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especially alert since the adrenalin had kicked in. I spun just as a tall, skeletal royal lunged. If I hadn’t turned he’d have buried his blade in my heart and I’d have died before I even knew he was there.
    I shoved the heavy tapestry I still held in front of the blood-covered blade as it swung back, and arched away as it sliced clean through. Fire seared my ribs where the blade grazed me. I yanked the hanging sideways, pulling the sword from the royal’s long fingers, and flung it against the wall. With a scream of pure rage, I flung myself at him, smacking him hard on the forehead and sending energy in a thin stream of bright light into his brain.
    He was still twitching on the floor as I leapt back to my feet and took off running.
    The battle thinned as I neared the throne room and I had high hopes that Dialle was safe there, locked behind the double doors made of gold. When I spotted Gerch’s guards standing in front of the doors, swords drawn and already covered in blood, I felt even better. Several bodies littered the floor before them, evidence of their work.
    I ran toward the guards. “Let me in!”
    The soldier in charge stepped forward, his sword lifting. “I cannot open these doors. The king is in danger.”
    “Open the doors you steaming pile of gargoyle shit, or I’ll blast you and open them myself!”
    The man started to shake his head and I lost all patience. But instead of striking out at one of the apparent few who were willing to protect Dialle, I finally took Gerch’s advice. I pictured the space on the other side of the golden doors and shifted.
    The world dropped away and fell silent. A moment later I felt it slide over me again like a shroud, my feet hitting the firm stone of the floor. The room was dark, so silent that I thought for a moment I was still in my space-shift. But the area smelled gamey, like...
    A low growl throbbed through the silence, not more than five feet away from where I stood. Two sets of red eyes glared at me through the deep black and I squinted to see movement in the dark.
    “Ah, shit.”
    Two low-slung, densely muscled forms started toward me, their growls turning to saliva-drenched snarls as they opened enormous jaws filled with impossibly white teeth.
    Hell hounds.
    “Frunk me,” I murmured. “This is definitely going into the shitty day book.”
    I pulled power into my palms and held it, spitting and ready. I knew from experience that Hell hounds could move with impossible speed. They would be on me in the time it took to blink. My only hope was to send power directly into their chests as they slammed into me. Because if I missed I’d be torn into tiny little pieces before I could try again.
    The energy spitting in my palms illuminated a circle about four feet around where I stood. I waited for the hounds to step into the light, knowing it wouldn’t make my job easier if I could see them. But the hounds stopped just outside the circle and waited, temper throbbing in their throats in a constant drone. When I realized they didn’t intend to come closer, I risked speaking. “Dialle?”
    A soft scuff of shoe on stone made my gaze shift in the direction of Dialle’s throne. “Are you all right?”
    A gentle wash of breath, like a sigh, filtered toward me. “Dialle, talk to me.”
    Light blossomed like the sun, filling the room with eye-straining illumination. I blinked, my gaze sliding to the two massive black canines sitting calmly just a few feet away, their wide, snubbed snouts wet with slobber.
    As my eyes adjusted to the light I cast my gaze toward Dialle’s throne. What I saw there was more terrifying than the two Hell hounds could ever be.
    Dialle sat slumped in his throne, his head dropped to his chest, his limbs sprawled loosely as if he were unconscious. I softly repeated his name, barely more than a whisper, and his head slowly lifted. His beautiful face was a portrait in despair, the sexy black eyes completely devoid of color or passion. He