ZARIA'S POV
The air behind me turned freezing cold. My human survival instincts, the ones that had kept me alive through years of torment, screamed at me to move, but my body couldn't react fast enough. I could feel the sharp, phantom bite of a blade inches from my shoulder blades. The ceiling assassin had caught me completely off guard, dropping from the darkness of the rafters like a spider. I braced myself for the pain, my fingers tightening around the hilt of my dagger as I tried to twist my body around to at least take a piece of him with me.
Before the cold metal could pierce my skin, a sound tore through the gallery that shook the very foundation of the palace.
It wasn't a human scream, and it wasn't a normal wolf's howl. It was a deafening, primal roar of pure, unadulterated f
