to find a better angle for attack. Red curls whipped back from the woman’s head.
Niamh was finally flying again—not as a swan, as she was meant to be, but as something a thousand times more monstrous.
And she was angling toward Deirdre.
“I need a gun!” Deirdre shouted, trying to get the sidhe to hear her over the wind. “I can help!”
“No way!” Trevin called back.
Rylie growled, crouched down on her forelegs, tracking the motion of the harpy through the sky.
Niamh folded her wings, plummeting toward them.
She smashed into the wards.
The harpy’s body ricocheted off of the magic.
Niamh couldn’t get through the magic protecting the airship. As long as they were within those wards, they were safe from the harpy. At least, they should have been. But the dirigible was still falling. They were still under attack.
Violet hauled Deirdre toward the door leading back into the airship.
“Get inside!” the sidhe guard ordered. “Stay with the OPA agents!” She slapped the lock. The door slid open.
A man stepped through the doorway and drove a sword into Violet’s gut.
Violet’s mouth dropped open. Glistening blood spilled over her chin, splattered on her chest. The sword protruding from her spine was dull gray, like a thorn of iron, and the man holding it was a weedy redhead. His name was Kristian. He was Niamh’s artist boyfriend and a serpent shifter in the service of the Winter Court.
He kicked Violet’s body off of the sword.
Deirdre backed away from him as quickly as she could without slipping down the pitching deck.
“I didn’t believe them when they said you survived,” Kristian said, advancing on her. The iron sword sizzled with sidhe blood. “I should have listened to the rumors.”
Magic exploded around them again. Niamh had rammed into the wards a second time, and the spells sparked with a waterfall of shining energy.
She was weakening the spells.
Deirdre glanced over her shoulder at Rylie and Trevin. They had edged all the way to the nose of the airship, as far from Kristian as possible. If he’d come armed with a way to kill Rylie’s guards, it wouldn’t be surprising if he’d brought something silver for the Alpha, too.
He didn’t seem interested in Rylie, though.
“What do you think you’re going to do with an iron sword?” Deirdre asked, trying not to sound worried. “If a silver knife won’t kill me, I doubt that would, either.”
“You’re probably right,” he said.
He flashed across the deck, slamming into Deirdre. But he didn’t try to stab her.
Kristian shoved two fingers against Deirdre’s forehead.
His lips moved silently, as though speaking a word that she couldn’t hear.
And just like that, he stepped back again.
“Hope the mark sticks this time,” he said.
“What?” She swiped at the place that he had touched, trying to clean it off. But there was nothing there that she could feel. “What was that? What did you do to me?”
“That’s your death,” Kristian said.
Niamh’s body crashed into the wards protecting the deck a third time. This time, she hit hard enough to punch through the magic, plow into Kristian, and toss both of them into the envelope of the airship.
The point of the iron sword plunged into the airship, ripping a wide hole that vented gas.
“No!” Kristian roared.
Deirdre would have cried out, too, but the gases that gusted from the envelope bowled her over. It was like being punched by Stark.
She flew backwards.
Niamh had shattered the wards, so there was nothing to stop Deirdre from falling. She slipped over the railings with a cry, tumbling heels over head.
The ground was so far down.
One hand flung out, catching the railing. Deirdre dangled. Only two fingers clung to the damp metal.
The airship jerked, battered by the wind.
Deirdre’s hand ripped free.
She plummeted toward the ground.
Now would be a great time for wings.
She still wasn’t shapeshifting. She couldn’t change at all. She couldn’t even summon the fire to keep her warm as she hurtled toward the earth.
Time seemed to slow as the windows of the UN building swept past her. The airship dwindled, veiled by the clouds in which it was suspended. Its envelope vented gas in a white column.
Deirdre wasn’t the only flotsam shaken free of its deck. Rylie was falling too, and the wolf looked so ungainly with her fur and legs lashing around her.
It was an undignified end for the Alpha.
Even now, Deirdre found some small hint of smugness in the idea that Rylie was going to die.
It’s only fair.
Deirdre flipped in the air, unable to control her descent. Her head angled toward the ground. The