Dante heard the screams before he saw who caused them. The moment Kendra had sent him her emotions, cold fear had gripped his heart and hadn't let go since. Reagan sent him to look after them in order to minimize the risk of someone seeing them. Two dragons were more easily spotted than one, though Dante knew how hard Reagan struggled with wanting to aid his promised but how heavy the burden weighed him down of being the one to protect his kind.

"Protect her, Dante", Reagan said, his voice heavy with emotion. Dante wasn't sure what to make of it—of Reagan, openly caring for something the way he did for Catherine. Dante was used to Reagan's cool way of handling situations with perfect control and not accepting anything less.

"I will."

Dante wanted to add something, anything, to let Reagan know that his inability to aid his promised himself was not on him. The influence that the Ancient's voices had had was too big of a risk to take. If Reagan found himself in situations that aroused intense emotions, the chance of losing control of his dragonfire was too great. Grinding the Fallen's bones was a process that required an iron will. A will that would not bend to the influence of the magical residue—of the voices. And though Reagan had succeeded, his will had not remained completely untouched. Dante knew that his older brother struggled with it, constantly. And hurting his promised's family out of a momentary loss of control... Reagan would never forgive himself for it.

But Dante didn't know how to articulate his thoughts and his understanding, so he said nothing at all.

There was a gnawing feeling to the possibility of losing someone—one Dante had experienced enough in his long life. The fear of losing someone to death.

To him, it was the worst imaginable. Losing someone he cared about. Dante wasn't going to let Reagan lose his promised, and he sure as hell wouldn't let anything happen to Kendra.

Batting his wings as fast as he could, he thundered across the sky. His velocity created a literal thunderstorm behind him, in the same way shifters were able to create a Rukhs' by generating magic.

The storm mirrored what raged inside of him.

With a frantically beating heart, he ignored the muscle pain that began the longer he flew like such a maniac. He couldn't go any faster—he was at his limit.

Dante was already a fairly fast flier, but at this moment, he would have rather teleported himself there. Every second physically hurt him more. His heart pounded against his chest, harder and harder.

He sent worry to his promised—not to receive reassurance, but much more to figure out how dire the situation was. He only knew it was urgent, not what had transpired or if she was okay. He only figured if he couldn't sense she was in life-threatening danger, she wasn't. That didn't mean she wasn't in any danger at all, however. And that could change very quickly. He suspected the Immortals might have caught up to the shifters, or were close, at the very least.

Dante beat and beat his wings, faster and faster. The storm behind him grew angrier the more he did. The urgency came from Reagan and Catherine's pain that he felt.

Scanning his surroundings, his heart even skipped a beat when he caught a glimpse of the pack his promised belonged to. There was a figure in the distance, heading straight towards them.

For a few moments, Dante continued to concentrate on leveling his breathing so he'd have enough energy for whatever was about to greet him.

Yet, when he looked again for a gnawing feeling in him told him to, something about the moving figure seemed off. Shadows danced around it like smoke.

Dante wasn't sure if it was his sight playing tricks on him or his mind coming up with ways to distract him from his fear—but his gut told him differently.

And then it clicked in his mind and he knew exactly what that was.

The shadowed figure was an Immortal who'd learned to spellcast; an Innik. They were the worst of the worst.

They were known to be effective assassins, but Dante couldn't comprehend why an assassin as ruthless as an Innik was after the rogue pack. The council couldn't be that desperate to have them killed. What purpose would that serve?

Unless the council was making precautions as for word not to get out that Everett Valley even existed...

Though Dante's brain would have continued to ponder why an Innik was here, he needed to concentrate on one thing, and one thing only. Defending the shifters. Questions could be asked later.

As he finally reached them, the Innik had too. He soared above them, high enough so they couldn't see him, including the intruder, and in one swift movement, he took a steep dive and kept his body completely vertical.

With immense speed he thundered down, down, down.

Within milliseconds he reached the ground, spread his wings again, embraced the pain that shot through his joints, and stretched out his talons. Reaching to grab the Innik, he felt a force-field between his talons. Like a ball of impenetrable glass surrounding the Innik, it shielded him from Dante.

Furious, he pressed his talons together with all his might, hoping he would succeed in breaking the glass.

But to no avail—magic could be bent, but never shattered. Not in the way Dante tried to.

He needed to come up with a different plan. And now that the Innik had seen him, the Innik's death was inevitable anyway. It was the first time in a long time that his enemy had seen him in his true form. Dante couldn't let word get out, not if it cost him his life. Though Innik's were powerful, one dragon was enough to get rid of one of them. He'd manage on his own fine.

Dante flapped his wings quickly and attempted to create distance between them, but the Innik retaliated.

Black smoke rushed towards his face, shielding his sight from the pack that he frantically heard yelling about. They were somewhere behind him. The only thing standing between the Innik and the shifters was Dante. He contemplated for a short second again whether or not to call upon Tyrion to aid him, but he was confident to kill the Innik without his aid. He'd done it before.

He sent an urge to run to his promised, hoping she would understand what he meant. This was definitely one of those moments he wished he could communicate through their thoughts, like full-fledged promised should be able to after completing the last stage.

Confusion hit him then and he wondered what—there was no time, not even to think. The shadows weren't just tormenting him and preventing him from seeing. They took on the form of multiple vultures, screeching as they materialized in front of him. They circled around Dante within seconds and with more loud screeching, he felt some of them dig their claws into his leathery, scaled wings.

Roaring, making the earth vibrate below him, he batted his wings harder to throw them off. When he realized that his efforts were futile, he steered his attention to the abomination that was attacking him now, using magic he wasn't supposed to.

