I was already shifting, already preparing to step out from behind Varyth’s protective stance because I’d be damned if I let him use himself as a shield twice in one day.

  But then I actually looked at the male who’d just walked into our tunnel.

  I knew him.

  Not personally. Not from this life.

  But I’d seen him before.

  In Darian’s memory.

  Dark hair, caramel skin. Brutal, elegant features that could have been carved from violence itself.

  His face was adorned with several piercings that gleamed in the soft light. A small gold ring hung from one ear, while delicate chains draped from the other, their intricate designs shimmering as they caught the faintest movement. The centre of his forehead held a single glittering black gem, dark as obsidian, yet every so often it flashed—as though lightning was trapped beneath the surface.

  Power rolled off him in waves that made the air itself crackle and pop. Lightning danced across his shoulders, his arms, threading through dark hair that seemed to move with its own current.

  The air around him smelled like ozone and violence.

  My breath caught.

  Stormborn.

  His eyes catalogued each of us with predatory intent. Lingered on Varyth’s wings. Settled on Cindrissian with recognition that felt dangerously intimate.

  “Cindrissian.” His voice was smooth, cultured. “Haven’t seen you in a century, old friend.”

  The way he said friend made it sound like a threat.

  Fenric’s snarl intensified, obsidian crawling further up his arms until it looked like he was wearing gauntlets forged from solidified darkness. “You’re not taking him.”

  The words came out feral, protective, and so viciously possessive that even Lincatheron turned to stare.

  Merrick’s laugh was rich and warm and absolutely devoid of humanity. “Not to worry.” Lightning danced between his fingers, casual as breathing. “I have no interest in traitorous scum.” His gaze slid back to Cindrissian, predatory and amused. “How’d that work out for you though, Cindri? Betraying your Court, your people, your family for—what was it? Love?” The word dripped with mockery. “How’s... what’s her name? Eilrys?”

  Cindrissian went absolutely still. Not the stillness of calm, but the frozen rigidity of violence barely held back. When he spoke, it was silk and poison. “Why don’t you just go back to sucking Ashterion’s cock, Merrick? Or are you out here because that wife of his finally replaced you?”

  The temperature in the tunnel dropped.

  Then Merrick tilted his head, and before anyone could move, before I could even process what was happening, a bolt of lightning slammed into Cindrissian’s chest.

  The impact launched him backward with enough force that the air itself screamed. He hit the cave wall across from us with a sickening crunch and crumpled to the ground with a groan that made my chest seize.

  “No!” Fenric’s roar shook the tunnel.

  Obsidian erupted from his hands in a wave of lethal spikes, launching toward Merrick at a speed that should have been impossible to dodge.

  Merrick moved like liquid lightning, electricity arcing around him as he sidestepped the attack with brutal grace. The obsidian spikes embedded themselves in the soldiers behind him, three dropping before they even realised they were dead.

  “Fenric.” Merrick’s tone was almost conversational as he surveyed the carnage. “Still so emotional. Still so tragically attached.”

  “I’m going to fucking kill you.” Fenric was unrecognisable, something primal and utterly unhinged bleeding through.

  Varyth’s mist thickened, his grip on my wrist bordering on painful. I could feel the tension radiating off him.

  “Let us pass.” Varyth’s voice was steady despite the blood trickling from his temple. “Whatever orders you have⁠—”

  Stormborn’s gaze slid past Varyth.

  Found me.

  The amusement on his face shifted into something more focused. Lightning rippled across his frame in a pattern that looked almost curious.

  “And who,” he purred, taking a step closer, “is this?”

  Varyth moved instantly, blocking his line of sight with his body, mist coiling like it was preparing to strike. “None of your concern.”

  “Now that’s interesting.” Stormborn’s head tilted, studying the protective stance with the attention a predator gave prey that was acting strangely. “You’re rather invested in keeping her hidden. Which makes me very, very curious about what she is.”

  He took another step forward.

  I didn’t have time to process what was happening before Varyth’s grip on my wrist turned to iron.

  “Run.” The word came out feral, desperate. “Isara, fucking run.”

