Page 103 of The Stone Initiation
I suck in a breath and exhale, letting my own chimera free. My wings twist and snap, becoming wider, and serrated at the tips, my neck elongates and curves, vision switching to thermal through my dragon eyes, and my body tightens and streamlines itself into a pantherine form.
This beast beneath our gargoyle skin is a perk of being from one of the five most powerful bloodlines. This is what gives us an edge.
A shriek blasts out of the tunnel.
“Such a shame,” the voice says. “Goodbye elites.”
The ground shakes and a scaled gray form bursts out of the ground toward us.
Orix attacks, slamming into it and latching onto its hide to take it up into the air. There’s no time to check if he has the beast under control because another comes at me.
My roar blasts it back a step but only for a moment. Our bodies collide in a flurry of claws, talons, and lethal teeth. I twist and smash my paw into its head, knocking it to one side.
It rakes at me with claws that can cut through a gargoyle hide given enough force. I catch the gleam of venom. New venom, the kind we don’t have a cure for yet.
Fuck.
I fly back to avoid the swipe. And something lands on my back.
Watch out!Orix bellows in my mind.
Too late
I twist and flap my serrated wings. Blood sprays, the creature shrieks and releases me.
The one I had pinned a moment ago is up and rushing at me. My bellow knocks it back, and a tail swipe takes down the one running up behind me.
I need to kill one.
More incoming!Orix yells.
Fuck. I relinquish control to the beast, and for the next few moments my body acts on primal instinct, no thought except survival. No mission except annihilation. This is berserker mode, and I’m here but not here. I smell the blood, hear the screeches, feel the burn that rakes along my side. But I’m not in control.
Not until Orix’s voice pulls me back.
“Serath, we have to go. We have to go now!”
I snap back into the driver’s seat. We’re several meters away from the hole in the ground. There are three dead humans on the gravel and a graynite standing over them. He throws back his head and screeches.
“Shift now.” Orix orders.
I drop the chimera form and pain shoots through me, sinking into my side like angry teeth.
“Human form now,” Orix orders
I shift again and I’m burning up.
The ground trembles. More are coming. My legs buckle. “Orix?” My vision fades.
I’m wounded. The venom is in my bloodstream.
Orix wraps his arms around me and launches himself into the air. “I’ve got you, brother. I’ve got you. You’re going to be fine.”
But he’s lying because there is no cure. No way to draw the venom from my body, not for at least another twenty hours.
I’m dead already.
I close my eyes and picture Cameron in her red slip of a dress. I’m sorry, Cameron. I’m sorry I won’t be able to keep my promise.
