Silence - By Kailin Gow Page 0,50

could do that.

“I accept it,” Briony yel ed above the rush of the wind. “I accept it al . Whatever this means, I take it.

I am the daughter of King Waltham, and this is mine to take. Whatever power he has to wield against these dark ones, whatever power there is to heal, I accept it.”

Power shot into Briony like a lance. It was hot and cold, dark and light, al at the same time. It was possibility in its purest form, and it was so much more than that. It was fire, streaming through every cel as it changed her, and yet it didn’t hurt. It was magic.

Purely, simply magic, pouring into Briony, flowing through her until she was sure that she glowing with it.

Was this what it had been like for Aunt Sophie? Had she felt this moment, when everything was so perfect? Or did Briony get something more from it because her dragon was pushing the power into her, forcing the change faster than it might have happened otherwise? Briony simply didn’t know.

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she could feel herself changing, moment by moment. Her Hugtandalfer fangs were out, while her whole body felt different. Lighter somehow. More in tune with the world around it. Briony could see some of the combatants in the room below staring up at her. Did the process look that spectacular from the outside?

Archer flew in to set Briony down in the room, transforming once more so that he could rejoin the fight and knocking a pair of vampires back with a jumping kick that kept them wel away from Briony.

Vigor, meanwhile, had paused in the middle of an intricate passage of swordplay, locking blades with one of the older vampires while he stared at Briony.

“So it’s true,” Vigor said quietly, “You are King Waltham’s daughter. You are one of us.”

He shoved the vampire he was fighting

back and beheaded it, but Briony wasn’t paying him any attention... her mind clearly focused on one thing.

Her eyes were fixed firmly on Kevin, who lay there, stil in his wolf form, on the floor. Briony knew what she had to do. She knelt by Kevin and pushed the faintest pulse of power into him, as gently as breathing.

The effect was quick and there was no longer a wolf there. Instead, Kevin lay on his front in human form, looking around at Briony weakly. He smiled, just barely.

“I always knew you were special.”

“Shh,” Briony said, wrapping her arms around him, feeling the love that she felt for him.

Except that it wasn’t just love. It was the magic too, pulsing just beneath the surface with every thought Briony had of how much she cared about Kevin. Was that what magic was? Love? Briony wanted to think so in that moment as she held Kevin to her and let the warmth of intertwined love and power wrap around them.

That wasn’t just a figure of speech. Light extended from Briony, pushing out in a half sphere that cocooned her and Kevin. One of the vampires touched it and jerked back, burned by it. The power wasn’t there to burn, though. It was there to heal.

Briony pressed her hands to the wound on Kevin’s shoulder, one on top of the other. His skin felt cool to the touch now, but almost as soon as Briony noticed it, warmth started to pour into him. She paid attention to the edges of the wound, and they started to close up, healing with tremendous speed. The wound faded from a gash to a scrape, and then to a mere pink line on the skin. A second after that, and there was no sign that Kevin had ever been injured.

Briony bent to kiss Kevin, knowing now that she loved him. They had both been transformed by their journey to Palisor, him becoming what was needed to defeat vampires, her coming into her Hugtandalfer heritage, yet they were both, in so many ways, exactly the same people. Briony was stil herself, even if she was a princess now, and she stil loved Kevin as much as she ever had back in Wicked.

Even a trip to a strange and impossible world couldn’t change that.

It seemed that Kevin felt the same, because he turned over as Briony went to kiss him, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her into a kiss of his own. It started out gently, but Briony could feel the need there, and soon, it was as passionate a kiss