  But Stormborn’s attention had already locked onto me with a focus that said running was never going to be an option. Lightning crackled across his shoulders, threading through dark hair that moved like it had its own heartbeat.

  “Oh.” The word dripped with realisation, with triumph. “Is this the human? The one that has half the courts in the realm hunting?”

  He took another step forward, casual as death.

  “The one my commander is looking for.”

  The mist around Varyth exploded outward. His wings snapped wide, every line of his body screaming mine in a language that transcended words. “You’re not fucking touching her.”

  Behind Stormborn, the soldiers shifted, weapons rising, bodies tensing in that way that preceded violence.

  For a moment, no one moved.

  The tunnel held its breath.

  Then the cave exploded.

  Pure, blinding, white-hot light seared through my eyelids even when I squeezed them shut. The air tasted like ozone and rage and the split second before lightning struck.

  The force of it drove me to my knees.

  When my vision cleared, when I could see again through the spots dancing across my retinas, the world had fundamentally changed.

  Bodies littered the ground.

  The soldiers behind Stormborn were just... gone. Not dead in the traditional sense. Dead in the way things died when lightning decided they shouldn’t exist anymore. Scorched and smoking and utterly, completely lifeless.

  And Varyth⁠—

  Oh gods, Varyth.

  He lay crumpled against the tunnel wall, wings splayed awkwardly, unconscious but breathing. Blood trickled from his nose, his ears. Beside him, Lincatheron had fallen across Fenric like he’d tried to shield him even while unconscious. And Cindrissian hadn’t moved from where Stormborn’s first attack had thrown him.

  All of them down.

  All of them breathing, but down.

  Only Stormborn and I remained standing.

  “Perfect.” His voice was silk and satisfaction as he surveyed the carnage with the detachment of someone admiring their own artwork. Lightning danced across his frame, casual and beautiful and absolutely devastating. “Now we can chat.”

  “You just murdered your entire fucking squad and you want to chat?”

  “What do you want?” The words came out flat, lethal. I wasn’t going to give him anything. Not a single fucking answer.

  Merrick studied me for a long moment, lightning lashing across his frame in patterns that should have been beautiful and were only terrifying. “Has he hurt you?”

  The question landed so far from what I’d expected that I actually blinked.

  “Has Varyth,” he continued, his tone almost conversational. “Harmed you in any way? Threatened you?”

  “What the fuck kind of⁠—”

  “It’s a simple question.” He cut in. “Has he given you reason to fear him?”

  My laugh was jagged, feral. “What the fuck do you mean do I fear him? You’re the one who just electrocuted an entire cave.”

  “I’m asking,” he said with infuriating patience. “If the male currently unconscious behind you has treated you with anything resembling respect. Or if you’re here because you have no other choice.”

  Something hot and possessive ripped through my chest. “Varyth has kept me alive when half the realm apparently wants me dead or worse. He’s protected me. If you’re trying to paint him as some kind of enemy, you can fuck off.”

  “I’m not painting him as anything.” Merrick’s expression remained neutral. “I’m trying to determine if you understand what you’ve gotten yourself entangled with.”

  “I don’t know what you want,” I snarled, black fire flickering hotter under my skin. “So either take me to whoever the hell you answer to, or⁠—”

  “I’m not taking you anywhere.”

  I stared at him.

  Merrick’s mouth curved into something that might have been a smile if smiles could be weapons. “In fact, that’s precisely what I’m trying to prevent.”

  My brain stuttered, trying to reconcile the massacre around us with the words coming out of his mouth. “You just murdered a dozen of your own men.”

  “Who were under orders to bring you back should we find you.” His expression didn’t change, lightning crackling lazily across his shoulders. “Dead soldiers can’t report what they’ve found. Can’t tell anyone that I located the mysterious human and then inexplicably let her walk away.”

  The world tilted.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m really not.” That smile again, sharp enough to cut. “Though I understand why you’d think so.”

  Blood roared in my ears. Nothing made sense. This male had just killed his entire squad, knocked out everyone I’d come here to protect, and now he was standing there acting like—like what? My fucking ally?

