The team was shattered.
Rina, their heart, was dead. Cut in half.
Eric, their wall, was dead. His head at Dante's feet.
They were not just defeated. They had been destroyed.
For a long, horrible moment, they were frozen. Statues of shock.
Their minds unable to process what had just happened.
Masha's face was pale. Bloodless. Horror in her eyes.
Jin's sword arm hung limp. Eyes wide and empty.
They were broken.
Then the shock shattered.
What was left was pure, burning rage.
---
The first to move was Lana.
A sound tore from her throat. Low. Rough. Not a scream of fear.
A snarl of pure fury.
She had been crawling. Wounded. Broken.
But now she rose.
She used her staff as a crutch. Her shattered knee screaming. But she got to her feet.
Her wild amethyst eyes, once filled with desperate pleas, now burned.
More terrifying than any dragon's fire.
Lucien, still enjoying his victory, still toying with Dante's trapped body, made a mistake.
He turned his back on her.
