Kael couldn't move.
Not because his body refused him—his body was overflowing with new power, a proof of which was his two extra newly grown horns—but because nothing he did mattered.
Every instinct screamed, every muscle burned to fight or flee, yet all of it collapsed beneath the quiet dominance of the man hovering before him.
Helplessness settled in his chest like cold iron.
The scarred man watched him for a moment, then smiled—not cruelly, not kindly, but with the detached interest of a scholar observing a rare specimen.
"How rude of me," he said calmly. "I suppose introductions are in order."
But before he could continue, his gaze drifted to the torn place where Kael's wing had been ripped away.
Then his eyes narrowed.
"…Oh?"
The shredded flesh was already knitting together. Bone reformed with wet cracks, membranes stretched and sealed, and scales crawling back into place as if time itself were being overwritten.
