Page 69 of The Panther's Price

They caged you in dreams, hid your teeth in silk. No more.

Her breath rattled. The pain blurred. But herbloodsang louder than anything now.

Shadow rose. But not Selyne’s.

Hers.

It coiled beneath her, slow and hungry. The rune circle hissed, reacting too late. Evryn felt something beneath her skin peel back—like her own magic had beenwaiting, chained in slumber.

And it wasdonewaiting.

Selyne stepped back. “What is this?—”

Evryn’s body arched.

Her bones didn’t crack, theyshifted.Her muscles writhed under skin that shimmered with silver vein-light. Her scream turned guttural, then feral.

The chains snapped.

Not from brute force but from sheerwill.

The runes on the floor lit up, then flickered, then shattered.

Queen Selyne stumbled backward, lips parting.

Evryn stood. No—rose.

Taller. Broader. Her shadow cast a shape it had never dared before.

A silhouette draped in feline grace.

Eyes gold-bright and pupil-slit.

Fangs bared.

ThePanther Queen—not just born, butawakened.

Evryn stepped forward. The chains at her feet turned to smoke.

Selyne whispered something, casting a glyph in the air.

Evryn bared her teeth. “No more cages.” Her voice was not alone. It echoed. Like generations of forgotten queens had risen behind her.

The shadows exploded outward.

And Selyne for the first time—stumbled.

THIRTY-ONE

LUCIEN

Lucien knelt in the overgrown alcove behind the crumbling Hall of Ancients, his fingers stained with blood—none of it his own. Two guards lay crumpled in the corridor behind him, unconscious. He’d spared them.

Barely.

The message had to go now.

He dragged a dagger across the inside of his forearm, whispering the spell as the blood ran. His shadows responded instantly, curling around the wound like ink pulled to a quill.

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