too close to the basilisk as he moved, crushing them under his massive size, that the others got the hint and truly began to retreat.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Quinn spat. Neiss slithered around, lowering his head as he did. The tip of his nose hit her, and she fell back between his eyes.
“Kneel on me,” he told her. Quinn scrambled back, struggling with the smooth surface of his scales, but managing to stay on as he opened his jaws and bit an archer aiming for her. She felt nothing but a sick kind of joy coming from him as he swallowed the man—bow and all.
“Won’t that hurt?” she asked.
“Tis’ a snack, young one,” Neiss replied happily as they gained ground on the half dozen soldiers that ran from them and headed straight for Dominicus.
“After them,” she urged and Neiss dove. This time the momentum threw her too much and Quinn’s body slipped away as she lifted and was airborne once more. Not for long, she realized, as the end of Neiss’ tail wrapped around her middle, pulling her along. He gained ground, closing in around them when Quinn realized her fault.
Animals, unlike the people that rode them, knew when to run from a greater predator.
That included the animals carrying the very people she was trying to save.
Quinn cursed herself as the steed Dominicus tried to control deemed the basilisk as the greater threat. Quinn saw it all so clearly in that moment. The horse’s panicked wide eyes, the shake of his majestic head. The enemy up ahead, turning back slightly as they ran.
“Neiss,” she said in a panicked voice. “Put me down.” The creature obliged instantly, but the horses kept running, and with Lorraine’s back to them—unprotected. Quinn felt something bubble up in her as Neiss recoiled and shrunk. He knew what she needed, even when she could not say.
“Do what you must, my lady,” he said, instantly withdrawing and slipping beneath her skin once more.
No one paid her any mind when one of the archer’s stopped and took aim.
No one saw what she did as the arrow flew, and this time, there was no errant wind to displace it. A scream tore from her lips as she tried to warn them.
But it was too late. The damage she’d done unknowingly was going to cost her.
The arrow pierced Lorraine’s flesh and the white tunic she wore darkened immediately as blood seeped out. Their eyes met over the great distance as Lorraine’s face contorted in pain and she cried out in surprise and agony. Dominicus rounded the horse, his instincts picking up on the woman’s distress, but it was too late. The action couldn’t be undone.
Time slowed. Paused. Stopped altogether.
Quinn felt it then, something dark and destructive boiling up inside her.
She clenched her fists as several attackers finally noticed that she had called the basilisk back and he was gone. Their eyes focused on where Quinn now stood completely alone. Lazarus and Draeven were too far out. Vaughn was engaged in his own fight and Dominicus rushed to aid the wounded Lorraine. They came for her as that whisper of something ancient and very dark awoke.
She knew then, as her side burned and lit her aflame, that she’d been right to wonder.
The attackers turned on her and Quinn lifted her hands. Tendrils of fear flowed from her skin and theirs, twining together. The two dozen or so that still remained took notice as black strands began to twist and turn.
“You hurt her,” she whispered to them. The darkness inside her reached its breaking point and she knew there would be no return if she did this. A whip cracked in the distance and Quinn froze.
Time stilled for only a moment. A mere blink of an eye.
The whip cracked again, and she saw it. The riders that chased Draeven, and the cruel smirk they wore as they pulled him from his horse and began to beat him. She saw as Lorraine toppled off the back of the horse as Dominicus came to a stop, scrambling to get her before they did. She saw Vaughn, seasoned as he was, being backed into a corner.
And the last one, she didn’t see. Lazarus was to her back and she couldn’t look away even as she felt that dark power inside him rise, bubbling forth. She couldn’t explain it, how she knew where he was and what he was feeling.
But she felt it, and it was that rage that pushed her over.
A final crack split the