Sprenger’s rage was so strong, his entire body began to vibrate. And Quinn was sure the man had yet to blink. His eyes were wide black pits of unspoken evil and fury.

When the explosion came, it was mighty. His roar of rage reverberated off the stone chamber walls. Sprenger slashed his sword down with one hand, aiming for Gemma’s neck. She brought her weapon up, and Quinn waited for the blades to clash.

But then Gemma twisted to the side. A spin, like a dance move. To the grand master’s exposed right. His blade stopped in midair. As all of them watched, he finally blinked, dazed, his anger seeming to drain away.

Quinn focused on Gemma and that’s when he realized she’d buried her blade deep into Sprenger’s right side, just above his waist. Her other arm wrapped around Sprenger’s chest and held him tight; then she pulled the weapon out, and shoved it back in. Yanked it up a bit, tearing the flesh along the way, pulled it out, and shoved it in a few more times.

Sprenger dropped to his knees. He was trying to breathe. His blade was still gripped in his hand, but he was no longer able to lift it.

Gemma pulled her arms away and stepped back—the gladius now buried up to the hilt in Sprenger’s side—and held her hand out. Katla tossed a dagger to her and Gemma easily caught it. Then she moved behind Sprenger and grabbed him by his gray hair. She pulled his head back and put the blade to his throat. She didn’t quickly slash as she had been taught to do. As Quinn had seen her do in battle many, many times before. Instead, she rammed the tip of the blade into the major artery on one side of his neck and dragged the blade from one side to the other, nearly cutting his head off.

When enough blood had flowed from him that the only one who could possibly bring him back was Gemma herself, and that was only as an undead thing, she shoved him to the ground.

Still gripping the dagger in one hand, Gemma pulled the sword from Sprenger’s carcass with the other. She looked at the remaining monks, slowly turning in a circle.

“Anyone else, Brothers?” she called, which seemed strange. Wasn’t the Challenge over now? She’d defeated Sprenger in what seemed to Quinn a fair fight. But just as he had that thought, a monk broke free from those surrounding Gemma. He charged toward her, swinging a sword, but she ducked and slashed her own up, cutting him across the chest and throat. He went down and another attacked. A woman monk with an axe. Gemma blocked the oncoming blow with her sword and stabbed the monk in the neck.

“That’s it,” Laila said, moving forward. But Shona grabbed her shoulder just as several monks moved in front of them to keep them from helping.

“Sprenger’s allies,” Shona said in that flat, emotionless way of hers.

“They’re still loyal,” Katla explained. “They won’t let Thomassin take over.”

Laila searched out Ragna. She now stood in front of Thomassin and the other elders, a double-headed battle axe in her hands. Her team of loyal soldiers with her. The two females exchanged long glances and Ragna finally nodded. Laila turned to Quinn, and she didn’t have to give him any sign. They’d been speaking to each other without words since the day she’d dropped from their mother. He, in turn, signaled Farlan and Cadell.

They didn’t have their weapons but they didn’t need them. They had weapons all around them. They simply had to take them.

Quinn moved first, shifting into his natural battle-ready form and rising up on his hind legs. The monks in front of him were so shocked, he was able to bring down his front legs on them, crushing their skulls in the process. Cadell and Farlan took swords and war hammers from the bodies before shifting themselves and moving toward Gemma. Laila kept her human form but took the spear casually tossed to her by Shona and speared the first monk who attempted to strike.

That’s when all hells broke loose. Sprenger loyalists fought everyone else while Gemma stood at the center of it all since it was she who had killed Sprenger.

Quinn made his way to her side. They’d fought side by side more than once in their time together. But their space was tight here and it was hard to know who was friend and who was foe when everyone was wearing the same thing, down to their short haircuts.

So Quinn stuck with defense rather than offense. He kept the monks off Gemma’s back rather than going after anyone. He didn’t want to accidentally kill a loyal friend she hadn’t mentioned to him.

Laila, Farlan, and Cadell had taken up position by Thomassin and the other elders, alongside Ragna and her troops. A good thing, because they were getting hit hard as well. There seemed to be a new leader among them now that Sprenger was gone. A woman monk filled with rage that someone had taken her messiah from her. She was calling out orders that had the allies attacking the two groups again and again.

“We need to take her down,” Quinn said against Gemma’s ear during a very brief lull in attacks.

