Ithan snapped, “My brother would tell me good fucking riddance to you.”
Sabine snarled, the sound pure command. “You might be exiled, but you still obey me.”
Ithan shuddered, but refused to back down.
Tharion stepped forward. “You want to throw down with Holstrom, Sabine, go ahead. I’ll stand as witness.”
Ithan would lose. And Sabine would gut him so thoroughly there would be no hope of recovery. He’d wind up with his brother, his soul served up to the Under-King and the Dead Gate on a silver platter.
Ruhn braced himself—and realized he had no idea what to do.
Celestina should have laid out some hard alcohol rather than rosé. Hunt wasn’t nearly drunk enough to deal with having to keep smiling in a room full of his enemies. To deal with watching two people who had no choice but to make an arranged mating work somehow. They wouldn’t officially be mated until the party next month, but their life together was already beginning.
Beside him, at the doors to the private veranda off Celestina’s study, Isaiah knocked back his pale pink wine and muttered, “What a clusterfuck.”
“I feel bad for her,” Naomi said on Isaiah’s other side.
Hunt grunted his agreement, watching Celestina and Ephraim attempt to make small talk across the room. Beyond them, the Harpy seemed content to sneer at Hunt the whole night. Baxian lurked by the door to the hall. Pollux and Lidia talked near the Harpy with bent heads.
Naomi followed the direction of his gaze. “There’s a terrifying match.”
Hunt chuckled. “Yeah.” His phone buzzed, and he fished it out of his pocket to see that a text had arrived from Bryce Sucks My Dick Like a Champ.
Hunt choked, scrambling to switch screens as Isaiah peered over his shoulder and laughed. “I assume you didn’t put that name in there.”
“No,” Hunt hissed. He’d punish her thoroughly for that one. After he finally got to fuck her. He hadn’t forgotten that he was supposed to be doing exactly that right now. That he’d made dinner and hotel reservations that had been canceled for this awkward-ass shit. Hunt explained to Isaiah, “It’s this stupid running joke we have.”
“A joke, hmmm?” Isaiah’s eyes danced with delight, and he clapped Hunt on the shoulder. “I’m happy for you.”
Hunt smiled to himself, opening up her message, trying not to look at the name she’d put in and think about how accurate it was. “Thanks.” But his smile faded as he read the message.
Sabine here.
Hunt’s heartbeat kicked up a notch. Isaiah read the message and murmured, “Go.”
“What about this?” Hunt jerked his chin at Celestina and Ephraim across the room.
“Go,” Isaiah urged. “You need backup?”
He shouldn’t, but Bryce’s message had been so vague, and—shit. “You can’t come with me. It’ll be too obvious.” He turned to Naomi, but she’d drifted off toward the bar cart again. If he grabbed her, it’d draw everyone’s attention. He scanned the space.
Baxian looked right at him, reading the tension on his face, his body. Fucker. Now someone would know he’d left—
Isaiah sensed it, noted it. “I’ll deal with that,” his friend murmured, and sauntered off toward the black-winged angel. He said something to Baxian that had them both pivoting away from Hunt.
Seizing his chance, Hunt backed up a step, then another, fading into the shadows of the veranda beyond the study. He kept moving, stealthy, until his heels were at the edge of the landing. But as he stepped off, free-falling into the night, he caught Celestina looking at him.
Disappointment and displeasure darkened her eyes.
35
Bryce cursed herself for opening the door. For letting the wolf in. For letting it get to this so quickly: Ithan and Sabine, about to splatter this apartment with blood. Ithan’s blood.
Bryce’s mouth dried out. Think. Think.
Ruhn swiftly glanced at her, but didn’t suggest any bright ideas mind-to-mind.
Sabine snarled at Ithan, “Your brother knew his place. Was content to be Danika’s Second. You’re not nearly as smart as he was.”
Ithan didn’t back down as Sabine advanced. “I might not be as smart as Connor,” he said, “but at least I wasn’t dumb enough to sleep with Mordoc.”
Sabine halted. “Shut your mouth, boy.”
Ithan laughed, cold and lifeless. Bryce had never heard him make such a sound. “We never learned during that last visit: Was it an arranged pairing between you two, or some drunk decision?”