Roxanne moved first.
She lunged with a measured step toward Dietrich, her full mixed-blood form radiating a cold, devastating clarity that Dietrich had never seen in her. The air shimmered around her, charged with the intensity of her dual lineage, her eyes glinting like shards of ice.
Dietrich's beast hunkered low, claws digging into the marble floor with an ear-splitting scrape. He had twisted himself into something barely resembling a wolf—limbs elongated and grotesque, his spine arched into jagged ridges that seemed to threaten to tear him apart. Eyes sunk deep into his skull burned with a feverish gold, reflecting his unrelenting hunger for power.
