Page 89 of The Midnight Death Match
Leif raises his sword, the steel singing as it clears its sheath. “This ends now, sister. You’ve become everything Father feared you might.”
The word “sister” hits like a blade between my ribs. But instead of the familiar hunter and wolf splitting I expect, something new happens.
Fear crystallizes into clarity. The pain transmutes into purpose. And for the first time in my life, instead of choosing between my two natures, I feel them merge.
My hunter mind maps the battlefield with tactical precision while my wolf senses expand to encompass every heartbeat, every shift in stance, every flicker of movement. I smell fear-sweat on the attackers despite their bravado, hear whispered prayers of the fae loyalists on Courtsview’s walls, feel tremors in the earth as the dragons prepare to strike.
“I am not corrupted,” I say, and my voice carries both the wolf’s primal authority and the hunter’s deadly calm. “I am complete. Not a monster, but something new. And all I want is peace between the sides.”
Gunnar’s eyes narrow. “Kill her!”
The battle erupts with savage intensity. Leif comes at me first, his sword work polished and precise. My hunter mind reads his patterns, anticipates his strikes, while my wolf reflexes move my body in fluid dodges that shouldn’t be possible. I draw my own blade and meet his attack, steel ringing against steel in a deadly dance.
Around us, chaos blooms with equal intensity. Harek moves like a liquid shadow, his arrows finding gaps in armor with surgical precision. The dragons unleash their fury—Vash’s flames turn three attackers to ash while Sapphire’s claws rake deep furrows across the meadow as she scatters a group of fae warriors coming from the trees.
But there are too many enemies, and even more continue emerging from the forest. I find myself pressed back, fighting both Leif and two fae warriors simultaneously. In the past, this would have been where I fell, where the split between my natures left me vulnerable.
Instead, I flow. My wolf nose catches the scent of an attacker moving behind me even as my hunter eyes track Leif’s blade work. I spin, blade deflecting my brother’s strike while my off hand catches the fae warrior’s wrist, my grip augmented by wolf strength. A twist, a snap, and the fae’s weapon goes flying.
I smell the second fae’s fear as he hesitates, hear his rapid heartbeat even over the clash of steel. My hunter mind calculates angles while my wolf instincts read his body language, and I know exactly where he’ll strike before he even flinches.
The integration is intoxicating. Every sense heightened, every movement perfectly timed, predator and tactician united in deadly harmony.
From Courtsview’s walls come the sound of gates opening. Fae loyalists pour out—dozens of warriors whose allegiance lies with me rather than fear. They hit Gunnar’s forces from the side like a silver tide, evening the odds.
“Treacherous dogs!” Gunnar roars, his own blade finding the throat of a fae warrior. “You side with corruption!”
One of the loyalist fae answers with steel instead of words. His blade meets Gunnar’s in a shower of sparks.
The battle rages across the meadow—dragon fire, fae magic, and human battle techniques turn the peaceful grassland intoa scarred battlefield. I find myself at the center of it all, my unified nature allowing me to fight with a fluidity that leaves my opponents stunned.
I sense Harek’s position without looking, coordinate with him in ways that seem telepathic to humans but natural to wolves. When a fae warrior’s spell sends crystalline spears racing toward me, my wolf reflexes throw me aside while my hunter mind calculates the trajectory of my return strike. My blade finds the spell caster’s heart before he can conjure another attack.
Leif presses his assault, his technique flawless but increasingly desperate. “You’re not my sister anymore,” he pants between strikes. “You’re a thing to be destroyed.”
“I’m exactly what I’ve always been.” My voice remains steady even as I fight off three opponents at once. “You just chose to see me as a monster.”
My unified senses catch something that makes my blood freeze. The subtle change in air pressure that means someone is preparing a massive spell. I spin to see one of Gunnar’s fae allies raising a staff crowned with swirling darkness, power building around him like a storm.
The spell isn’t aimed at me. It’s aimed at Vash, and he’s engaged with four warriors, his attention focused on the immediate threats. He won’t sense the magical attack until too late.
I move without thought, my unified nature allowing perfect coordination between instinct and intellect. I sprint across the battlefield, vaulting over fallen warriors and sliding under Sapphire’s sweeping tail. The fae mage sees me coming and tries to redirect his spell, but it’s too late.
I reach him just as the dark magic reaches its crescendo. Instead of trying to dodge or deflect the spell, I do something that would have been impossible for either hunter or wolf alone.I grab the staff itself, my hands closing around the wood just below the magical focus.
The spell discharges through me instead of toward Vash, dark energy coursing through my unified nature. It would kill anyone else, but my wolf side is already touched by shadow, and my hunter training has taught me to endure pain. The two natures together absorb the attack, transmute it, turn it back on itself.
The mage screams as his own spell rebounds through the staff into his body. Dark fire consumes him from within, leaving nothing but ash and the echo of his death cry.
I stand over the remains, power still crackling between my fingers.
For a moment the entire battlefield goes silent. Friend and foe alike stare at me with expressions ranging from awe to terror.
Gunnar breaks the silence with a wordless roar of rage, abandoning his duel with a fae captain to charge directly at me. His blade sweeps in a perfect killing arc, powered by fury and desperation.
I meet his charge with perfect calm. My unified senses read every detail of his attack—the slight tremor in his wrist that means he’s tiring, the way his left shoulder dips that tells his intended follow-up strike, the bitter scent of his determination.
Then I step inside his guard as smoothly as water flowing around stone. My blade finds the gap in his armor just below his ribs, sliding between metal plates with surgical precision. The steel goes deep, piercing lung and heart.
