As I burst up from the water, my new fire wings spread out wide to hold me in the air. When I took my first breath of air, I felt large parts of who I used to be slide into place. The old and new merging together. With that, I knew exactly who was responsible for the destructive force.

My mate.

Shadow! I screamed along our bond, sending a burst of power with it.

The bond thrummed back to me, as strong as ever. It hadn’t been destroyed when I’d died because bonds were deeper than skin. They were a part of our souls, and that part had been reborn with me. If anything, I was stronger and more myself than I had ever been.

Except for my wolf soul. No longer could I feel her sadly languishing within me; instead, we were merged into our best and strongest selves.

Shadow! I called for him again, knowing that he would hear me. We would always find each other. The rumbling of the land’s foundations eased, and I soared up higher, my sea creatures following in a large mass of scary below.

Staring down at them brought to attention my reflection in the water. With no distorting, the water here showed me exactly what had emerged from the Nexus. What I’d been reborn as.

Flames coated me head to toe, as stunning fire wings extended behind, looking very much like Dannie’s phoenix ones. The rest of me was wolfish, though, reiterating my feeling that I hadn’t lost my beast, not exactly. I was her and she was me, and we were a fire beast who looked like a mix of Shadow’s Anubis form and Dannie’s original phoenix. Minus the beak.

For a brief moment, I wondered if I was going to look like this forever, a creature of darkness and light who was cool and scary, but not the version of myself I was most familiar with.

Not to mention waxing was going to be a super bitch with this much fur.

With that thought, a “Meraism,” as Angel would put it, my power eased, and a wash of heat slid across my body. As it faded into the soles of my bare feet, my reflection now showed me once again looking human. A human who was maybe a little taller, a little curvier, and with hair even more wild and out of control. The wings didn’t fade with my wolfier side, but I found I wasn’t unhappy about that.

The strange new appendages on my back flapped without effort or thought, lifting us even higher above The Depths and Nexus, which was starting to reform as the waters sloshed away from the red and gold lands.