DERRICK POV
I still can't believe I landed a shot.
Not a clean one. Not the kind of precision a marksman would brag about. My aim was a mess—scrambled by adrenaline, by the thunder in my chest, by the molten electricity Kai had shoved into my veins like some kind of sacrament. But it hit where it had to hit. It seared the dragon’s attention away from me for a breath long enough to keep my hands from being folded into ash. I kept replaying that moment in my head like it's a prayer: the shock of the storm in my skin, the flaring white that spat from my fingers, the way the dragon hissed and twisted and—just for the fraction of a second—looked surprised.
That whisper of astonishment from Dalton in my head—“Can I? Can I do it too?”—still hummed there, like a note that doesn't quite fade.
