s pretty face from mutilation.

Avi grabbed Delori by the nape of her muscular neck, fighting to thrust her into the sky. Arlet’s brown dragon was massive, but she still didn’t touch the size of a dragon shifter.

Delori twisted out of her clutch, her loud jaws snapping at the spike on Avi’s tail.

Khort bellowed, finally shifting into his dragon. Vega dodged his wings as he took off towards the morning sunrise, chasing after Avi and Delori so fast he was nothing but a black blur streaking across the sky.

“Behind you!” Bridger warned.

Poised for a fight, Vega spun with her bonded dagger in hand, coming face to face with the biggest grizzly bear she’d ever seen.

A shredded piece of Octavia’s cloak wrapped around his neck from where she’d tied it for him by the fire. Poe had been forced back into his shifter form, losing whatever sanity he might have been holding onto.