Dante sank lower again, losing altitude, and decided to use his armored tail and struck the Innik with the spikes on the far end. The ball of glass around him wasn't invincible—and most certainly not impervious to movement, even if it was to pressure. Because of the force Dante hit him with, the Innik soared a few dozen meters through the air. With his concentration faltering, a few of the vultures puffed out of existence.

Some, unfortunately, remained and continued to claw at his back, trying to find a place to hold on to.

"You need to run. Get to the others." Dante roared, touching down on the ground with his weight causing another quake. Snarling, Dante oriented himself and stared at the Innik with his ribcage growing warmer.

His dragonfire built up slowly, heating his entire body as it charged his entire being. The Innik, who was clothed in torn, ragged cloaks, his face masked with more of his shadows, rose from the ground.

Dante nearly laughed when he thought about how small that abomination was, compared to him.

"Catherine is dying. What should we do?" he heard his promised say and he couldn't help but turn his attention to her. She stood only a few meters away, her pack behind her along with the little She-Devil laying on the ground, convulsing heavily.

Dread ran through him as he looked at her—as much as he hated her, he didn't want her to die. He wouldn't want that to be his brother's fate.

Quickly he raked his brain for an answer. She must have been infused with some kind of poison the Innik was surely the cause of. But he doubted the pack had come across the Innik without them knowing—they had never been ambushed in their sleep, either. Tyrion, Ryker, Dante and Reagan had all made sure of that by constantly patrolling the area as they slept. Dante couldn't think of a single incidence that could warrant Catherine's reactions.

A dark thought crossed Dante's mind then. It must have been the traitors.

Before he could answer his promised, a hard blow hit him across his face. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Innik ball his hands to fists and swooshing the air.

Great. Now the vermin was projecting.

What else did that abomination know?

Recovering from the blow that had hit him straight in the jaw, Dante took a deep breath inwards and let all of his anger flow into his dragonfire.

As he did, its heat grew hotter. The pressure inside of him built up gradually, yearning for the dragonfire to be set free. The more he invested, the greater the release, the stronger the flames.

Nothing could withstand dragonfire but the Promised Bond.

The Innik must have seen Dante's glowing chest, for another blow struck Dante out of nowhere and got him below his other jaw. His head reared up, the force causing pain to erupt in his jawbones. As the numbing pain slid through the veins in his face, the anger in his blood thickened.

Taking a step towards the Innik, barely taking the scratching on his back into account, he prepared himself mentally for the next blow he would surely receive. But before he continued a slow pace towards the Innik, one that would have earned him many more hits to follow and would give the Innik more time to come up with alternatives, he quickly sent the feeling of need to his promised. He needed her and he prayed to the Ancients that she would know what to do.

He felt Kendra's affirmation and without hesitating for even a split second, she circled around Dante and created somewhat of a triangle between the three.

The sudden movement of a third party caught the Innik off guard, since it had been solely concentrated on Dante, and he turned his head towards Kendra.

Dante didn't leave the Innik enough time to cast a spell that would harm her. Dante lifted himself off of the ground, sped towards the Innik and slammed his talon into the protection glass. As expected, it did not shatter. But it was aroused, pained even, and therefore vulnerable. Before the Innik could react, he released his dragonfire and spewed it onto the Innik, melting the protection barrier around him.

A protection barrier as strong as this one undoubtedly required a large amount of strength, especially for an Immortal to conjure it. Having destroyed it now meant the Innik wasn't as protected.

It had taken the entirety of Dante's dragonfire to melt it and it would take time and a long rest before he could conjure another wave of it.

So Dante resorted to his bare strength, of which he had enough to defeat the abomination. He landed on the ground again, causing the Innik to lose his weight. Before the Innik hit the ground however, he landed a hard punch in Dante's stomach. The force of it nearly knocked him over. One of the few weak spots dragons like Dante had were their flimsy-scale covered bellies. The scales there were softer and therefore sustained more damage if hurt.

His back on the other hand was his armor. His belly, his undoing.

Coughing, he re-balanced himself and was about to use his razor sharp talons on the Innik when a new swarm of vultures circled around Dante and clawed at his back.

Already open and raw from the first attack, their scratches now went deeper and caused Dante more pain. Wincing, he tried to bite it down.

Another hit slammed his head to the side. It came so sudden and with such force that Dante's vision failed.

When it cleared again, he saw out of his peripheral vision that the shifters, including Kendra, were all in their wolf-skins and began to spread out behind Dante, forming somewhat of an arrow-tip. At least three flanked his left, and another three his right, making him the tip.

The knowledge of the pack wanting to aid him gave him a new wave of determination that charged energy back into his body.

Subtly nodding his head to the left, though his eyes never left the cold stare of the Innik, Dante let a roar travel through his throat. Distracting the immortal, Dante let a tingling sensation spread at the tip of his tail as he held it above ground.

Then, within the blink of an eye, he tore his tail upwards, over his back, pointed with its tip to the Innik and released the smaller spikes along the slim part of it. The two largest spikes remained intact. If he released those, his tail would be bare for at least two months. The small ones would have to do.

And nearly all of them hit the Innik without Dante needing to blink.

The wolves to Dante's left ran towards the Innik and when Dante nodded to the right, they followed suit. The immobilized Innik wasn't as slow to react as Dante would have expected.

With one last trick up his sleeve, the Immortal conjured a glass knife, made of the same substance his protection barrier had been made from. Dante saw the Innik elongate it by grabbing both tips and pulling them apart, forming it into a dagger.

And just then, when the first wolf jumped to sink his teeth into the Innik's flesh, Dante roared.