Lidia shot Hunt a glare, not backing down as she started on Bryce’s chains. “There is a great deal that you do not understand.”
She was so beautiful. And utterly soulless.
You remind me that I’m alive, she’d told him.
“You killed Sofie,” Bryce hissed.
“No.” Lidia shook her head. “I called for the city-ship to save her. They arrived too late.”
“What?” Athalar blurted.
Ruhn blinked as the Hind pulled a white stone from her pocket. “These are calling stones—beacons. The Ocean Queen enchanted them. They’ll summon whatever city-ship is closest when dropped into the water. Her mystics sense when the ships might be needed in a certain area, and the stones are used as a precise method of location.”
She’d done it that day in Ydra, too. She’d summoned the ship that saved them.
“Sofie drowned because of you,” Ruhn growled, his voice like gravel. “People died at your hands—”
“There is so much to tell you, Ruhn,” she said softly, and his name on her tongue …
But Ruhn looked away from her. He could have sworn the Hind flinched.
He didn’t care. Not as Hunt asked Bryce, “Did you find out the truth?”
Bryce paled. “I did. I—”
Steps sounded down the hall. Far away, but approaching. The Hind went still. “Pollux.”
Her hearing had to be better than his. Or she knew the cadence of the bastard’s steps so well she could tell from a distance.
“We have to make it appear real,” she said to Bryce, to Ruhn, voice pleading, utterly desperate. “The information lines can’t be broken.” Her voice cracked. “Do you understand?”
Bryce did, apparently. She smirked. “I shouldn’t enjoy this so much.”
Before Ruhn could react, his sister punched the shifter in the face. Sent her sprawling. He shouted, and those footsteps down the hall turned into a run.
Bryce leapt upon the Hind, fists flying, and the Harpy’s blood on the floor smeared all over them both. Hunt struggled against his chains, and Ruhn got to his feet, lunging toward the females—
Pollux appeared in the doorway.
He beheld the dead Harpy, beheld Bryce bloodied with the Hind beneath her, being pummeled, beheld Ruhn advancing, and drew his sword.
Ruhn could have sworn the Hind whispered something in Bryce’s ear before Pollux grabbed Bryce by the neck and hauled her off the other female.
“Hello, Princess,” the monster crooned.
Hunt had no words in his head as the male he hated above all others grabbed his mate by the neck. Held her off the floor so that the tips of her sneakers dragged on the bloodied stone.
“Look what you did to my friend,” Pollux said in that dead, soulless voice. “And to my lover.”
“I’ll do the same to you,” Bryce managed to say, feet kicking blindly.
“Put her the fuck down,” Hunt snarled.
Pollux sneered at him, and did no such thing.
The Hind had managed to pull her sword from the Harpy’s body and point it at Ruhn. “Back against the wall or she dies.” Her voice was flat and low—as Hunt had always heard it. Not at all like the softer, higher register of a moment before.
Agent Daybright hadn’t needed saving after all. And the Hind … the female that Hunt had seen so mercilessly stride through the world …
She was a rebel. Had saved their asses that day in the waters off Ydra by summoning the city-ship with the calling stone. It hadn’t been Bryce’s light at all. We got your message, they’d said.
Ruhn looked like he’d been punched in the gut. In the soul.
But Pollux finally lowered Bryce to the ground, an arm wrapping around her middle as he grinned at Hunt. He sniffed Bryce’s hair. Hunt’s vision went black with rage as Pollux said, “This is going to be so satisfying.”
Bryce was shaking. She knew—whatever the truth was about the Asteri, about all of this, she knew. They had to get her out, so that information wouldn’t die here.
So she wouldn’t die here.
The next few minutes were a blur. Guards flowed in. Hunt found himself being hauled to his feet, Bryce chained beside him, Ruhn on her other side, the Hind stalking next to Pollux as they walked from the dungeons to an elevator bay.
“Their Graces await you,” the Hind said with such unfeeling ice that even Hunt bought it, and wondered if he’d imagined the female helping them. Imagined that she’d risked everything to save Ruhn from the Harpy.
From the way Ruhn was glaring at the Hind, Hunt could only guess what the prince was thinking.