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Sven shifted his eyes to him with uncanny focus. “This is only for draak.” He looked at me and said something in the old language that amounted to, ‘for the glory of battle,’ and began to paint.

I closed my eyes and when I opened them again I had a matching black mask painted across my eyes.

The group huddled up right before the plane began its descent to touch on any last minute questions or concerns.

Dom gave a stirring speech about victory then nodded at me like I should say something.

“Christian, any tips for the other slayers?” I asked, for what I thought were obvious reasons.

“We don’t need any tips from him,” Helen said disdainfully. “We’ve all had just as much training or more.”

I opened my mouth—to correct her, I suppose, but Christian beat me to it.

He touched the relic around his neck and in a flash it was transformed into its true form, a long blue sword that glowed and made me take a step back in caution.

“This is the only slayer weapon in this cabin full of slayers that’s ever been quenched in the blood of the enemy,” Christian’s voice was cold and strange. I rarely saw or heard his serious side. It colored him differently. “So perhaps I do have a few things to add. It’s not what you think it will be. The dragon will be faster than you trained for, and it will take much more strength to cut its scales than you imagine. One slayer will go for the head, the other the heart. You’ve been looking forward to this, but there will be fear, more fear than you’ve ever felt, and you cannot hesitate.”

I stared at the weapon in his hands. I’d seen it skewer one of my kin in full dragon form. It had cut through the scales like butter, and it had ended my uncle’s very long life.

It boggled the mind just what it could do to my human form.

Christian was one of my closest friends and seeing his slayer weapon bared made me tense.

The fact that I was in a room full of strangers carrying similar weapons made my molten blood run cold with dread.

Slayers were a necessary evil. I knew it logically. My kind were too powerful, too destructive if left unchecked.

I knew it. That didn’t mean I liked it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

WE’RE EVERYWHERE

The sun was just rising as we left the airport and loaded up into the back of two large armored vehicles divided up by the teams.

Dom traveled with ours.

“You have a druid presence even here?” I asked Dom. I was impressed at what they’d been able to put together with a few hours’ notice. How they’d found such vehicles so quickly with two stone-faced druid drivers, to boot.

Dom looked insulted. “We’re everywhere, as you well know.”

Touché.

“How long is the drive?” Christian asked, looking antsy.

“Two hours, give or take,” Dom said. He once again pulled up a map of the compound we were storming and we continued to plan.

Two hours felt like days with raw nerves strumming inside of me, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. Everyone was on edge.

Dom touched one of my braid buns, turning my face in his direction as we drew close to the drop-off point. He leaned his head down until our foreheads touched. “You will be careful,” he said to me, voice low. It was an order, and he said it like he expected to be obeyed. He said a few more lines in emotional Druidic. They sounded like either a prayer or a spell. “You will stay far away from the shadow-man while we take care of him,” he added.

I pulled back far enough to meet his eyes, and his contrasting gaze bore into mine. I touched his cheek. “Trust me, I have no desire to go near him. Kill him fast so I never have to think of him again.”

He kissed my forehead. “With pleasure,” he murmured into my skin.

He used the last few minutes of the drive to carve a rather painful rune deep into my wrist then healed it with a kiss.

“What’s that one do?” I asked.