“So I’m supposed to go along with it on some hunch that fate is nudging me?”
“Maybe,” the mer answered. He shrugged his powerful shoulders, honed from a lifetime of swimming. “But whenever you’re tired of sitting on the couch feeling sorry for yourself, come find me. I could use a wolf’s sense of smell.”
“For what?”
Tharion’s face turned grave. “I need to find Emile before Pippa Spetsos. Or Cormac.”
The mer left him with that. For a long moment, Ithan sat in silence.
Had Connor known anything about Danika’s involvement with Sofie Renast? Had Sabine? He doubted it, but … At least Bryce had been as much in the dark about this as he was.
Bryce, who had used Danika’s sword during the attack on this city, and kept it ever since. Ithan glanced to the door.
He moved before he could second-guess the wisdom and morality of it, going right to the coat closet. Umbrellas, boxes of crap … nothing. The linen closet and the laundry closet didn’t reveal anything, either.
Which left … He winced as he entered her bedroom.
He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it the other night. Well, he’d been beaten to Hel and back, so that was excuse enough, but … the sword leaned against the chair beside her tall dresser, as if she’d left it there for decoration.
Ithan’s mouth dried out, but he stalked for the ancient blade. Gifted to Danika by the Prime—an act that had infuriated Sabine, who’d long expected to inherit the family weapon.
He could still hear Sabine raging in the weeks after Danika’s death, trying to find where Danika had left the sword. She’d practically torn that old apartment to pieces to find it. Ithan had thought it lost until he saw Bryce brandishing it this spring.
Breath tight in his chest, Ithan picked up the blade. It was light but perfectly balanced. He drew it from the sheath, the metal shining in the dim light.
Damn, it was gorgeous. Simple, yet impeccably made.
He blew out a long breath, chasing away the clinging cobwebs of memories—Danika carrying this sword everywhere, wielding it in practice, the blade somehow validation that even if Sabine sucked, with Danika, they had a bright future, with Danika, the wolves would become more—
He couldn’t help it. He took up a defensive stance and swung the blade.
Yeah, it was perfect. A remarkable feat of craftsmanship.
Ithan pivoted, feinting and then striking at an invisible opponent. Sabine would lose her shit if she knew he was messing around with the blade. Whatever.
Ithan struck again at the shadows, shuddering at the beautiful song of the sword slicing through the air. And … what the Hel: he’d had a weird fucking morning. He needed to burn off some tension.
Lunging and parrying, leaping and rolling, Ithan sparred against an invisible enemy.
Maybe he’d gone crazy. Maybe this was what happened to wolves without a pack.
The sword was an extension of his arm, he thought. He slid over the glass dining table, taking on two, three, ten opponents—
Holstrom blocks; Holstrom presses—
Moving through the apartment, Ithan leapt up onto the coffee table in front of the sectional, wood shuddering beneath him, the narration loud and precise in his head. Holstrom delivers the killing blow!
He swiped the sword down in a triumphant arc.
The front door opened.
Bryce stared at him. Standing on the coffee table with Danika’s sword.
“I forgot my work ID …？” Bryce started, brows so high they seemed capable of touching her hairline. Ithan prayed Solas would melt him into the floor and boil his blood into steam.
It seemed the sun god was listening. The coffee table groaned. Then cracked.
And collapsed entirely beneath him.
Ithan might have continued to lie there, hoping some Reaper would come suck the soul from his body, had Bryce not rushed over. Not to him—not to help him up. But to investigate something just beyond his line of sight.
“What the Hel is this?” she asked, kneeling.
Ithan managed to move his ass off the debris, lifting his head to see her crouching over a stack of papers. “Was there a drawer in the table?”
“No. There must have been a secret compartment.” Bryce flicked splinters of wood from the half-scattered pile. “This table was here when I moved in—all the furniture was Danika’s.” She lifted her gaze to him. “Why would she hide her old college papers in here?”
Ruhn held the Starsword to the grindstone. Black, iridescent sparks flew from the blade’s edge. Behind him in the otherwise empty Aux armory, Flynn and Declan cleaned their array of guns at a worktable.