A roar split the night, deeper than thunder, and more ancient and primal than any living being had heard in millenia. Light ripped the clouds open, violet and gold fire searing through the darkness ominously.
Wolves flinched. Men raised shields out of instinct, though none of them could stop what was coming. Even Adam felt the weight of terror press into his chest.
She dropped from the sky in a storm of wings and flame. Scales burned like molten stone, vast enough to blot out the stars and sparks rained in her wake, hissing into the mud. To every soldier staring up, she wasn't a savior.
She was the end.
"Dragon!" someone screamed, voice raw with panic. Bows lifted, spears braced, men, wolves and lycans all stumbling back as if distance could save them.
She hit the ground like a meteor. Fire blasted from her jaws and swept the field in a wall that turned constructs to pools of slag amongst bubbling flesh and handlers to ash. The shock rolled through Adam's line, men crumpling where they stood, shields raised against a heat they couldn't endure.
Adam's heart hammered. For the first time, he saw no path forward. If this was how they ended, there would be nothing left to bury.
Then a shout carried through the smoke. "Riders! Riders on the dragon!"
Adam's head snapped up. The firelight cleared, and shapes stood tall against the blaze.
And on her back, figures rose like ghosts.
Adam's heart nearly broke through his chest and his wolf raised his head with a howl of triumphant joy as their gaze landed on those he had thought lost, broken, or dead.
At the front, Lexi stood with her black hair streaming wild behind her. Golden armor caught the glow of the dragon's scales and threw it back like a crown of fire. She didn't look at all like a survivor crawling home, she looked like judgment made flesh, every line of her body carved from fury and defiance. Her voice tore across the battlefield, raw and unshaken.
"S'up bitches! Need a hand?" She yelled with her trademark snark and defiant smirk.
Beside her, Greyson lifted his head and howled. The sound ripped through the night, announcing his arrival and his allegiance to the struggling forces.
Adam and his wolves answered at once, their howls rolling down the trench, cutting through all of the exhaustion and smoke. Men joined them, a wall of voices rising into the sky until even the winged behemoth in front of them arched her neck and lifted her voice with theirs.
Then, Adam's eyes fell on Allen, standing steady at Lexi's flank. Where Greyson's Lycan rage burned furiously, Allen's wolf burned steadily in his eyes. His calm, solid persona infused with the presence of his Beta's aura, brought a swell of pride to Adam's chest.
As Allen's gaze swept the battlefield, the Dark Moon soldiers straightened and roared furiously at the sight of him. Adam's second in command had returned.
Behind them, a smaller figure clung to the saddle's edge and Adam's heart went to his throat at the sight of Aoife, whole and alive…not the bloodied corpse that he tried his best not to remember.
Her curls were wild, her face streaked with soot, but her eyes shone like coals that refused to die. She might have been broken once, but she had not been beaten. She raised her chin high, and a ripple of recognition spread through the ranks of the magick users and the wolves who had joined them at Alpha Felix's command.
Then another woman at her side appeared, drawing gasps and shouts of disbelief from the magick users, her name chanted like a legend had appeared on the battlefield.
"Ximena."
The woman stood at Aoife's side, slightly taller but unflinching, her green eyes burning like open flame and the air around her sparked with flashes of blue, as if she walked at the heart of her own personal lightning storm.
She didn't speak. She didn't have to, she just smiled, her power carried in her silence, and her simple presence demanding reverence.
And towering behind them, half-shrouded in smoke and fire, came something else. A shape that made even Adam's wolves shrink back, their hackles high.
Orynn.
Scales of fractured ice glinted across his massive frame, horns spiraling like frozen blades from his human looking face. His guttural cry split the air, raw but wrong and too close to a hatchling's scream. Terror rippled down the line with men stumbling back and wolves growling low. For a moment, his appearance was nothing but something imagined from a nightmare.
Then Aoife's hand pressed to his arm and his face softened, as they all began to make their way down from the dragon's back. He watched her carefully, making sure that she didn't fall.
Lexi's confident voice cut through the panic.
"He's no monster. None of those that join us now are. They are ours and they fight for us tonight."
Orynn's eyes, bright with human clarity, swept the field and the fear eased slightly. It wasn't gone, not yet, but it was enough for now.
The dragon roared again, her flame tearing the dark apart and Ely's abominations shrieked as fire swallowed them whole. The ground shook with every beat of her wings and readjustment of her stance and the battlefield was remade in eerie violet and gold light.
And then the sky opened wider and from the clouds, thousands of shapes poured down.
Human figures with wings of living flame and shadow, their cries ripping through the night, raw and wild, as they swept overhead in a storm of beating wings and charged headlong into the enemy's forces.
For a heartbeat, Adam's line froze, unsure what to do as they tried to wrap their minds around what they were seeing.
Then they registered what was happening, and saw where the fire landed. Ely's lines were incinerated and the twisted creatures that used to be Lycans and wolves were shredded under the onslaught of these new allies.
The handlers broke and tried to run but were crushed beneath wings that seemed to carve the very night apart with their radiance. The creatures roared as one, driving the enemy back step by bloody step and it was at this moment that Adam felt the shift in his men.
He turned down the trench, voice raw and ripped straight from his wolf.
"They fight for us! On your feet! Raise your blades! Don't let them fight alone!"
His men staggered upright, eyes wide, their voices breaking loose in shouts that climbed toward a roar.
Hope surged through the ranks evoking a change that was sudden and savage, the kind that couldn't be killed once it caught hold of the people it embraced.
The battlefield, once broken, now roared as one.
"Let's put this motherfucker where he belongs." Lexi snarled as she exchanged a look with Adam across the battlefield, and turned, facing the overwhelming forces that guarded the Lycan Kings Keep.
She raised her arms, her magick sparking in both hands as her mates took a place on either side of her.
"FORWARD!" She yelled her voice carrying to every corner of the battlefield as all of the allied voices joined with her own, "FOR THE ALPHA QUEEN!"
***
Authors Note: If you want to read about where Lexi has been and what exactly she has been doing in the time away, then don't forget to search for Lexi's Savage Mates so you know exactly what happened when she left and what happened for her to return with all these new friends! It's spicier, multiple mates, and darker themes so enter at your own risk :3
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