I fall to my knees, sucking in a breath that does nothing to cool the fire raging in the back of my throat as the flood of energy swells, bursting through the barrier. The thing living beneath my skin raises its head, woken by the delicious rush of power and desperate for a taste.

I blink, and suddenly I’m in the air, gazing wide-eyed at my hands wrapped around the soldier's throat. His face is swollen and purple, veins bulging and beautifully complementing the bloodied lips attempting to form the words “mercy” and “please.”

Against my will, my power surges, rushing from my palms and into the demon’s flesh, the wild tendrils of magic pushing past his barriers and delving through his innermost thoughts, memories, and desires. I go to pull back when a wall of power slams into me, locking me in place and flooding my mind with a myriad of devastating images and pictures of things to come.

The screaming. The bodies. The rivers and oceans of red staining the land as far as the eye can see. A thousand screeching, bloodthirsty soldiers soaring over the horizon, called to this spot by a simple mistake. A moment wasted.

I frown, my grip wavering as I try to understand it all—just enough for the demon in my hands to suck in a breath. Before I register what he’s doing, an ear-piercing screech echoes through the air, exploding from the demon’s throat like it’s the last sound he’ll ever get to make.

My eyes widen as horror fills my veins, realizing too late exactly what the mistake was. He’s calling them. He’s telling Slaine where we are.

A rage-filled scream explodes from deep within the pit of my stomach, rivaling the pitch and desperation of the nameless demon and filling the sky with a violent, whipping wind. My vision is cast in silver as I draw more and more power from the air, forcing it all to the tips of my fingers and the bottoms of my palms—every last thread of focus concentrated on severing the head from its shoulders.

My muscles strain, shuddering with the sheer amount of effort as my magic tears through flesh and tendon, separating the vertebrae and sending rivers of dark fluid coursing to the ground in a fascinating display of carnage.

I gaze down at the headless body, blinking slowly as I take in the blood squirting from the hole in the center, staining my hands and forearms with warm, slippery life. I release the remains as the wind dies down, letting them crash to the earth as my wings beat the still morning air, the sound alone reminding me that I’m alive and somehow made it out of that encounter unscathed.

“Oh my gods… bunny?”