Hunt was out there somewhere. Possibly dying.
Bryce dug the tip of the Starsword into the earth, using it to shove herself up to her knees. Her back screamed in agony. She might have screamed with it. The three hounds, the Reapers beyond them, seemed to smile.
“Yeah,” Bryce panted, heaving to her feet. “Fuck you, too.”
Her legs wobbled, yet she managed to lift the black sword in front of her. The three beasts roared, threatening to split her ears. Bryce opened her mouth to roar back.
But someone else did it for her.
For Hunt, there was only Bryce, bleeding and hurt.
Bryce, who’d made that brash run for the sword, probably thinking it was her only shot. Bryce, who’d gotten to her feet anyway, and planned to go down swinging.
Bryce, his mate.
The three hounds merged back into one. Readying for the killing blow.
Hunt landed in the dirt beside her and let out a bellow that shook the Gate itself.
Wreathed in lightning from wing tip to toe, Hunt landed beside Bryce so hard the earth shuddered. The power rolling off him sent Bryce’s hair floating upward. Primal rage poured from Hunt as he faced down the Shepherd. The Reapers.
She’d never seen anything of the sort—Hunt was the heart of a storm personified. The lightning around him turned blue, like the hottest part of a flame.
An image blasted through her mind. She had seen this before, carved in stone in the lobby of the CCB. A Fae male posed like an avenging god, hammer raised to the sky, a channel for his power—
Hunt unleashed his lightning at the Shepherd, the Reapers observing with wide eyes.
Bryce was too fast, even for him, as she leapt in front of the blow, Starsword extended. A wild theory, only half-formed, but—
Hunt’s lightning hit the Starsword, and the world erupted.
32
Hunt screamed as Bryce leapt in front of his power. As his lightning hit the black blade, exploding from the metal, flowing up into her arm, her body, her heart. Light flashed, blinding—
No, that was Bryce.
Power crackled from every inch of her, and from the Starsword she clenched in one hand as she barreled toward the Shepherd. It split into three hounds again, and as the first beast landed, Bryce struck. The glowing Starsword pierced the thick hide. Lightning exploded across the beast’s body. The other two screamed, and Reapers began scattering into the mist beyond the obelisks.
Bryce whirled as Hunt reached her and said, eyes white with light, “Watch out!”
Too late. The beast who’d fallen snapped its tail at Hunt, catching him in the gut and hurling him into the Dead Gate. He hit the stone and crumpled, his power fizzing out.
Bryce shouted his name as she held her ground against the remaining two beasts. The one she’d injured died, twitching on the ground. Hunt gasped for breath, trying to rise.
She lifted the sword, crackling with remnants of power. Not much. Like the first blow had exhausted most of it. Hunt braced a hand on the Dead Gate’s brass plaque as he tried to raise himself once more.
Power sucked from his fingers, pulled into the stone. He snatched his hand back. One of the beasts lunged for Bryce, but bounced away at a swipe of her sword. She needed more power—
Hunt peered at the Dead Gate’s archway above him. Firstlight flowed both ways. Into the Dead Gate and out of it.
And here, where the last power of the dead was fed into it … here was a well, like the one Bryce had used during the attack last spring.
Sofie and Emile Renast could channel energy, too—and lightning. Hunt was no thunderbird, but could he do the same?
Lightning flowed in his veins. His body was equipped to handle raw, sizzling energy. Was this what Apollion had hinted at—why the prince wanted not only him and Bryce, but Emile and Sofie? Had the Prince of the Pit engineered this situation, manipulating them into coming to the Bone Quarter so that Hunt would be forced to realize what he could do with his own power? Perhaps Emile hadn’t even come here at all. Perhaps the Reapers had lied about that at Apollion’s behest, just to get them here, to this place, this moment—
Bryce angled her sword higher, ready to fight until the end. Hunt gazed at her for a moment, an avenging angel in her own right—and then slammed his hand onto the brass plaque of the Dead Gate.
Bryce dared only a glance behind her as Hunt bellowed again. He was standing, but his hand …
White, blinding firstlight—or was it secondlight?—flowed from the Dead Gate up his arm. Up his shoulder. And on the other side of the archway, the stone began to go dark. As if he were draining it.
The two hounds of the Shepherd merged back together, anticipating the next strike. Hunt’s voice was a thunderclap as he said behind her, “Light it up, Bryce.”