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The stiffness left Nate’s face, leaving only a stunned blankness. “Ren,” he said, his voice quieting. “I didn’t mean— Of course I know how strong youare.”
My anger eased off. I knew he hadn’t meant to offend me. “Okay,” I said. “Then treat me like you know it. I’m not a china doll. Go ahead and look out for me—but let me look out for you too. That’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’tit?”
He inclined his head, a faint flush of shame coloring his cheeks. Marco cleared his throat. “If we’re done with the dressing down, deserved as it might be, can we get moving? I’m liking this vacation less and less with every newdevelopment.”
“No kidding.” I turned toward the passage ahead. A glimmer caught my eye, there and then gone. My heart leapt. “I think it’s almostover.”
Chapter 10
Ren
As much asI wanted to run through the cave toward the beckoning glimmer, I held my legs in check this time. I didn’t want to be caught unprepared by another booby trap. But the tug dragged at my chest and that hint of light called to me, propelling me onward as fast as I’d let myselfwalk.
The light brightened as we got closer, but it didn’t expand. I realized why soon enough. The passage ahead of us narrowed into a slit so thin Nate was going to have to walk sideways to squeeze through it. The light was emanating from beyondit.
As I stepped through the opening, the light flared so bright that my vision filled with white. It didn’t sting my eyes, though, only filled them with a faintlytingle.
I blinked the brilliance away. I’d come into a large, round room where the stone walls and floor were completely smooth. A pedestal stood in the center of the room. A clear crystal nearly the size of my head rested in its rocky hold. The light and a faint warmth glowed from within the crystal. The glimmer danced like a flame as I stared atit.
The tug inside me had fallen away. This was where it’d been leading me to. This was where I was meant tobe.
I eased forward with a few careful steps. Shapes were carved into the pedestal’s base. I bent down to examine them, holding my breath inawe.
The etchings showed the forms of dragons and other figures that looked almost human. But not quite. They were a little too tall and a little too slim to look exactly right. Like the fae woman we’d met below in the caves—like the fae man I’d seen my mother talkingto.
The dragons and the fae stood side by side, sometimes touching, sometimes facing one another. In one depiction, a fae figure sat astride on a dragon’s back. There was little detail to the faces, but all of the pictures gave me a friendlyvibe.
I brushed my fingers over the fine grooves in the stone. “I think this must be something the dragon shifters and the fae created together,” I said. “And that must have been a very long time ago, if there’s no record of them spending timetogether.”
Aaron nodded, coming up behind me. I circled the pedestal to give him room, and my gaze fell on not just pictures but words carved into the otherside.
Between fae and draco, a power we birth, to give the clearest sight. To be taken in a time when no other power can set the worldright.
A shiver ran through me, reading the words. Above them, the images showed a figure lifting the crystal, then dropping it. In the last etching, a jagged flare exploded up from it over thefigure.
That was what I had to do?Smashthat crystal? I wasn’t even sure what this powerwas. And the thought of even touching the glowing crystal made menervous.
It had been waiting here for centuries. Was it really meant forme?
Mom had thought so. She’d made it almost this far. From what she’d said in her vision, she must have intended to bring the crystal back for me to take its power. All those trips away from home, I had to assume she’d been checking up on the shifter community. Seeing how they were getting by without us. What she’d seen, the disarray the alphas had told me about, had driven her here. To this desperatemeasure.
Maybe in a time when all the supernatural communities were in conflict, when rogue shifters had succeeded in nearly eliminating dragon-kind, we did need to turn to somethinggreater.
It didn’t matter what I was getting into. We’d come this far. I had to take this final step, or the whole journey had been fornothing.
West stalked around the room warily, but he didn’t make any comment. Marco ambled over beside me to read the words for himself. Nate stayed by the door as if standing guard—and maybe also keeping a little distance from me after my outburst. I didn’t regret anything I’d said, but I could feel his unhappiness from across the room. It painedme.
As soon as I got this over with, we could move on. And no one would be able to claim I wasn’t powerful enough to hold myown.
I felt all of my alpha’s eyes on me as I lifted the crystal from the pedestal. The faceted surface was glossy and hard as glass, but even warmer than the air around it. I gave in to the urge to hug it to my chest. The flickering heat licked over me, beckoning. Wanting to reach all the way intome.
My heart thumped. I raised the crystal to the level of my forehead. The light inside sparkled with a rainbow of colors. My chest tightened. I braced myself and dashed the crystal on the stone floor by myfeet.
Light exploded up over me with an even sharper rush of heat. A searing energy rippled through my skin and into my bones. My pulse stuttered, and my mouth went dry. Hell, that wasintense.
The energy flared right over my eyes from the inside out. The room around me faded into a gleaming haze. Through that haze, a silhouetted figureemerged.
“Greetings, worthy one,” she said as the thrumming energy wrapped tighter and tighter around me. “The flame of truth is yours. Burn to destroy or burn away lies to get at what is real: The choice will be yours. Now goforward!”
