Chapter 4

For one impossible heartbeat, the world stood still.

The screams around Tessa became muffled, as though someone had plunged her underwater. Every face blurred into meaningless shapes while her eyes remained locked on the creature towering beside the shattered fountain.

It couldn't exist.

Creatures like that belonged in mythology books, children's stories, and ancient paintings buried inside museums—not standing twenty yards away beneath the glowing lights of Kaitlyn Harper's birthday party.

Its enormous body was wrapped in thick black muscles that looked harder than stone. Curved horns rose from its humanlike head, their sharpened tips glinting beneath the emergency lights.…