A step behind her, a dark-haired, pale-faced female malakh grinned with wicked amusement. She was narrow-featured, black-winged, with a wildness like the western wind. “Hello, princeling. Pup.”
Ruhn’s blood chilled as the Harpy slid into the seat to his left. An assortment of knives glinted on the belt at her slim waist. But Ruhn peered up again at the beautiful female, whose face he knew well thanks to the news and TV, though he’d never seen it in person. Her golden hair glinted in the dim lights as she sat on his right and signaled the bartender with an elegant hand.
“I thought we’d play a round of cards,” the Hind said.
Two against one. Those odds were usually laughable for Hunt.
But not when his opponents were demons from Hel. One of the princes’ cast-off experiments, now acting as the Under-King’s enforcers, feeding long-dead souls into the Gate for secondlight energy. Like all they were, would ever be, was food to fuel the empire.
The demon to his left lunged, teeth snapping.
Hunt blasted his lightning, forks of it wrapping around the beast’s thick neck. It bucked, bellowing, and the one to his right charged. Hunt lashed at it, another collar of lightning going around its neck, a leash of white light clenched in his fist.
Had Bryce made it to the river? The third demon had raced after her before he could stop it, but she was fast, and she was smart—
The demons before him halted. They shuddered and melted back into each other, becoming one beast again.
His lightning remained around its neck. But he could do nothing as it flexed—and shattered the lightning sizzling into its flesh. Something of that size and speed would use the two seconds of slowness it took him to get airborne and swallow him whole.
This wasn’t how he’d expected the morning to go.
He rallied his power, focusing. He’d killed Sandriel with this lightning. A demon should be nothing. But before he could act, a scream rent the mists to the southeast. The beast twisted toward the sound, sniffing.
And before Hunt could stop it, faster than his lightning’s whip, it raced off into the mist. After Bryce.
Bryce crouched beside the Dead Gate, sizing up the threats surrounding her. Not just the hound, but the two dozen Reapers who’d floated from the mists, encircling her.
The half-lifes’ rotting flesh reeked; their acid-green eyes glowed through the mists. Their rasping whispers slithered like snakes over her skin. The Shepherd advanced, cutting her off further.
The crystal of the Dead Gate began to glow white. Not from her touch, but as if—
The Reapers were chanting. Awakening the Dead Gate, somehow.
During the attack on the city, it had channeled her magic against the demons, but today … today it would siphon off her power. Her soul. The Gates sucked magic from whoever touched them, and stored it. She’d inherited her power from that very force.
But this one fed that power right back into the power grid. Like some fucked-up rechargeable battery. Somehow, she’d become food. Was that what she’d traded away? A few centuries here, thinking she’d found eternal rest—and then meeting this end? Instead, she’d face a trip straight into the meat grinder of souls immediately when she died.
Which seemed likely to be soon.
There was a good chance that she could draw from the Gate as well, she supposed. But what if the Dead Gate was somehow different? What if she went to summon power, only to lose all of hers? She couldn’t risk it.
Bryce got to her feet, hands shaking. The Starsword lay between her and the Shepherd.
Hunt’s lightning had stopped. Where was he? Would a mate know, would a mate feel—
Another dog stepped from the mist. Then peeled apart into two—the ones Hunt had been fighting. No blood stained their muzzles, but Hunt wasn’t with them. Not a sliver of his lightning graced the mists.
The three dogs advanced, sniffing for her location. The Reapers kept chanting as the Dead Gate glowed brighter. That teleporting of Cormac’s would have been helpful—she could have grabbed Hunt five minutes ago and vanished.
She glanced at the sword. It was now or never. Live or die. Like, really die.
Bryce sucked in a breath, and didn’t give herself a chance to second-guess her stupidity. She bolted for the hounds. They charged, leaping for her with three sets of snapping jaws—
Bryce dropped, the rocky ground shredding her face as she slid beneath them, until the Starsword was cradled to her body. Something burning shot down her back.
The world boomed with the impact of the three hounds landing and pivoting. Bryce tried to get up, to hold the sword out, but blood warmed her back. A claw must have raked up her spine while one of the hounds had leapt over her, and the splintering, blistering pain—