She swiped the tangle of chains that had been used to hold the hyenas, looped one chain around her wrists, and leapt, swinging it out. The chain caught the female werehyena’s neck. The female twin stumbled back. Adora landed on the short wall of the bridge, her back to the eighty-foot drop.

A power word punched the werehyena. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Adora smiled at me and jumped over the edge, taking the female werehyena with her.

Oh God.

The chain tangle slid. I dropped Sarrat and grabbed it. The chain jerked, nearly ripping my arms out of the sockets. Below me Adora dangled over an eighty-foot drop, her right wrist still caught in the chain’s loop. The werehyena’s body lay broken below.

“Traitor!” an inhuman voice howled behind me

“Let me die!” Adora tried to rip the chain off her wrist. “Sharrim, let me serve in death. Please!”

Fire sliced my back. Someone had tried to slash through my spine. I molded the blood gushing from the cut, forming it into a narrow strip of blood armor, shielding my vertebrae.

If I dropped the chain, there would be no questions. I could tell Curran whatever I wanted. Derek wouldn’t talk about Adora, and neither would Julie. Curran wouldn’t leave me. I wouldn’t have to hide Adora, I wouldn’t have to be responsible for her, and I wouldn’t have to break her world and tell her I didn’t have the keys to heaven.

Drop her, the magic insisted. Drop her. It’s the smart thing to do. The right thing to do.

The pressure ground against me, as if my soul had split in two. One part wanted power, the other knew what was right, both of them wanted Curran, and I was torn in the middle.

Drop her and everything will be okay. It’s what she wants.

Drop her.

DROP HER.

. . .

No.

Something snapped inside me, like pieces sliding into place. I gripped that voice inside of me and choked it into silence. “Do not let go!” I barked. “That’s an order.”

“Let me go.” She was weeping. “I’ll go to heaven. I’ll serve you forever in the afterlife.”

“I’m not a god. There is no fucking afterlife heaven where you can serve me. My father made it up. Adora, don’t let go.”

A furry arm gripped the chain below mine and flexed. The enormous weight vanished. Curran pulled the chain up, hand over hand, his face all lion, his eyes burning.

Around us, bodies littered the bridge, the male werehyena’s head lying by his body, his neck a shredded stump where Curran’s teeth had torn flesh and cracked bone. Derek’s sides and legs were drenched in blood. Julie lay slumped in a heap, exhausted. Roman’s face was bloodless.

Curran pulled a weeping Adora onto the bridge and pulled the chain off her.