Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
NARLA
She’d lost count of the mornings. Each one the same—Wyatt’s arm heavy across her waist, his breath warm at her temple, the strange revolutionary certainty of waking somewhere she was wanted. A feeling she was still learning not to question.
He’d wanted to walk her to the shop. She’d talked him out of it—she knew her route, knew her wards, and had Ember for company.
He’d checked in with Beck’s wolves before she left. Derren was currently at the bakery. They would keep him there if needed. Narla would be safe on her own.
“Call me when you get there,” he’d said, pulling her in for a kiss that lingered. “I mean it.”
She’d reminded him she’d been walking this route for years. “Humor me,” he’d said, and let her go.
The walk from Wyatt’s cabin to Spellbound Lights took twenty minutes through the forest trails.
The memory of his mouth curved her lips as she walked.
The morning air was crisp, carrying the scent of pine and salt from the distant ocean.
Birds sang in the canopy overhead. Everything felt deceptively peaceful.
Narla was halfway to town when the wrongness hit her. But Theo’s wolves said Derren was in the bakery. There should be nothing else to worry about.
But something prickled at the back of her neck. A sensation she’d learned to trust over years of running—the instinct that said eyes are tracking her.
She stopped. Listened.
The birds had gone silent.
Move. Move now.
She didn’t question the instinct. She started walking faster, her hand reaching for the phone in her pocket—
Three figures emerged from the trees ahead.
Not human. Not shifter. Not anything that belonged in the natural world.
They were humanoid, roughly. The right number of limbs in approximately the right places. But the proportions were wrong—arms too long, joints bending at unnatural angles. Their skin had a grayish pallor, like meat left too long in cold storage. And their eyes—
Their eyes were empty. Black pits where consciousness should be.
Constructs.
The word surfaced from memories she’d tried to bury. Niccolas, reading aloud from patient files that didn’t add up.
Some of them talk about undead soldiers. Things that follow orders without question. Things made from—
She hadn’t let him finish. Hadn’t wanted to know.
Now she knew.
The constructs moved toward her with jerky, puppet-like motions. No urgency. No strategy. Just relentless forward momentum, closing the distance with inevitable patience.
Narla’s magic surged, flames dancing at her fingertips, but she remembered what Aero had said. Direct magical attacks fed Devourers. Made them stronger. Were they tethered to Derren—would feeding them feed him too?
She didn’t know. Couldn’t risk it.
Run.
She ran.
The trail behind her was blocked—she could hear more movement in the underbrush, more wrong footsteps approaching. The only clear path was forward, toward town, toward people, toward—
A construct stepped out of the trees directly in front of her.
Narla skidded to a stop. Wheeled around. Two more behind her, emerging from hiding places she hadn’t seen. Four constructs. Four mindless soldiers with empty eyes and reaching hands.
Derren’s message.
She understood with crystalline clarity. He wasn’t trying to kill her. Not yet. He was showing her what he could do. Demonstrating that she wasn’t safe even if he wasn’t around. That nights in a panther’s bed didn’t change the fundamental equation.
You belong to me, those empty eyes seemed to say. You’ve always belonged to me.
“No.” The word came out stronger than she felt. “Not anymore.”
Her magic flared. Fire spiraled up her arms, bright, hot, and furious. If she was going to die here, she’d go down fighting. She’d burn every one of these things to ash and maybe, just maybe, buy herself time to—
The woods exploded.
Something massive and black tore through the underbrush with a sound like thunder. Narla caught a glimpse of midnight fur, of muscles rippling beneath silk-smooth hide, of claws that gleamed in the dawn light—
And then the first construct screamed.
If constructs could scream. The sound it made was more mechanical than organic, a shriek of splitting flesh and snapping bone as the panther hit it like a freight train. Claws shredded through the creature’s torso. Jaws closed around its throat and wrenched.
The construct fell into pieces.
Narla couldn’t breathe.
She’d seen shifters in their animal forms before. Theo’s wolf, massive and gray. Leo’s lion, golden and regal. Even Aero’s dragon, scales glinting in moonlight.
This was different.
Wyatt’s panther was two hundred pounds of lethal darkness. Pure black, no markings, no spots—just shadow given form and hunger. It moved with a fluid grace that shouldn’t have been possible for something so large. Silent despite its size. Deadly despite its beauty.
And its eyes—burning with protective fury—were utterly, unmistakably him.
The second construct lunged for the panther’s flank. Wyatt spun, impossibly fast, and met it with claws that could shred steel. The thing went down in a spray of dark ichor.
The third construct hesitated. Something that might have been calculation flickered in those empty eyes. It looked at its fallen companions, at the panther stalking toward it, at—
At Narla.
It charged her.
She raised her hands, fire blooming—but she wasn’t fast enough. The construct was too close, moving too fast, and those dead fingers were reaching for her throat—
Black fur filled her vision.
Wyatt’s panther intercepted the construct mid-lunge. The impact sent them both tumbling, a tangle of claws and limbs and snarling fury. Narla scrambled backward, her heart in her throat, watching the fight with wide eyes.
It was over in seconds.
The panther’s jaws closed around the construct’s skull and crushed it.
Silence fell over the forest.
Wyatt’s panther stood among the ruins of Derren’s soldiers, sides heaving, muzzle dark with whatever passed for blood in those things. His head swung toward Narla, and that burning gaze swept over her—assessing, checking, cataloguing every inch.
Then he shifted.
It happened faster than she expected. One moment, a massive black cat. The next, Wyatt crouched on the forest floor, naked and human and shaking with residual adrenaline.
“Narla.” His voice was raw. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” She was at his side before she consciously decided to move. Her hands found his face, his shoulders, the pulse hammering in his throat. “I’m fine. You—God, Wyatt, you—”
He pulled her against him. Buried his face in her hair. His whole body trembled with the force of the shift, with the panther still pressing close to the surface.
“I felt it.” The words came out jagged. “I was making coffee and I felt you. Fear. I’ve never—” He broke off, his grip tightening. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“I didn’t do anything. Derren—”
“I know.” He pulled back, but only far enough to look at her. His eyes were still bright with residual gold. Still panther. “Derren’s minions. He’s done with warnings.”
Narla looked at the destroyed constructs. Three of them, reduced to piles of unnatural flesh and shattered bone. Derren had sent three soldiers to corner her on a morning walk, just to prove that he could.
The fear she should have felt during the attack hit her now. Her knees buckled.
Wyatt caught her. Held her upright. His naked body pressed against her clothed one, and she could feel his heat, the lingering predator energy that made the air crackle.
“We need to end this.” His voice had steadied, hardened. “No more waiting. No more gathering information.”
“How?” The word came out small. “He has more of those things. He has—”
“I don’t care what he has.” Wyatt’s expression went sharp. “We have two dragons. We have wolves and lions and bears. We have witches who’ve been preparing for a fight.” His hand cupped her cheek. “We have you.”
“Me?”
“Your candles. Your truth magic.” His gaze held hers, fierce and certain. “You’re the weapon that can strip his disguise. And once he’s exposed, Aero and Delos will burn him out of existence.”
She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to believe him so badly, it ached.
“What if it doesn’t work? What if my candles can’t—”
“Then we find another way.” He kissed her forehead. Hard. A promise. “But we don’t wait for him to make the next move. We take the fight to him.”