Chapter 22 #2
Raven stepped clear of Lucien without so much as a backward glance, unbothered by her nakedness or anyone’s reaction to it. Then she shifted.
It started in her spine—a violent crack that echoed through the trees and sent birds scattering from the canopy. Selena flinched beside me, and I pulled her closer, my arm tightening around her waist as we watched.
Her bones elongated with wet, grinding snaps.
Muscles rippled and swelled beneath skin that darkened, thickened, and hardened into scales.
Her fingers stretched into talons. Her jaw unhinged and pushed forward, teeth multiplying into razor-sharp rows.
The transformation was brutal and mesmerizing—not graceful, not painless, but raw and powerful and undeniable.
Where Raven had stood seconds ago, a dragon now towered above us.
Shimmering silver scales caught the moonlight and threw it back in fractured beams that danced across the cypress trees.
She was enormous—her wingspan alone would have blotted out the sky if she’d unfurled them fully.
A low rumble rolled from deep in her chest, vibrating through the ground beneath my boots.
Every time I saw Raven in this form, she stole the breath right out of my lungs.
I’d seen other dragons in my lifetime—crimson ones that burned like living embers, deep greens that blended into ancient forests, even a black dragon whose scales had swallowed light like a void.
But none of them compared to this. Silver was something else entirely.
It was moonlight forged into muscle and bone.
It was armor and elegance and raw, devastating power all wrapped into one creature.
Magnificent didn’t even cover it.
“Everyone on the dragon express,” Lucien said, his voice cutting through my awe. He jerked his chin toward his brother. “Darius and I will fly.”
Darius’s silver eyes gleamed, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Can you keep up? I can fly as fast as a dragon.”
“Is that a challenge?” Lucien clapped him on the back hard enough to make most men stumble, but Darius didn’t so much as shift his weight.
Lucien reached into his jacket and produced a small blue vial, the liquid inside shimmering like captured sky.
“Anton gave me something that helps me match her speed.” He uncorked it and downed the contents in one swallow, grimacing as it hit.
Anton. The ancient vampire who served as headmaster of Legacy Academy. Like Angelo, he hoarded magical artifacts and enchanted relics the way other men hoarded wealth. The difference was, Anton actually shared them when it mattered.
Raven lowered herself, her massive body settling against the ground with a grace that defied her size.
Selena was rigid against me, her lips parted, eyes wide.
She’d probably read about dragons in her textbooks at the Academy, but reading about one and standing ten feet from a living, breathing beast covered in silver scales were two very different things.
I loosened my arm from her waist and took her hand instead, steadying her as she climbed up the curve of Raven’s shoulder and settled between two ridges of silver scales.
I swung up behind her and the surface beneath me gave slightly—warm, surprisingly smooth, like sitting on a wide leather chair that happened to breathe. Each slow rise and fall of Raven’s ribs reminded me that this seat was alive and could incinerate us all if she chose to.
Not the most comforting thought. But at this point, a dragon was the least terrifying thing we were facing today.
Rose climbed up next, quiet and sure-footed.
Alice followed, Darius catching her eye and holding it for a beat longer than necessary before he stepped back to give himself room to take flight.
Valentin mounted last, settling at the rear with the calm authority of someone who’d ridden stranger things than dragons.
I slipped my arms around Selena’s waist, pulling her back against my chest. She fit against me like she’d been designed to. Her hand came down over mine, pressing my palm flat against her stomach, and something fierce and protective surged through me.
I wouldn’t let her fall. Not off this dragon. Not anywhere. Not ever.
Something moved in the bayou. My vampire sight caught it instantly—a dark shape sliding between the cypress trunks—too deliberate to be an animal, too fluid to be human. Then I saw the eyes. Twin points of burning red, glowing like hot coals pressed into the shadows.
Every nerve in my body fired at once.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My arms locked around Selena, crushing her against my chest. “Move!” I shouted, the word ripping from my throat. “Move! They’ve found us!”
Raven’s massive wings unfurled with a sound like a sail catching a gale, silver scales flashing as they spread wide enough to blot out the canopy.
Her haunches coiled and she launched skyward with a force that slammed me back against the ridge of scales behind me.
Wind screamed past my face. My stomach dropped as the ground fell away beneath us—ten feet, twenty, fifty—the bayou shrinking into a patchwork of dark water and twisted trees.
Lucien and Darius shot up on either side, flanking Raven like fighter jets escorting a bomber.
Lucien moved with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a vampire without wings—whatever Anton had given him, it was working.
Darius cut through the air beside him, his dark form barely more than a blur against the pale sky.
I twisted and looked down.
The shape stood at the edge of the clearing where we’d been seconds ago. Still. Motionless. Those burning red eyes tracked us as we climbed, the dark head tilting slightly, watching our ascent the way a predator watches prey it’s already decided not to chase.
My blood chilled.
It looked like a wolf. Massive and black, its outline rippling against the shadows of the bayou like it was woven from them.
Angelo could shift into a black wolf. So could Costin.
But something about this creature felt different—older, wronger, like the darkness around it wasn’t shadow but something the thing was generating on its own.
It didn’t lunge. Didn’t give chase. Just watched.
That bothered me more than if it had attacked.
An enemy that charges, you can fight. An enemy that watches—that stands in the open and lets you see it, lets you know it found you, and still doesn’t move—that enemy is delivering a message.
We know where you are. We’ll come when we’re ready.
Selena’s fingers dug into my forearm. She’d seen it too. When I looked down at her, her face was pale but her eyes were hard. Not afraid. Furious.
That made two of us.