Page 31 of Fastlander Fealty

The splashing of the river was enormous, like some tornado had taken the currents and were lifting them into the air. She only got a flash of pitch-black fur, and the blur of something lighter. The war was enormous and as the water fell off enough for her to see the boar and the bear circle each other in the shallows, Silver’s heart sank to the river bottom.

Owen. Was. Huge.

She hadn’t ever seen a shifted boar in person, and hadn’t known what to imagine. It wasn’t like one of the wild boars she’s seen run across the road when she was little. He had to be a thousand pounds of aggression, and so much bigger than any natural born animal. His eyes were the color of blue ice, and foot-long tusks protruded from his bottom jaw. They were already tipped and dripping with red. His black fur was spiked in a bristled mohawk down his back.

The grizzly across from him had his ears flattened against his head and venom in his eyes as he charged. The blur of violence was shocking, even to a lion shifter who should’ve been used to it. This wasn’t like the lion fights she’d witnessed. This was two monsters with different skill sets trying to kill each other.

“Can you stop them?” she cried out to Gunner.

The Alpha was dragging his kayak toward the bank, his back to the battle. He turned and slid her a terrifying bi-colored silver and blue glare. He turned and lifted his soaking wet white t-shirt to expose a massive slash down his ribs that was only half-healed. “I tried to stop them last night. No point!” he yelled. “Let them kill each other.”

“Oh my gosh,” she whispered, stumbling through the water toward the fight that was pushing farther upstream. “There’s humans!” Silver pointed upriver at the group on floats heading toward them.

“I’ll stop them,” Hallie called as she struggled through the waist-deep water. A snarl ripped out of her, and her grizzly shredded out of her, and charged the battle.

“Fuck!” Corey yelled at Silver as she ran past her. “You caused it. Fix it!” Her bear ripped from her so close to Silver, she was thrown to the side and was barely able to stay upright.

Fix it? How could Silver fix it? She was one lioness in a Crew of titans much bigger than her animal. She couldn’t fix anything!

Upriver there was a huge plume of purple smoke that cut off her view of the screaming humans floating down toward them. Silver struggled through the deepening water and closed her eyes as her skin began to tingle with the first signs of the Change.

This was going to be so bad.

The lioness ripped out of her, and her pained scream turned to a roar. She didn’t have control like this. Not like the Fastlanders. She’d been separated from her animal years ago and now everyone in the Fastlanders would see how fucked up she really was.

All Silver could do was watch helplessly as her animal bolted through the shallows and leapt through the air, her claws extended.

She would go after the boar, because he was the biggest threat. She would go after Owen because that’s what her animal did. That’s why she’d been so attractive to Rook. That’s why she’d been chosen to be a Queen. She didn’t go after wars she could win. She went after the biggest danger. She bought others time, at the detriment of herself.

I’m sorry, she thought as her claws sank into the flank of the enormous boar.

Something awful happened. Something awful and confusing.

Owen’s animal disappeared the second she sank her claws into his hide, and Owen yelled in pain as he pitched into his human form under her weight. Captain was already on him, and now Owen was at the mercy of the massive grizzly. Silver faced off with him and went under him as Owen was pushed back into the water. He was yelling something incomprehensible, his voice roaring in her head, but she was busy. It wasn’t just Captain in this now, the she-grizzlies had joined, and the confusion of whether Silver was ally or foe turned everyone against each other. It was a mass of battling, and for Silver personally, pain.

Silver was pushed into deeper water, and she struggled to keep her head above the surface as the grizzlies fought. She went under, pushed off the bottom hard, and broke the surface, but where she expected to smell fresh air, there was smoke instead. Not the purple kind that was cutting off the humans’ vision of them upstream, but dark gray thick plumes of smoke that accompanied a blistering heat she didn’t understand.

Strong hands yanked her out from under one of the grizzlies, and the battle was breaking up, she could tell. The hands pulled her under the water, and she panicked, kicking hard and slashing with her claws.

Owen wrapped his arms around her middle tight enough to threaten crushing her ribs, and he kicked hard, swimming with her, dragging her backward into deeper water. What was he doing? She would drown! She hadn’t known to take a deep breath of air before she’d gone under, and already her lungs were screaming!

Silver looked at the surface just in time to see flames drag straight across where she had just been.

It burned! It burned so bad! The water heated to a boil around them, millions of bubbles rushing to the surface, and Owen was trying so hard to drag her deeper. She could see that now. Her lungs were on fire, needing oxygen, but she helped. She kicked with him, trying to escape that blistering heat in desperation.

Damon.

It had to be dragon’s fire.

She was going to die under the anger of the Blue Dragon.

She needed air. She needed to breathe!

She kicked hard, but Owen was so strong. Owen, help!

Her lungs filled with water, and the lioness left. Just…left her body.

She Changed with nothing left in her, right in Owen’s grasp, and her vision collapsed inward.

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