“That’s Brother Millie. She adored Sprenger.” Gemma briefly stopped to cut off the leg of one monk and the arm of another by swinging her blade back the other way. The benefit of pure momentum. “She won’t go down easy. And the loyalists won’t let us near her.”

“We need to do something. There’s more of them than I realized.”

“And the rest of our supporters are outside reinforcing the battlements. We need to get word to them.”

A spear aimed for his front legs had Quinn shifting back to human, flipping over the spear, and returning to his natural form. He kicked out his back legs and sent the spear handler flying into several of his brothers.

Before they could decide what move they should make next, Laila walked between them and stared up at the very high windows.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Gemma asked her.

“Do you hear that noise?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

But Quinn heard it. It was a strange, moaning wail and he detested it more than anything he’d ever heard.

* * *

There it was again. So distracting, she looked away from whatever was happening at the monastery. And something was definitely happening at the monastery.

Ainsley turned toward the noise and as she had suspected . . . it came from the clearing. The one that knight had warned her to stay away from. An order she intended to follow. But she still climbed higher in the tree, trying to get a better view. Because she knew something was definitely wrong. All the animals had fled. Birds no longer sang. Foxes no longer hunted. Wolves no longer howled. Even the snakes had slithered away.

That only happened when the earth was about to shake, when the wind was about to blow, or the forest was about to burn. Or . . . when armies marched.

Standing as high as she could, Ainsley looked out. She still saw nothing, but the wailing became so loud she nearly covered her ears. Something was in distress. She knew that.

She climbed down until she reached the ground. She whistled between two fingers and heard her horse gallop toward her. As she gathered her things, she stopped briefly to touch her hand to the earth. It was still distant, but it was there. The rumble of many hooves pounding the ground, coming closer. And whatever was making that horrible sound was in that army’s way.

Ainsley mounted her horse and briefly debated her next move.

She rode toward the sound, frowning as she got nearer. It took her a second to realize that a scouting party had already reached the clearing. And they’d used wizards to break through whatever protective barrier had surrounded it. Now they were torturing whatever was inside. When she was close enough, she dismounted from her horse and pulled her bow. She nocked her arrows and shot the scouts who were supposed to be standing guard at the opening, but were so fascinated by whatever nightmare was going on inside, they’d turned their backs.

Ainsley crept close and peeked inside. Wizards surrounded the tormented beast while seven soldiers held ropes around its throat in an attempt to keep it steady. The wizards chanted spells, but she honestly didn’t know if they were trying to trap it or kill it.

She didn’t wait to find out.

She nocked three arrows in her bow, aimed, and let them fly. She took out two of the wizards and one of the soldiers. She immediately nocked two more arrows while running to a new position. She was able to fire again. Two more soldiers. Soldiers came at her and she ran. With several of the ropes now unmanned, the beast was able to break free. It took off running, but it didn’t run away. It attacked. Charging the soldiers, picking up one in its mouth and biting him in half, then spitting him out before trampling over several others.

While the creature ran, it grew tusks on either side of its bottom jaw. Ridiculously long ones aiming up that it used to impale the wizards throwing fireballs and lightning at it. When it did get hit by magick, it seemed to absorb the damage and spit it back out. Its back legs sent other soldiers flying, possibly miles away.

Ainsley used her bow to block further attacks, but then the beast was there, dragging off a soldier who’d gotten Ainsley on her back and was about to impale her with his sword. It dragged the soldier off and proceeded to toss him around like a limp doll. Banging the man from side to side, up and down, until it tossed the decimated carcass away.

When it was done, the tusks vanished but it was still some half-dead thing that Ainsley had never seen before. Horrifying to look at. She still felt bad for it. And it had still saved her.

If nothing else, it hadn’t tried to eat her. That was something, right?

Eyes wide, she remembered that the ones the beast had killed were only a scouting party.

“You need to run,” she told him. “Run! I have to warn the others.” She scrambled to her feet and took off, stopping to mount her horse along the way and riding hard toward the monastery.

* * *

“It’s stopped,” Laila said.

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. It was strange. Like an animal but . . .” She lifted her gaze to Quinn, and then the siblings looked at Gemma.

Gemma knew that expression. “It wasn’t necessarily her.”

“Are you sure?” Quinn leaned in. “What if she got out? What are you going to do then?”