59. The Necklace
THE NECKLACE
DAWN
Some of our number chose sleep over death. I wish them well, but that fate isn’t for me. When my time comes, I plan to stay down.
The fluxborn were always fae. Talia’s words rang through Dawn’s whole body. Every tooth on her necklace. Every kill. Not mindless monsters. There’d been people in there.
Smoke hung thick in the air above Haven.
The streets were just carnage. Streets she’d walked, buildings that caged her.
All smoke and coals. She didn’t give a fuck about Haven.
She’d have burned that hellhole herself.
But she doubted the violence would stop here.
She’d be damned if she let them reach Gateway.
There were people there worth protecting.
Fire surged under her skin. She wanted to rage and kill. Reduce the cursed continent to ash. But Talia stood beside her with tears streaking her face. Riven was steady at her back, blades in hand. She wasn’t alone. And her story didn’t end here.
Her mate’s last gift, a location pressed into her mind in those final moments. Deep in the frost caves of Thol Amras, a clutch of pale moonshell eggs waited in the dark. Their children. Violence burned in Dawn’s blood, but protecting that fragile future mattered more.
She lifted her gaze to the smoke, the ruined city, the fae ripping through it. She bared her teeth. Not in grief but in resolve. Dawn had always been a little feral. But now? She was something worse. Something stronger. A mother. A bond-mate. And gods help anyone who tried to touch what was hers.
Talia must have felt the surge of resolve through the bond, because her friend’s hand found Dawn’s shoulder. “We can be dangerous too,” Talia said.
Damn right. They fucking would be.