House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) (62 page)

Ruhn watched as Pollux loaded Athalar into that prison van. Watched as it rumbled to life and sped off, watched as the crowd in the lobby dispersed, marking the end of this fucking disaster.

Until Bryce wrenched out of his grip. Until Ruhn let her. Pure, undiluted hatred twisted her features as she said again, “I will
never
forgive you for this.”

Ruhn said coldly, “Do you have any idea what Sandriel does to her slaves? Do you know that was Pollux Antonius, the fucking
Hammer
, with her?”

“Yes. Hunt told me everything.”

“Then you’re a fucking idiot.” She advanced on him, but Ruhn seethed, “I will not apologize for protecting you—not from her, and not from yourself. I get it, I do. Hunt was your—whatever he was to you. But the last thing he would ever want is—”

“Go fuck yourself.” Her breathing turned jagged.
“Go fuck yourself
,
Ruhn.”

Ruhn jerked his chin toward the lobby doors in dismissal. “Cry about it to someone else. You’ll have a hard time finding anyone who’ll agree with you.”

Her fingers curled at her sides. As if she’d punch him, claw him, shred him.

But she just spat at Ruhn’s feet and stalked away. Bryce reached her scooter and didn’t look back as she zoomed off.

Flynn said, voice low, “What the fuck, Ruhn.”

Ruhn sucked in a breath. He didn’t even want to think about what kind of bargain she’d struck with the sorceress to get that kind of money.

Declan was shaking his head. And Flynn … disappointment and hurt flickered on his face. “Why didn’t you tell us? Your
sister
, Ruhn?” Flynn pointed to the glass doors. “She’s our fucking
princess
.”

“She is not,” Ruhn growled. “The Autumn King has not recognized her, nor will he ever.”

“Why?” Dec demanded.

“Because she’s his bastard child. Because he doesn’t like her.
I don’t fucking know,” Ruhn spat. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever tell them his own motivations for it. That deep-rooted fear of what the Oracle’s prophecy might mean for Bryce should she ever be granted a royal title. For if the royal bloodline was to end with Ruhn, and Bryce was officially a princess of their family … She would have to be out of the picture for it to come to pass. Permanently. He’d do whatever was necessary to keep her safe from that particular doom. Even if the world hated him for it.

Indeed, at his friends’ disapproving frowns, he snapped, “All I know is that I was given an order never to reveal it, even to you.”

Flynn crossed his arms. “You think we would have told anyone?”

“No. But I couldn’t take the risk of him finding out. And
she
didn’t want anyone to know.” And now wasn’t the time or place to speak about this. Ruhn said, “I need to talk to her.”

What came
after
he spoke with Bryce, he didn’t know if he could handle.

Bryce rode to the river. To the arches of the Black Dock.

Darkness had fallen by the time she chained her scooter to a lamppost, the night balmy enough that she was grateful for Danika’s leather jacket keeping her warm as she stood on the dark dock and stared across the Istros.

Slowly, she sank to her knees, bowing her head. “It’s so fucked,” she whispered, hoping the words would carry across the water, to the tombs and mausoleums hidden behind the wall of mist. “It is all so, so fucked, Danika.”

She’d failed. Utterly and completely failed. And Hunt was … he was …

Bryce buried her face in her hands. For a while, the only sounds were the wind hissing through the palms and the lapping of the river against the dock.

“I wish you were here,” Bryce finally allowed herself to say. “Every day, I wish that, but today especially.”

The wind quieted, the palms going still. Even the river seemed to halt.

A chill crept toward her, through her. Every sense, Fae and human, went on alert. She scanned the mists, waiting, praying for a black boat. She was so busy looking that she didn’t see the attack coming.

Didn’t twist to see a kristallos demon leaping from the shadows, jaws open, before it tackled her into the eddying waters.

72

C
laws and teeth were everywhere. Ripping at her, snatching her, dragging her down.

The river was pitch-black, and there was no one, no one at all, who’d seen or would know—

Something burned along her arm, and she screamed, water rushing down her throat.

Then the claws splayed. Loosened.

