I didn't care. I felt wild. Untethered. I bared my teeth, a growl vibrating in my chest. "Bastian, pull out your gun!"

CRACK.

Ragnar slammed his massive fist down onto the table. The sound was like a gunshot, a jagged fissure splintering outward from his knuckles across the ancient, indestructible stone. "Dammit, Elara, sit the fuck back down right now!" he bellowed, his eyes flashing a terrifying, blinding gold.

I threw my hands up in the air, a bitter, breathless laugh escaping me. "How else should I prove that I'm some all-powerful Lycan, Ragnar?" I yelled back, tears blurring my vision but doing nothing to douse the fire. I turned my furious gaze back to the door. "Bastian, if you don't pull that gun out right now—"

A sharp, tearing sensation erupted at my fingertips. I looked down as lethal claws pushed past my nail beds, gleaming like polished ivory. Ragnar didn't even blink at the sight of them. "I will tear your jugular from your throat if you so much as look at your holster," he cut in, his voice a deadly, icy promise aimed right at his soldier.

Bastian swallowed hard. He instantly straightened his spine and threw both hands up in the air in surrender. I opened my mouth to shout another order, but a new voice sliced through the chaos.

"Quiet!"

Lucia had shot to her feet. The sheer, ancient authority behind her command hit me so hard in the chest that I stumbled back a step, my breath knocked completely from my lungs. The room went dead silent. Everyone turned to look at the striking woman.

"I'm sorry, King Ragnar," Lucia said, her voice dropping its warm, maternal tone for something cold and unyielding. "But this no longer concerns you. This is now an active investigation by the Priesthood."

Ragnar let out a deafening, chest-rattling growl, his muscles bunching as if he were preparing to lunge across the cracked table. Lucia didn't flinch. She simply held up a single, steady hand. "You will let Elara continue so we can confirm if this is what she is or not."

Ragnar's jaw locked. His heavy fingers dug into the edge of the table, his knuckles cracking loud from the strain of holding himself back. Slowly, agonizingly, he forced himself to sit back down. He looked absolutely murderous, his golden eyes locked onto Lucia with a promise of visceral violence.

Edrik slowly sank back into his seat as well, his eyes wide and guarded. Beside Ragnar, Osmund immediately stepped close. He slightly held out an arm in front of Ragnar's chest. A silent, desperate plea to keep the raging Alpha from attacking the Tidecaller.

Lucia's gaze remained fixed on Bastian. "Warrior Bastian, if you would," she said, her voice smooth as glass. She gestured toward me with a graceful flick of her wrist and sat back down, folding her hands as if she were about to watch a theater performance.

I felt a strange, cold calm wash over me. I cracked my neck, the sound echoing in the silent room. "Bastian," I said, my voice steady, "I need you to focus. I need you to actually want to hurt me. If you're just going through the motions, if your heart isn't in the intent, this won't work."

The air in the room grew heavy. I could hear Ragnar's heart rate rising. Bastian looked at him with such sheer terror that for a split second, I actually felt bad for him.

Lucia let out a predatory growl. "Your punishment for defying the Priesthood will be far worse than the price of defying your King, Bastian. You would do well to remember that."

Bastian cursed under his breath, a string of jagged words. His hand trembled only slightly as he reached for his holster and steadily withdrew his weapon. He looked at Ragnar with a pained, pleading expression. "I'm so sorry, boss," he whispered.

Ragnar let out a snarl, but I refused to look at him. I couldn't let his fear or his anger distract me.

"I'm going to walk around the room," I told Bastian, my focus narrowing until the room felt small. "Don't tell me when you're going to shoot. Don't tell me how many times. Just... find the intent."

Bastian huffed out a breath, his face hardening into a soldier's mask. He nodded slowly and lifted the gun, his grip tightening.

I closed my eyes and started to move, my footsteps silent as I paced the perimeter of the room. I visualized the layout. The table, the high-backed chairs, the fissures in the stone. I then focused my hearing to listen to the rhythm of the room. The soft rustle of the Tidecallers' clothes, the rasp of Osmund's breathing, and the sharp edge of Bastian's focus.

My ears started to ring with a high-pitched frequency. Just as I reached the far corner near the heavy tapestries, a sharp, electric prickle erupted at the base of my calf.

BANG

The gun went off. Time didn't slow down, but my perception of it did. I snapped my eyes open, my vision highlighting the path as it tore through the air. It was tracking straight for my leg. With a fluid, instinctual twitch, I stepped to the left. The bullet zinged past, the heat of it brushing my skin, before it buried itself in the wall paneling with a dull thwack.

Bastian didn't give me a second to breathe. He wasn't playing anymore, he was testing the limit of my bloodline.

BANG.

The prickle moved instantly, a searing heat blooming in the center of my stomach. I pivoted on my heel, the fabric of my jacket snapping like a whip as the second bullet whistled through the space where my spine had been a millisecond before.

BANG.

He was aiming for my shoulder now. The intent felt like a sharp needle pressing against my skin. I didn't even fully open my eyes this time. I dipped my shoulder, leaning into the motion with a cold, effortless grace I didn't know I possessed. I heard it hiss past my ear, close enough to ruffle a stray hair, before it followed its brothers into the wood behind me.

Gasps erupted from the table. One of the younger Tidecallers actually clapped, and the elders were whispering, their faces lit with a genuine, scholarly intrigue.

I looked toward the table. Ragnar was standing, his body rigid like a statue of rage. Osmund and Edrik were both hanging onto his arms, their muscles straining to keep him anchored to the spot. He wasn't moving, but his face gave him away, his lip was curled back, his fangs fully descended, and his eyes were locked on Bastian with a promise of slow, agonizing death.

Bastian let out a massive breath, his shoulders sagging as he rested his hands on his knees, the gun hanging loosely in his grip.

"Again, Elara," Lucia said, her voice cutting through the excitement. "Let me see the true extent of your gift."

My eyes widened. I looked at the bullets in the wall and then back to her. "I gave you proof! Why do you want more?"

Ragnar took a deep, shuddering breath, his voice dropping into a register that felt like a knife to my chest. "I feel as though you don't think I'd rip your fucking head off your shoulders, Lucia."

Lucia actually chuckled, the sound light and chilling. "You do not frighten me, Ragnar. Granted, you are far more terrifying than your father ever was, but I have been around long enough to not let fear control my judgment. Now, as I said. Again."

I looked at Bastian. He looked panicked, his face pale and sweating. I clapped my hands once, a sharp sound to break his trance. "Bastian, focus!"

"I'm trying!" he gritted out, his voice cracking. "It was hard enough to force myself to want to hit you the first time, and now I have to do it again? Fuck!"

The elder with the sea-foam hair leaned forward, his eyes cold and clinical. "Aim for her heart this time, Bastian."

The silence that followed was absolute. It was the kind of silence that precedes a landslide. The last thing I heard before the chaos was a sickening shing of Ragnar's claws extending to their full, lethal length, followed by a dark, deadly chuckle.

Turned to stone