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butts."
    Acmenes laughed. "Only in human form."
    In a brilliant flash, Acmenes transformed into a dragon. The crowd that had
    gathered at the start of the fight shrieked and ran chaotically for shelter.
    Channon stumbled back.
    Standing at least twenty feet high, Acmenes was a terrifying sight. His green and
    orange scales shimmered in the fading daylight while his blue wings flapped. He
    slung his spiked tail around, but Sebastian flipped out of the way.
    The other two flashed into dragon form.
    Sebastian held his sword tightly in his hands as he faced them. Even if he still held
    his powers unsevered, he wouldn't have been able to transform. Not while in the
    middle of a human village. It was forbidden.
    Damn you, Fates.
    "What's the matter, Kattalakis?" Acmenes asked. "Won't you breech your oath to
    protect your humans?"
    Bracis laughed. "He can't, brother, his powers are too fragmented. He's powerless
    to stop us."
    Acmenes shook his large, scaled head and sighed. "This is so anticlimactic. All
    these years you've chased us, and now..." He tsked. "To comfort you as you die,
    Sebastian, know that your dragonswan will be as well used by all of us as your
    sister was."
    Raw agony ripped through Sebastian.
    Over and over, he saw his sister's face and felt her blood on his skin as he held her
    lifeless body in his arms and wept.
    "Kill him," Acmenes said. Then he turned toward Channon.
    The dragon beast inside Sebastian roared with needful vengeance. He'd been
    unable to save Antiphone, but he would never let Channon die. Not like that.
    Ceding his humanity, he let loose his shields. His change came so swiftly that he
    didn't even feel it. All he felt was the love in his heart for his mate, the animal
    desperation to keep her safe regardless of law or sense.
    Channon froze at the sight of Sebastian's dragon form. The same height as
    Acmenes, his scales were bloodred and black. He looked like some fierce,
    terrifying menace, and she searched for something to remind her of the man he'd
    been two seconds ago.
    She found none of him.
    What she did see terrified her.
    Acmenes swung about to face Sebastian as he savagely attacked the other two
    dragons. Fire shot through the village as they fought like the primeval beasts they
    were.
    Then, to her horror, she saw Sebastian kill the dragon on his left with one sharp
    bite. The one on his right stumbled away from him in wounded pain, then took to
    the skies.
    Acmenes reached for her, but Sebastian tackled him. The force of them hitting the
    ground shook it. They fought like men, slugging at each other, and yet like
    dragons, as their tails coiled and moved trying to sting one another.
    She cringed as both dragons were wounded countless times by their fighting, but
    neither would pull back. She'd never seen anything like it. They were locked in the
    throes of a blood feud.
    Acmenes hefted his body and threw Sebastian over his head, then rolled to his
    monstrous feet. He stumbled as he tried to reach the sky, but before he could leap,
    Sebastian caught him through the heart with his tail.
    "Dragon!"
    Now armed and prepared, the men of the village came running back to do damage
    to the creatures who had invaded them.
    At first Channon thought they came to help Sebastian, until she realized that they
    intended to attack him.
    Without thought, she went to him. "Run, Sebastian," she said.
    He didn't. He turned on her with frightening eyes, and in that moment she realized
    the man she knew was not in that body.
    The dragon snarled at her as the crowd attacked him. Throwing his head back, he
    shrieked.
    To her shock, he didn't attack the people.
    Instead, he grabbed her in his massive claw and took flight.
    Channon screamed as she watched the ground drift far away from her. She had no
    idea where he was taking her, but she didn't like this. Not even a little bit.
    "Sebastian?"
    Sebastian heard Channon's voice. But it came from a distance. He could only
    vaguely remember her.
    Vaguely