Bryce kicked, shoving blindly away, the surface somewhere—in any direction—oh gods, she was going to pick wrong—

Something grabbed her by the shoulder, dragging her away, and she would have screamed if there had been any air left in her lungs—

Air broke around her face, open and fresh, and then there was a male voice at her ear saying, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

She might have sobbed, if she hadn’t spewed water, hadn’t launched into a coughing fit. Hunt had said those words to her, and now Hunt was gone, and the male voice at her ear—Declan Emmet.

Ruhn shouted from a few feet away, “It’s down.”

She thrashed, but Declan held her firm, murmuring, “It’s all right.”

It wasn’t fucking all right. Hunt should have been there. He should have been with her, he should have been freed, and she should have found a way to help him—

It took half a moment for Declan to heave her out of the water. Ruhn, his face grim, hauled her the rest of the way, cursing up a storm while she shuddered on the dock.

“What the fucking fuck,” Tristan Flynn was panting, rifle aimed at the black water, ready to unload a hail of bullets at the slightest ripple.

“Are you all right?” Declan asked, water streaming down his face, red hair plastered to his head.

Bryce drew back into herself enough to survey her body. A gash sliced down her arm, but it had been made with claws, not those venomous teeth. Other slices peppered her, but …

Declan didn’t wait before kneeling before her, hands wreathed in light as he held them over the gash in her arm. It was rare—the Fae healing gift. Not as powerful as the talent of a medwitch, but a valuable strength to possess. She’d never known Dec had the ability.

Ruhn asked, “Why the
fuck
were you standing on the Black Dock after sundown?”

“I was kneeling,” she muttered.

“Same fucking question.”

She met her brother’s gaze as her wounds healed shut. “I needed a breather.”

Flynn muttered something.

“What?” She narrowed her eyes at him.

Flynn crossed his arms. “I said I’ve known that you’re a princess for all of an hour and you’re already a pain in my ass.”

“I’m not a princess,” she said at the same moment Ruhn snapped, “She’s not a princess.”

Declan snorted. “Whatever, assholes.” He pulled back from Bryce, healing complete. “We should have realized. You’re the only one who even comes close to getting under Ruhn’s skin as easily as his father does.”

Flynn cut in, “Where did that thing come from?”

“Apparently,” she said, “people who take large quantities of synth can inadvertently summon a kristallos demon. It was probably a freak accident.”

“Or a targeted attack,” Flynn challenged.

“The case is over,” Bryce said flatly. “It’s done.”

The Fae lord’s eyes flashed with a rare show of anger. “Maybe it isn’t.”

Ruhn wiped the water off his face. “On the chance Flynn’s right, you’re staying with me.”

“Over my dead fucking body.” Bryce stood, water pouring off her. “Look, thanks for rescuing me. And thanks for royally fucking me and Hunt over back there. But you know what?” She bared her teeth and pulled out her phone, wiping water from it, praying the protective spell she’d paid good money for had held. It had. She scrolled through screens until she got to Ruhn’s contact info. She showed it to him. “You?” She swiped her finger, and it was deleted. “Are
dead
to me.”

She could have sworn her brother, her fuck-you-world brother, flinched.

She looked at Dec and Flynn. “Thanks for saving my ass.”

They didn’t come after her. Bryce could barely stop shaking long enough to steer her scooter home, but she somehow made it. Made it upstairs, walked Syrinx.

The apartment was too quiet without Hunt in it. No one had come to take his things. If they had, they’d have found that sunball hat missing. Hidden in the box alongside Jelly Jubilee.

Exhausted, Bryce peeled off her clothes and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She lifted a palm to her chest, where the weight of the Archesian amulet had been for the past three years.

Red, angry lines marred her skin where the kristallos had swiped, but with Declan’s magic still working on her, they’d be faded to nothing by morning.

She twisted, bracing herself to see the damage to the tattoo on her back. This last shred of Danika. If that fucking demon had wrecked it …

She nearly wept to see it intact. To look at the lines in that ancient, unreadable alphabet and know that even with everything gone to Hel, this still remained: The words Danika had insisted they ink there, with Bryce too plastered to object. Danika had
picked the alphabet out of some booklet at the shop, though it sure as fuck didn’t look like any Bryce recognized. Maybe the artist had just made it up, and told them it said what Danika had wanted:

Through love, all is possible
.

The same words on the jacket in a pile at her feet. The same words that had been a clue—to her Redner account, to finding that flash drive.

