Page 140 of Kingdom of Chaos
I try to rise. I have to rise. But my body refuses, my limbs dead weight. My magic lies dormant, hollow and unreachable, like it’s slipped beyond my grasp.
I stare up at the sky, the moon haloed by the faint shimmer of the Order’s containment dome, tears filling my eyes.
This is it.I’m going to die.
Both worlds—human and creature—are going to pay the price because I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t strong enough.
A shiver racks through me, sharp and cold, as if the very thought is siphoning the last of my strength. My heart squeezes painfully, a hollow ache where hope should be.
I hope Becks, Ensley, and the others make it back without me. That they get home and stay safe, for as long as possible. And this mess I’ve dragged them into doesn’t swallow them whole.
And Talon . . .
A single tear spills down the side of my face, cutting a hot path across my chilled skin.
I’ll never get the chance to say what I should have said before I walked into this fight.
That I love him.
I catch a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye, Kerrim, I think, coming to finish me off.
My breath stutters. I squeeze my eyes shut, not ready to see the end coming, when a roar splits the night. Deep, guttural,ancient. The beastly cry rattles my bones, shaking loose every thought except one: danger.
A pulse of magic surges in the air, sharp and biting, like winter itself has descended on the park, and my eyes snap back open. The temperature plummets so fast my breath fogs in front of me, frost crackling in the grass as the air crystallizes.
A massive form bursts from the tree line in a blur of silver and white, a streak of frost spiraling in its wake. Wings unfurl—wide, powerful, and shimmering like fractured ice in the moonlight. Its scales are a swirling blend of silver, blue, and white that gleams like a storm trapped in crystal. A blast of freezing air explodes from its terrifying jaws, a shockwave of cold so intense the moisture in the air crackles into snowflakes.
Kerrim, caught in the blast, is hurled across the clearing, spinning wildly out of control over the frost-slick grass before slamming into a tree with a sickening thud.
The creature turns, chest heaving, breath curling out in shimmering plumes. He’shuge, easily twice the size of any dragon I’ve ever heard of, let alone seen.
My heart stutters, frozen by fear and something else: recognition.
Then I see them.
Those eyes.
Blue-gray, sharp as shattered glass, familiar, and locked on me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters.
Impossible.
“Talon?” I breathe, my voice barely a whisper as I somehow manage to struggle to a sitting position.
The dragon—Talon—locks eyes with me, a promise burning in that feral gaze.
He’s an ice dragon, the rarest of all shifters, a myth in the creature world, the last of which was said to have been hunted out of existence hundreds of years ago by the fire-breathingdragons because their power was so great they were seen as a threat to the rest of the clans.
But clearly he’s no myth.
And he’s here for me.
Frost blooms across the ground with every step he takes toward me, the earth cracking beneath the weight of his claws. Every breath he takes exhales a ghostly mist, curling around him like a living thing.
A shudder runs through me, sharp and disorienting, as I stare up at him, at the impossible creature he’s become. My pulse pounds in my ears, and for a moment the weight of what I’m seeing crushes everything else. My mind can’t quite keep up. It’s too much. Too impossible. Too . . . Talon.
The truth clicks into place, sharp and searing, leaving me breathless.
A hundred questions claw at the edges of my mind, but as I stare up at the impossible creature before me, his scales catching the moonlight like shards of glass and his breath curling in the air like a storm contained, it all makes sense.
