Page 26 of Leda's Log

The werewolves snarled.

The vampires tore.

Drake was wrestling with one of the werewolves.

Ivy shrieked. A seven-foot werewolf held her in his claws, his teeth dripping her blood.

Nero punched the werewolf in the face, and the beast flew across the room.

“This isn’t how it happened,” I muttered as a wave of dizziness shook my body.

I reached out to catch myself, but my grasp turned into a punch. A psychic-powered punch.

Someone caught my fist, then threw me to the ground. I kicked back up to my feet, preparing to strike again.

The man yawned very loudly. “I’ve grown bored of your stubbornness, Leda Pierce.”

In a flash of magic, wings sprouted out of his back. They were a brilliant, iridescent mixture of blue and green, bearing a striking resemblance to a peacock’s feathers.

“You’re not supposed to have wings,” I said, frowning at the angel.

It was Balin Davenport, the Legion traitor. Except his new name was Soulslayer. I just hadn’t known that at the time.

“And you’re not supposed to have magic,” he countered.

No, wait. He hadn’t said that.

“Please spare me the inner monologue,” Soulslayer laughed.

“You’re a dark angel,” I said.

This was playing out all wrong. It was totally out of order.

Blasts of dark magic bombarded me from every direction. I tried to run out of their path, but I was too slow. I tried to resist, but my body was giving out. Fireworks of pain pounded at my head, dragging me into the abyss.

“You are pathetic.” Soulslayer sneered down at me.

And then Nero punched him in the face. The dark angel fell. And his minions faded to smoke.

“Thank you,” I told Nero, clutching him for support.

“Always.” He wrapped his arms around me.

The ground disappeared beneath our feet, and then we were falling, falling, falling. An airship burned like a dying sun in the sky above us. Magic sizzled across my back, and my wings flashed out to catch my fall.

“What is going on?” I asked as Nero landed beside me, sprinkling me with a light layer of black, green, and blue feathers.

I caught one of the feathers floating in the air and pressed it to my nose, inhaling his scent. The scent that felt like home. The scent that grounded me, wherever I was.

“I have no idea what’s happening,” Nero said, gazing across the forest-speckled plains.

Monsters were coming. But these monsters weren’t wolves or birds or even dinosaurs. They were trees. The many small forests were on the move.

“They’re coming for us,” I said quietly.

I didn’t have time to react. A deep howl thundered across the expanse. My skin went cold, my body stiff. I looked toward the Fire Mountains. A pack of wolves stood in front of the burning rocks. There were dozens of them, each one as large as a pony. Their eyes burned as red as the mountains’ five fiery peaks.

Nero and I were back in another Legion truck, in another place, in another time.

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