Nonsense. It was all fucking nonsense. The tattoo, the jacket, losing that amulet, losing Danika, losing Connor and the Pack of Devils, losing Hunt—

Bryce tried and failed to wrest herself from the cycle of thoughts, the maelstrom that brought them around and around and around, until they all eddied together.

73

T
he last Summit Hunt had attended had been in an ancient, sprawling palace in Pangera, bedecked in the riches of the empire: silk tapestries and sconces of pure gold, goblets twinkling with precious stones, and succulent meats crusted in the rarest spices.

This one was held in a conference center.

The glass and metal space was sprawling, its layout reminding Hunt of a bunch of shoeboxes stacked beside and atop each other. Its central hall rose three stories high, the stairs and escalators at the back of the space adorned with the crimson banners of the Republic, the long pathway leading to them carpeted in white.

Each territory in Midgard held their own Summit every ten years, attended by various leaders within their borders, along with a representative of the Asteri and a few visiting dignitaries relevant to whatever issues would be discussed. This one was no different, save for its smaller scope: Though Valbara was far smaller than Pangera, Micah held four different Summit meetings, each for a separate quadrant of his realm. This one, for the southeastern holdings—with Lunathion’s leaders at its heart—was the first.

The site, located in the heart of the Psamathe Desert, a good five-hour drive from Crescent City—an hour for an angel at top flying speeds or a mere half hour by helicopter—had its own holding cells for dangerous Vanir.

He’d spent the last five days there, marking them by the shift in his food: breakfast, lunch, dinner. At least Sandriel and Pollux had not come to taunt him. At least he had that small reprieve. He’d barely listened to the Hammer’s attempts to bait him during the drive. He’d barely felt or heard anything at all.

Yet this morning, a set of black clothes had arrived with his breakfast tray. No weapons, but the uniform was clear enough. So was the message: he was about to be displayed, a mockery of an imperial Triumphus parade, for Sandriel to gloat about regaining ownership of him.

But he’d obediently dressed, and let Sandriel’s guards fit the gorsian manacles on him, rendering his power null and void.

He followed the guards silently, up through the elevator, and into the grand lobby itself, bedecked in imperial regalia.

Vanir of every House filled the space, most dressed in business clothes or what had once been known as courtly attire. Angels, shifters, Fae, witches … Delegations flanked either side of the red runner leading toward the stairs. Fury Axtar stood among the crowd, clad in her usual assassin leathers, watching everyone. She didn’t look his way.

Hunt was led toward a delegation of angels near the staircase—members of Sandriel’s 45th Legion. Her triarii. Pollux stood in front of them, his commander status marked by his gold armor, his cobalt cape, his smirking face.

That smirk only grew as Hunt took up his position nearby, wedged between her guards.

Her other triarii were nearly as bad as the Hammer. Hunt would never forget any of them: the thin, pale-skinned, dark-haired female known as the Harpy; the stone-faced, black-winged male called the Helhound; and the haughty, cold-eyed angel named the Hawk. But they ignored him. Which, he’d learned, was better than their attention.

No sign of the Hind, the final member of the triarii—though maybe her work as a spy-breaker in Pangera was too valuable to the Asteri for Sandriel to be allowed to drag her here.

Across the runner stood Isaiah and the 33rd. What remained
of its triarii. Naomi was stunning in her uniform, her chin high and right hand on the hilt of her formal legion sword, its winged cross guard glinting in the morning light.

Isaiah’s eyes drifted over to his. Hunt, in his black armor, was practically naked compared to the full uniform of the Commander of the 33rd: the bronze breastplate, the epaulets, the greaves and vambraces … Hunt still remembered how heavy it was. How stupid he’d always felt decked out in the full regalia of the Imperial Army. Like some prize warhorse.

The Autumn King’s Auxiliary forces stood to the left of the angels, their armor lighter but no less ornate. Across from them were the shifters, in their finest clothes. Amelie Ravenscroft didn’t so much as dare look in his direction. Smaller groups of Vanir filled the rest of the space: mer and daemonaki. No sign of any humans. Certainly no one with mixed heritage, either.

Hunt tried not to think of Bryce. Of what had gone down in the lobby.

Princess of the Fae. Bastard princess was more like it, but she was still the only daughter of the Autumn King.

She might have been furious at him for lying, but she’d lied plenty to him as well.

