Zeke's POV
I knew I was different the moment the Midnight Queen broke free from Ronan's body. Everyone else in the cabin stepped back from her dark form, but something in me moved toward her. Like she was calling to parts of me I didn't understand.
The trials the Midnight Syndicate had performed on me since childhood—the injections, the rituals, the pain—they all suddenly made sense. They hadn't been trying to make me better. They had been trying to make me like her.
As the Queen's tainted ruby fire clashed with my sister's pure flame, I felt something inside me wake up—a power that wasn't quite wolf, wasn't quite Ruby, wasn't quite human.
"Sienna!" I yelled, but my voice was lost in the roar of their colliding powers.
The house was falling apart around us. The black flames cut off Kieran, Ronan, and Caius from reaching my sister. Orion and the strange being who had arrived through the Celestial Gate were speaking hurriedly, their words drowned out by the magical storm.
