Breath ragged, axe raised like a sentence, Maggie lunged.
Her muscles, galvanized by burning essence, hardly belonged to her anymore. She didn't think—she moved, driven by that ancient fire that knew neither doubt nor mercy. A pure warrior's impulse, born of an instinct forged from all the pain she'd never screamed.
The blade carved an arc through the air—sharp, silent, almost solemn. A perfect decapitation. A release, in itself.
But Dylan… or what he had become… looked up at that precise instant.
And the world slowed.
His black, glassy pupils gleamed with an incandescent light, not quite human. A grin crept across his face—a blasphemous, satisfied grimace. As if he had been waiting for her. As if he knew.
