Page 199 of Gift from the Source
One second there was a rolling wave of Mastery bitches, the next a geyser was pelting me in the chest. It sent me flying away from my family.
I’ve got eyes on Corentin and Tillman now, who are trying to get closer to each other. They’re laying waste on any in their way.
I could shift and join them, but there’re so many shifters on this side of the battlefield. Our people are taking a beating, they’re so outnumbered.
Lyker’s pack is fending them off the best he can. Daddy Dyce was doing damage, but he disappeared. Keeper and Tanith are in the skies, attacking from above.
I can’t leave them over here alone.
I can’t find fucking Cas.
Or Willow.
I need to see my little wanderer.
Where the fuck is she?
“Willow,”I growl as I slice a claw across the neck of an unsuspecting victim as they jump on the back of one of Lyker’s wolves.
“I’m fine. I’ll get to you all as soon as I can,”she grunts back, and my beast growls.
The primal urge to hunt intensifies and the roar I release has shifters hitting the ground. Both ours and theirs. I pull the command back from my own people and join them in their pursuit.
Animals.
That’s what we are as together we tear apart everyone in their second skin.
The thrum of a flight fighting together slithers its way through my veins. My breathing quickens and my dragon’s chest preens as they look to me for commands and orders. The same creatures who once looked at me in fear, look to me for guidance now.
And I give it to them.
Because despite my blood-drenched claws and jaw, I’m not a monster.
I am the King of Creatures.
V’s words pulse through my mind.
The first time I heard them, I wanted to deny such a title being placed on someone such as myself. A bastard child raised in a brothel where he thought it was normal. I was just a bigger version of the snot-nosed kid who had to beg for scraps of food at people’s feet. Except now it wasn’t food.
It’s acceptance.
He gave me no choice but to accept I am what I am.
It continues to prove true as I stare out across the blood and gore brought before me by the vicious beasts that are more animal than man or woman right now. They look to me for the next plan of attack or approval for their current kill.
Because I am the strongest and most dominant of them all.
I am and will always be the one and only natural-born dragon shifter.
I had to be the weakest to become the strongest.
I know what it's like to beg to survive. I refuse to lord over them or bring them to their knees where they beg for what they need. It’s my responsibility to guide them, teach them, and show them how to be one with the other half that lives inside them.
I will take care of them.
My claws drive through the head of a snake as it rears back, readying to strike the pup it’s suffocating. Its long body becomes dead weight as it uncoils and I rip it in half, roaring to the heavens in warning.
A soul-piercing screech responds.
