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Starling dove off the bed. I seized the vial at my side, the stab of pain from my ruined hands barely registering, and sliced off the seal with one of my new claws.
Titania hurled herself at me, power boiling out of her in a supernova and I dashed the dragon’s blood distillate in her beautiful face.
Oh. My. God.
It ate at her like a living thing, gnawing into her face with acid speed, growing and proliferating like the worst flesh-eating bacteria. The smell of hot plastic filled the room. Her howls turned into demonic roars, then contorted as the concentrated anti-magic corroded her vocal chords. At the same time, her own immense immortal magic battled it, reforming her bones, skin and muscles in a convulsing amalgamation of meat. She fell to the floor, writhing.
Rogue pulled me off the bed, breaking my trance of horror. A drop of the distillate fell on my calf and I hissed at the burn, dropping the empty vial.
“Run.” He clothed me with a thought—oddly in my old Ann Taylor dress, the one I’d worn into this world—and pushed me toward the door, where Starling stood, poised to flee with a limp Darling in her arms.
“No.” I dug in. “Not without you.”
Confusion broke across his face, leaving fragments of tortured dread and splinted hope behind. The ropiness in his mind had receded. “How can you—”
“Is Darling Hercules all right?” I called to Starling, cutting him off.
“I think so—just unconscious.”
“Where’s Athena?”
“Guarding the door.”
“I love you guys so much. Give me Darling Hercules. Rogue, push Titania onto the bed with your magic—don’t touch her.”
I cupped Darling against my chest, pinning him with my forearms, making the curved platinum-silver claws of my ruined fingers stand up so the blood ran down my hands, soaking into Darling’s fur. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too angry about it.
“Starling—be my hands. See if you can lock her into at least one of the cuffs. Don’t get any of that shit on you, if you can help it. But I think your human blood will protect you.”
She set her mouth in a determined line and managed to grab a foot from the flailing body Rogue floated onto the bed, locking it down.
“That’s good enough,” I told her.
“No, it’s not,” Starling snarled. “I want her where she had you. And I want free of her.” She fought the other foot into place and reached for one of the hands Titania had clapped to her melting face.
“No! It’s too dangerous.”
“Then protect me.” She gave me an even look. “I’m going in either way.”
Wishing I’d thought of it before—which was the kind of wish that never came true—I created nitrile gloves right on her hands. She jumped a little then grinned at me, a maniacal baring of teeth, and wrestled Titania into the wrist cuffs. The Queen Bitch’s melting and reforming hands turned into cold lumps of gristle when the silver touched them, creating a kind of stasis.
No time to find it interesting. I turned to Rogue.
“You’re on. Get us out of here.”
He wrenched his gaze from Titania’s shuddering form. “I can’t. She holds my leash, Gwynn. Even now. I can’t escape her.”
“The Black Dog can.”
His stunned expression gave way almost instantly to a shout of inhuman victory. Seizing my head in his hands, he kissed me with bruising force—but arching his body not to touch my broken hands. “I love you, brilliant Gwynn.”
As abruptly as he’d grabbed me, he released me, throwing straining arms up to the ceiling and unleashing the wild animal within.
My cat shrieked to join him and I clamped down, hoping she wouldn’t tear me apart now.
Rogue’s transformation went better than the last time I saw it—perhaps the difference between him yielding utterly instead of battling the beast.
The Black Dog shook himself, fastened me with gleaming amber eyes and flashed white fangs. Starling muffled a little shriek.
