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Elijah’s words keep ringing inside my head.
Shaking it to dislodge them, shake them out, I walk toward Jason. The big silver wolf is lying on his side, the only sign of life the breath lifting his chest.
“Jax.” I fall to my knees, smooth my hands over the rough fur. “Listen to me. You have to come back. Find the human in you, Jax. I… Come back to me. Can’t do this without you.”
But reaching for his familiar magic isn’t working—the wall Ophelia erected is still there, blocking me. Through the earth, I feel his werewolves. Feel Elijah approaching.
“I got this,” he says, kneeling down beside me. “See to the others.”
And that’s exactly what I do.
“Emrys. Can you hear me?” Carefully, I kneel beside the black dragon. Wolves and panthers don’t scare me as much as dragons and griffins. It’s a matter of familiarity, I suppose, always thinking of the former as real and the latter as mythical and imaginary. Of course the moment I found out that magic exists that distinction shouldn’t have mattered anymore.
Funny, the little things we keep believing, hoarding and holding onto, even when our whole world has shifted on its axis.
I’ve seen them fighting the shift with all they had, all four of them. It was painful and mind-bending. I wonder if shifting so fast was for better or worse. Maybe it was like tearing off a Band-Aid, getting it over with. Sometimes fighting a change hurts all the more.
I don’t want to consider the possibility that staying in this form might hurt them less because it’s probably true. As animals, they won’t have the bad memories they carry, they won’t have to fight all the time.
But being human is also a beautiful thing, despite the pain it brings. And I’m not letting them go, not like this, when they were snatched away without their permission, without the chance to make their own decisions.
His mouth looks terrifying, huge fangs and long, dagger-like teeth. But he’s my demon boy. I know him.
“Rys.” I place my hand on the long neck, and the scales are surprisingly warm, his heartbeat beating steadily underneath. “Listen to me, Rys. You have to fight this. You have to come back. You’re a demon, right? You’re Emrys Ramsden, the most annoying heir of a House ever to be born, and I need you. Please, come back to me.”
Through the fire of his element, I sense Az approaching and regretfully get up. “Bring him back to us, yeah?” I nod at Az and he nods back.
“He’s too much of an asshole to stay out of it for too long,” he tells me and it’s strangely reassuring. “He’ll come back just to cause more trouble.”
I turn away, refusing to let my mouth tremble, and walk toward the black panther sprawled on the ground.
“Ashton. Ash!” I drop to my knees beside him, run my fingers over his velvety fur, those sexy cat ears, the long line of his back, that long tail. “Wake up. You have to come back. I need you. All of us do.”
Percy comes to stand over us, his eyes reflecting the lights from the old-fashioned street lamps placed around the lake. “I’ll shake some sense into him,” he says flatly. “He won’t dare delay us with this animal trick.”
I actually snicker. “Talk to him, Percy. And no shaking. Remember he’s a panther and can eat you if you annoy him. A useful ability, if you ask me.”
“I wasn’t asking you.” He sniffs and sits down cross-legged beside the panther. “I’ll wrestle this asshole back to humankind kicking and screaming.”
Percy. If you’d asked me if I like this boy a week ago, I’d have laughed so hard I’d have hurt myself.
How things change.
Somewhere deep in my mind, I’m aware that I’ve left the griffin for last.
Sindri…
I don’t know why he tugs on my heart so much—I think it was the fact we failed him when the elder took him. I can’t get over the way he’d looked after. The new darkness in his eyes.
I can’t fail him again.
“Sin. Can you hear me?” I lift a trembling hand to the bird-like face, the plumes on his neck blending into golden fur where they meet the leonine body. His feathered wings are folded against his back, his clawed paws lax. “Come back to me, Sin.”
If dragons are unfamiliar to me, griffins are even more so. It’s like with the races. I’d met demons and vampires, even a werewolf or two at the Church, coming to seek asylum or simply a bowl of food and a bed for the night, but never a fae, at least not to my knowledge. Always so elusive. So careful not to be seen.
And griffins even more so.
“Mia? I’m here.” Anala kneels beside me, her sloe eyes wide. “Is it really him? Enkeleth Sindri Tarquin?”
