Cass’s POV

"Kanda... I can't! You're my friend!"

"Then prove it by fighting, Cass!" Kanda shouted, her voice laced with desperation. "We don't have a choice!"

She swung her heavy axe in a lethal arc. I dodged, but she was faster than she looked. With a brutal efficiency, she dropped the axe’s haft, smashing it directly into my mouth. The impact was blinding. Before I could recover, she threw me, then lunged to reclaim her weapon. I rolled beneath the blade as it buried itself in the mud, and in one fluid motion, I drove my dagger into her thigh.

She collapsed, but she didn't yield. She flung me to the ground, her fingers locking onto my mask.

Rip.

Pain, white-hot and agonizing, shattered my senses as the metal tore free. I was thrown backward, blood streaming down my face. My vision blurred, yet through the ringing in my ears, I saw Kanda standing over me, her face pale with remorse.

Then, she did the unthinkable. She tossed her axe aside, snatched up my daggers, and slid them across the dirt to me.

"Pick them up!" she commanded. "Fight! Give yourself a chance!"

I scrambled to my feet. If I was going to die, I wouldn't do it on my knees. I snatched the daggers, my rage eclipsing the pain.

"Kill them all," Kanda muttered, sprinting toward me unarmed. She grabbed me, and with a burst of strength that defied logic, she hurled me through the air—straight toward Zao.

I hit him like a projectile, pinning him to the ground. My daggers found his chest again and again.

One, two, three.

By the time I stopped, Zao was nothing but a broken heap of flesh.

The arena descended into chaos. Ezra stared at me, his face draining of color. I felt a cold, demonic surge—a power deeper than anything Warrick had ever possessed.

"DIE!" I screamed.

The guards surrounding Ezra dropped dead in an instant. No exertion, no spell-work—just a command that reality obeyed. I felt a subtle

crack

against my skin. The golden amulet Honora had given me was shattering, the opals turning to dust. It was the source of my surge, and it was dying.

Ezra fled, vanishing into the stampede. "NO!" I roared, my head spinning with a violent, splitting headache.

"We need a way out!" Maribel shouted, dragging us toward the dining hall as the guards regrouped. We barricaded the doors, the sounds of the riot growing louder outside.

Lia, the girl who had been Zao's 'entertainment,' crawled out from the shadows. "There’s a back way," she whispered. "A tunnel in the brothel leads to a bunker."

We moved through the shadows, emerging into the market to find it a war zone. I scavenged a light sword from a fallen guard and joined the fray. I was no longer fighting like a prisoner; I was fighting like a weapon.

Ezra reappeared by the gates, flanked by Sienna and a man I recognized as Zao’s son, Chen. My wolf roared in my chest.

"You guys go!" I yelled to Kanda, Sheril, and Maribel. "I can’t let this chance pass."

"This isn't your fight alone!" Kanda countered, stepping to my side.

I looked at them—my broken, battered pack—and felt a fierce, terrifying love. I turned back to the remaining guards and unleashed a guttural, echoing growl that seemed to rattle the very foundation of the arena.

"DIE!" I shouted again.

More bodies hit the ground. It was a massacre. Ezra retreated, his eyes wide with a terror that finally matched my own. I pointed my sword at him, my arm shaking, the pendant beneath my clothes now cold and lifeless against my chest.

"I will have your head!" I promised.

He didn't look back. And as the guards faltered in the face of my fading power, I knew the real war—the one for my life and my child—had only just begun.