We never made it to the helicopter.
The moment we stepped out of the palace's main doors into the twilight, the air shifted.
Noctis froze, head snapping toward the ridgeline.
"Down!" he roared, throwing himself over me.
The first bullet took him high in the shoulder.
The second shattered the stone where my head had been a heartbeat earlier.
Then the world exploded.
Sniper fire rained from three directions. Silver-tipped rounds (I recognized the smell now, acrid and burning).
Noctis shoved me behind a marble column, already shifting. Bones cracked, suit shredded, and suddenly a massive black wolf the size of a bear stood between me and death.
He howled once (rage and command and pure terror).
Our guards shifted mid-run, wolves pouring from every doorway.
But the shooters were rogue wolves and vampires, fast, organized, and they had silver.
A bullet grazed my arm as I tried to pull Noctis back.
The pain was instant, searing.
He smelled my blood and lost his mind.
One second he was shielding me.
The next he was gone (a black streak tearing up the mountain toward the snipers).
I screamed his name.
Then hands grabbed me from behind.
Not friendly.
A vampire (pale, beautiful, dead eyes) clamped a silver-infused cloth over my mouth.
The world tilted.
I bit down hard. Tasted rotten blood.
He hissed and dropped me.
I scrambled for the dagger Noctis had strapped to my thigh that morning "just in case."
I drove it into the vampire's heart and twisted.
He turned to ash.
Another took his place.
I fought like a wild thing (kicking, stabbing, screaming).
A wolf I didn't recognize lunged for my belly.
I braced for the claws.
They never landed.
Draven (Noctis's shadowy enforcer) appeared out of nowhere, ripping the wolf's throat out with his bare hands.
"Luna, stay down!" he roared, shielding me with his body.
Above us, Noctis was a nightmare of fangs and fury, tearing through enemies like paper.
But there were too many.
And I was bleeding.
The silver in my arm was spreading (black veins crawling toward my heart).
I dropped to my knees.
Noctis saw.
The howl he let out shattered windows for a mile.
He leapt from the cliff, landed in front of me in human form, naked and covered in blood that wasn't all his.
He cupped my face with shaking hands.
"Tanya, look at me. Stay with me."
The black veins reached my neck.
I smiled, tasting copper.
"Tell our daughter… I tried."
Then darkness took me.
I woke up in the palace infirmary, machines screaming, pain everywhere.
Noctis was chained to the wall with silver restraints, feral and roaring, eyes completely black.
Elder Morgana stood over me, hands glowing white.
"The silver reached her heart," she said grimly. "Human bodies can't fight it."
Noctis strained against the chains so hard they cut into his wrists.
"Do something!" he roared.
"There is one way," Morgana said quietly. "But it will change her forever."
"Do it!" he snarled.
Morgana looked at me.
"Luna, do you consent to the turning? You will no longer be human. You will be Lycan. Like us."
I looked at Noctis (chained, bleeding, begging).
I nodded.
She sliced her palm, pressed it to my mouth.
Blood (ancient, powerful) flooded my veins.
I screamed as my bones broke and re-set.
As my teeth sharpened.
As silver eyes opened where brown ones had been.
The machines flat-lined.
Then my heart beat once (stronger than ever).
The chains on Noctis snapped like string.
He was at my side in an instant, cradling me as I gasped and shook.
"Welcome back, little fox," he whispered, tears cutting tracks through the blood on his face.
I looked up at him with brand-new predator eyes.
And smiled with brand-new fangs.
"They're all going to die," I said, voice no longer entirely human.
He kissed my forehead like I'd just promised him the world.
"Yes, my Luna. They are."