The battle dragged on, and both sides paid for every minute of it in bodies, the numbers thinning out a little more with each one that passed.
On one end the dragon woman was tearing through the entire academy by herself, while Claude's order was on the receiving end of the same treatment from the demonic army and the hulking generals driving it forward.
And in the middle of all of it, Jax stood face to face with Zia.
"I'd rather not force you into this," she said. "So look at the gap between us, understand what it means, and come with me. Say yes, and I pull my army off this field within the minute. Every friend you have at that academy walks away without a scratch."
"So tell me, my love. What will it be?"
Jax never got the chance to answer, because a dozen lances came screaming down out of the sky at her.
"Get your filthy hands off him, he's mine!" Astrid hung in the air above them, shrieking it loud enough for the entire battlefield to hear.