Drummers—fucking Hel, the gods-damned drummers—sounded the beat. The trumpeters began a moment later. The rolling, hateful anthem of the Republic filled the cavernous glass space. Everyone straightened as a motorcade pulled up beyond the doors.

Hunt sucked in a breath as Jesiba Roga emerged first, clad in a thigh-length black dress cut to her curvy body, ancient gold glittering at her ears and throat, a diaphanous midnight cape flowing behind her on a phantom wind. Even in towering high heels, she moved with the eerie smoothness of the House of Flame and Shadow.

Maybe she’d been the one who told Bryce how to sell her soul to the ruler of the Sleeping City.

The blond sorceress kept her gray eyes on the three flags hanging above the stairs as she moved toward them: on the left, the flag
of Valbara; on the right, the insignia of Lunathion with its crescent moon bow and arrow. And in the center, the
SPQM
and its twin branches of stars—the flag of the Republic.

The witches came next, their steps ringing out. A young, brown-skinned female in flowing azure robes strode down the carpet, her braided black hair gleaming like spun night.

Queen Hypaxia. She’d worn her mother’s gold-and-red crown of cloudberries for barely three months, and though her face was unlined and beautiful, there was a weariness to her dark eyes that spoke volumes about her lingering grief.

Rumor had it that Queen Hecuba had raised her deep in the boreal forest of the Heliruna Mountains, far from the corruption of the Republic. Hunt might have expected that such a person would shy from the gathered crowd and imperial splendor, or at least gape a little, but her chin remained high, her steps unfaltering. As if she had done this a dozen times.

She was to be formally recognized as Queen of the Valbaran Witches when the Summit officially began. Her final bit of pageantry before truly inheriting her throne. But—

Hunt got a look at her face as she neared.

He knew her: the medwitch from the clinic. She acknowledged Hunt with a swift sidelong glance as she passed.

Had Ruhn known? Who he’d met with, who had fed him research about the synth?

The mer leaders arrived, Tharion in a charcoal suit beside a female in a flowing, gauzy teal gown. Not the River Queen—she rarely left the Istros. But the beautiful, dark-skinned female might as well have been her daughter. Probably was her daughter, in the way that all mer claimed the River Queen as their mother.

Tharion’s red-brown hair was slicked back, with a few escaped strands hanging over his brow. He’d swapped his fins for legs, but they didn’t falter as his eyes slid toward Hunt. Sympathy shone there.

Hunt ignored it. He hadn’t forgotten just who had brought Bryce to the barge that night.

Tharion, to his credit, didn’t balk from Hunt’s stare. He just
gave him a sad smile and looked ahead, following the witches to the mezzanine level and open conference room doors beyond.

Then came the wolves. Sabine walked beside the hunched figure of the Prime, helping the old male along. His brown eyes were milky with age, his once-strong body bent over his cane. Sabine, clad in a dove-gray suit, sneered at Hunt, steering the ancient Prime toward the escalator rather than the steps.

But the Prime halted upon seeing where she planned to bring him. Drew her to the stairs. And began the ascent, step by painful step.

Proud bastard.

The Fae left their black cars, stalking onto the carpet. The Autumn King emerged, an onyx crown upon his red hair, the ancient stone like a piece of night even in the light of morning.

Hunt didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. Bryce looked more like her father than Ruhn did. Granted, plenty of the Fae had that coloring, but the coldness on the Autumn King’s face … He’d seen Bryce make that expression countless times.

The Autumn King, not some prick lordling, had been the one to go with her to the Oracle that day. The one to kick a thirteen-year-old to the curb.

Hunt’s fingers curled at his sides. He couldn’t blame Ember Quinlan for running the moment she’d seen the monster beneath the surface. Felt its cold violence.

And realized she was carrying its child. A potential heir to the throne—one that might complicate things for his pure-blooded, Chosen One son. No wonder the Autumn King had hunted them down so ruthlessly.

Ruhn, a step behind his father, was a shock to the senses. In his princely raiment, the Starsword at his side, he could have very well been one of the first Starborn with that coloring of his. Might have been one of the first through the Northern Rift, so long ago.

They passed Hunt, and the king didn’t so much as glance his way. But Ruhn did.

