The scent of battle and war lingering in the air. The shadows that clung to them were now weak tendrils, just whispers of smoke. The ground still shook under Serena's paws from aftershocks of the fight: the strange energy that coursed through her body at those last moments. She had been transformed from a thing everyone feared into an unbeatable force of nature itself. Her claws dug into the floor as she panted, her eyes still glowing with the power of victory.
Lucian and Elias, both panting and muscles rippling with effort, stepped out of the shadows. The room was dark, but not as dark as it had been. Now, there was an eerie calm, an insistent pressure on them from every direction. The threat was gone, at least for now, but the price of that victory remained palpable, like the smoke of a still-embering fire.
