They entered the elevator, the Hind and Pollux facing them. The Hammer smirked at Hunt.
If they could kill Pollux … But cameras monitored this elevator. The halls. The Hind would be revealed.
Bryce was still shaking beside him. He hooked his fingers through hers, sticky with blood—as much movement as his chains would allow.
He tried not to glance down when he felt her own chains. The manacles were loose. Unlocked. Only Bryce’s fingertips held them in place—the Hind hadn’t secured them. Bryce met Hunt’s stare. Pained and full of love.
The Hind had known it, too. That Bryce, with the intel she carried, had to get out.
Was the Hind planning something? Had she whispered a plan in Bryce’s ear?
Bryce said nothing. Just held his hand—for the last time, he realized as the elevator shot up through the crystal palace.
He was holding his mate’s hand for the last time.
Ruhn stared at the female he’d thought he knew. At her impassive, beautiful face. Her empty golden eyes.
It was a mask. He’d seen the real face moments ago. Had joined his body and soul with hers days ago. He knew what fire burned there.
Night.
Her voice was a distant, soft plea in his mind. Like Lidia was trying to find a way to link their thoughts again, like the crystal in his pocket had yet again forged a path. Night.
Ruhn ignored the begging voice. The way it broke as she said, Ruhn.
He fortified the walls of his mind. Brick by brick.
Ruhn. Lidia banged on the walls of his mind.
So he encased it with iron. With black steel.
Pollux smiled at him. Slid a hand around the Hind’s blood-splattered throat and kissed under her ear. “Do you like the way my lover looks, princeling?”
Something lethal snapped free at that hand on her neck. The way it squeezed, and the slight glimmer of pain in Lidia’s eyes—
He’d hurt her. Pollux had hurt her, again and again, and she’d voluntarily submitted so she could keep feeding the rebels intel. She’d endured a monster like Pollux for this.
“Maybe we’ll put on a show for you before the end,” Pollux said, and licked up the column of Lidia’s neck, lapping up the blood splattered there.
Ruhn bared his teeth in a silent snarl. He’d kill him. Slowly and thoroughly, punishing him for every touch, every hand he’d put on Lidia in pain and torment.
He had no idea where that landed him. Why he wanted and needed that steel-clad wall between him and Lidia, even as his blood howled to murder Pollux. How he could abhor her and need her, be drawn to her, in the same breath.
Pollux laughed against her skin, then pulled away. Lidia smiled coolly. Like it all meant nothing, like she felt nothing at all.
But that voice against the walls of his mind shouted, Ruhn!
She banged against the black steel and stone, over and over. Her voice broke again, Ruhn!
Ruhn locked her out.
She’d taken countless lives—but she’d worked to save them, too. Did it change anything? He’d known Day was someone high up—he’d have been a fool to think anyone with that level of clearance with the Asteri would come without complications. But for it to be her … What the Hel did it even say about him, that he was capable of feeling what he did for someone like her?
His ally was his enemy. His enemy was his lover. He focused on the gore splattered on her.
Lidia had so much blood on her hands that there would never be any washing it away.
Bryce knew no one was coming to save them. Knew it was likely her fault. She could barely stand to feel Hunt’s fingers against hers as they walked down the long crystal hallway. Couldn’t stand the stickiness of the Harpy’s blood as it dried on her skin.
She’d never seen a hall so long. A wall of windows stretched along one side, overlooking the palace grounds and ancient city beyond. On the other side, busts of the Asteri in their various forms frowned down upon them from atop pedestals.
Their masters. Their overlords. The parasites who had lured them all into this world. Who had fed off them for fifteen thousand years.
Rigelus wouldn’t have told her so much if he planned to ever let her go again.
She wished she’d called her mom and Randall. Wished she could hear their voices one more time. Wished she’d made things right with Juniper. Wished she’d lain low and been normal and lived out a long, happy life with Hunt.
It wouldn’t have been normal, though. It would have been contented ignorance. And any children they had … their power would one day have also been siphoned off to fuel these cities and the monsters who ruled them.