Ruhn looked to the shackles on Hunt’s wrists, the 45th’s triarii
around him. And subtly shook his head. To any observer, it was in disgust, in reprimand. But Hunt saw the message.

I’m sorry.

Hunt kept his face unmoved, neutral. Ruhn moved on, the circlet of gilded birch leaves atop his head glinting.

And then the atrium seemed to inhale. To pause.

The angels did not arrive in cars. No, they dropped from the skies.

Forty-nine angels in the Asterian Guard, in full white-and-gold regalia, marched into the lobby, spears in their gloved hands and white wings shining. Each had been bred, hand-selected, for this life of service. Only the whitest, purest of wings would do. Not one speck of color on them.

Hunt had always thought they were swaggering assholes.

They took up spots along the carpet, standing at attention, wings high and spears pointing at the glass ceiling, their snowy capes draping to the floor. The white plumes of horsehair on their golden helmets gleamed as if freshly brushed, and the visors remained down.

They’d been sent from Pangera as a reminder to all of them, the Governors included, that the ones who held their leashes still monitored everything.

Micah and Sandriel arrived next, side by side. Each in their Governor’s armor.

The Vanir sank to a knee before them. Yet the Asterian Guard—who would bow only for their six masters—remained standing, their spears like twin walls of thorns that the Governors paraded between.

No one dared speak. No one dared breathe as the two Archangels passed by.

They were all fucking worms at their feet.

Sandriel’s smile seared Hunt as she breezed past. Almost as badly as Micah’s utter disappointment and weariness.

Micah had picked his method of torture well, Hunt would give him that. There was no way Sandriel would let him die quickly. The torment when he returned to Pangera would last decades. No chance of a new death-bargain or a buyout.

And if he so much as stepped out of line, she’d know where to strike first. Who to strike.

The Governors swept up the stairs, their wings nearly touching. Why the two of them hadn’t become a mated pair was beyond Hunt. Micah was decent enough that he likely found Sandriel as abhorrent as everyone else did. But it was still a wonder the Asteri hadn’t ordered the bloodlines merged. It wouldn’t have been unusual. Sandriel and Shahar had been the result of such a union.

Though perhaps the fact that Sandriel had likely killed her own parents to seize power for her and her sister had made the Asteri put a halt to the practice.

Only when the Governors reached the conference room did those assembled in the lobby move, first the angels peeling off for the stairs, the rest of the assembly falling into line behind them.

Hunt was kept wedged between two of the 45th’s triarii—the Helhound and the Hawk, who both sneered at him—and took in as many details as he could when they entered the meeting room.

It was cavernous, with rings of tables flowing down to a central floor and round table where the leaders would sit.

The Pit of Hel. That’s what it was. It was a wonder none of its princes stood there.

The Prime of Wolves, the Autumn King, the two Governors, the River Queen’s fair daughter, Queen Hypaxia, and Jesiba all took seats at that central table. Their seconds—Sabine, Ruhn, Tharion, an older-looking witch—all claimed spots in the ring of tables around them. No one else from the House of Flame and Shadow had come with Jesiba, not even a vampyr. The ranks fell into place beyond that, each ring of tables growing larger and larger, seven in total. The Asterian Guard lined the uppermost level, standing against the wall, two at each of the room’s three exits.

The seven levels of Hel indeed.

Vidscreens were interspersed throughout the room, two hanging from the ceiling itself, and computers lined the tables, presumably for references. Fury Axtar, to his surprise, took up a spot
in the third circle, leaning back in her chair. No one else accompanied her.

Hunt was led to a spot against the wall, nestled between two Asterian Guards who ignored him completely. Thank fuck the angle blocked his view of Pollux and the rest of Sandriel’s triarii.

Hunt braced himself as the vidscreens flicked on. The room went quiet at what appeared.

He knew those crystal halls, torches of firstlight dancing on the carved quartz pillars rising toward the arched ceiling stories above. Knew the seven crystal thrones arranged in a curve on the golden dais, the one empty throne at its far end. Knew the twinkling city beyond them, the hills rolling away into the dimming light, the Tiber a dark band wending between them.

Everyone rose from their seats as the Asteri came into view. And everyone knelt.

Even from nearly six thousand miles away, Hunt could have sworn their power rippled into the conference room. Could have sworn it sucked out the warmth, the air, the life.