Free Forging Day (Crucible of Change Book 1) by Noelle Alladania Meade

of us.
    * * * *
    There were even more of the Beast Lords waiting when we got to their camp. I saw Beast Lords as bears, big hunting cats, wolves, one hyena, and even an eagle. Augra didn’t help them, but she didn’t try to stop them either.
    They tied me to one tree, hands bound behind my back. They tied Tessa next to me, bound the same way, except she also had a strip of duct tape over her mouth. Her eyes were huge and tears were running down her cheeks. Derek dropped Mikah to the ground and tied him to one of those heavy metal picnic tables. Mikah was breathing, but he looked awfully pale, and his eyes were closed.
    My head pounded and I shook with fear. I had a pretty good idea what Derek meant when he said he’d teach me a lesson for interfering with Tessa. It was the same lesson evil bullies had used against women throughout the ages.
    I heard several someones running toward the camp, and there seemed to be a lot of shouting from Korembi and Berto and several others in the Troll contingent. “Derek, mon, this has to stop. De rangers already been called. You only makin’ things worse, mon.”
    I had trouble seeing through my tears, but Derek seemed much bigger and hairier than I remembered, and he had horns. I blinked wildly and forced my eyes to focus. He had giant horns, and he wasn’t wearing a mask. “They’re my prizes. Get your own,” he growled at Korembi.
    The forest was alive with animal noises, and the air was filled with purple clouds and swirls of purple ground fog. I don’t know how I saw this in the dark, but something small with a bright feathered crest was sneaking toward me. It looked like a compy. Now I knew I’d lost it. Maybe I was actually in the hospital already? I saw another compy, and then another, but no one else seemed to notice them. They disappeared behind us, and something started chewing at the ropes. I tried not to wince when sharp little teeth grazed my skin every now and then.
    The world seemed to ripple, and even Derek’s group rocked back a little. What the hell? It was still dark, but now I could see everything. There were people beyond the trees, and smaller creatures moving along the ground and higher up. I heard a screeching hiss, and a large creature rushed toward us from Korembi’s camp. How did something that big move with so little noise? Frantic, I gave my hands a jerk and the rope finally separated.
    Energy pulsed through me, wanting to get out. “Derek, you bastard. You’re going to pay for this.”
    I pulled myself up as he charged toward me, bellowing incoherently with rage. Oh my god. He was freaking huge . I jumped out of the way at the last minute, backpedaling through the trees, and he grabbed the axe from their wood pile like it was a child’s toy.
    I shouted, “Stop,” and tiny balls of blue light flew from my hands and slammed into his massive chest.
    He staggered and I smelled burnt fur, but he was still coming. His axe began its fatal arc toward me when a seven-foot tall dinosaur skeleton—a freaking Utahraptor—leaped onto his back. Its claws dug deep, and there was so much blood. He howled and tried to bring the axe around, but he was no match for the raptor. It was a born hunter, and tonight Derek was its prey.
    Derek thrashed around, slamming back into a tree and trying to knock the raptor loose. He gave it a jolt, but it had too good a grip. It hissed again and reached around Derek, opening his belly like an overripe melon, spilling gleaming entrails onto the ground. He screamed, and I hoped to never hear that sound again. The raptor screeched, shaking Derek like a doll. There was a sharp crack and Derek went limp and silent.
    The creature bent to feed, snout buried in Derek’s gut. I stared in horror at the muscles and flesh regenerating on the skeletal raptor. The compys scampered over to the body, waiting for some kind of signal from the raptor, eagerly jostling each other for the scraps.
    The world froze in time for one horrible