  I crossed the scorched ground on legs that shouldn't have been steady, dropping to my knees beside Cindrissian. Blood painted the side of his face in ribbons, stark against pale skin. His breathing was shallow but there—there—and I pressed shaking fingers to his throat, counting the pulse that drummed against my palm like proof of life.

  “He'll live.”

  Merrick's voice came from too close behind me, and I whipped around, putting myself between him and Cindrissian's unconscious form like I could do a damn thing if he decided to finish what he'd started.

  But something flickered across his face. Something that looked almost like guilt before he smoothed it away beneath that insufferable neutrality.

  “I know how to hit,” he continued, lightning dimming to a low crackle across his shoulders. “How to make it hurt without making it permanent. He'll wake with the mother of all headaches, but he'll wake.”

  Cindrissian stirred beneath my hand, a low groan escaping his lips. His eyes moved beneath closed lids, rapid and unfocused, like he was chasing something in the dark.

  “Rain...” The word came out slurred, barely coherent. His head turned against the stone, fingers twitching. “The rain... it's—Ryn...”

  His breathing hitched, fingers curling against the stone like he was trying to hold onto something that kept slipping through. “The rain... I’m sorry...”

  Behind me, I could feel Merrick's attention like a physical weight, watching this moment with the clinical detachment of someone cataloguing weaknesses.

  I bared my teeth at him without turning around. “What did you do to him?”

  “Lightning scrambles the mind for a bit.” Still that infuriatingly calm tone. “Makes everything blur together. Memories, dreams, reality—they all bleed into one another until the brain sorts itself out.”

  “How considerate of you.”

  “Would you have preferred I killed them?” The question came sharp, edged with something that might have been irritation. “Because that was the alternative. Dead, or temporarily unconscious with minimal lasting damage. I chose the option that left them breathing.”

  “Why?” The word tore out of me, raw and desperate. “Why would you⁠—”

  “Because whatever Varyth is telling you about why you’re so valuable, about why the courts want you?” Merrick’s gaze locked onto mine. “He’s not giving you the full picture. And you deserve to know what you’re caught in the middle of before you make any irreversible choices.”

  “Stop talking in riddles and just tell me.”

  “Varyth isn’t who he seems.” The words landed quiet, deliberate. “And the sooner you figure that out, the better chance you have of surviving what’s coming.”

  Behind me, I heard movement. A groan.

  Varyth.

  “I need to go.” Merrick looked to Cindrissian one last time, and there it was again, that flicker of something that looked horrifyingly like grief. “They’ll all live. The lightning wasn’t meant to kill. Just incapacitate.”

  “Wait—” I started.

  But he was already moving, already dissolving into electricity and motion, his voice echoing back through the tunnel as his form blurred. “Figure out what he’s not telling you, little human. Before it’s too late.”

  Then he was gone.

  I stared at the empty space, my mind struggling to process what had just happened.

  Another groan from behind me.

  I spun around to find Varyth pushing himself upright against the cave wall, one hand pressed to his temple, struggling to focus. Blood dripped from his nose, dark against pale skin, and when he tried to stand his legs buckled.

  I was beside him before conscious thought caught up, my hands finding his shoulders to steady him as the world seemed to tilt around us both.

  “Easy,” I murmured. “Don’t try to move yet.”

  “Isara?” His eyes swept the tunnel, taking in the bodies, the scorch marks on stone, the way lightning had carved patterns into the cave walls. “What happened? Where is he?”

  “Stormborn’s gone.” The words felt strange on my tongue, like speaking them might somehow summon him back. “He knocked all of you out. Killed his own soldiers.”

  Varyth went very still. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No.” I moved toward him, my hands reaching to check for injuries. “He just talked.”

  Varyth’s jaw tightened, mist beginning to waft around his shoulders despite his obvious exhaustion. “About what?”

  The question hung in the air between us, weighted with something I couldn’t name.

  “You.” The word came out before I could stop it. “He said you weren’t who you seemed. That you weren’t telling me the full picture about why the courts want me.”

  Something flickered across Varyth’s features, too quick to interpret, but it left shadows in its wake.

  I moved toward where Fenric was stirring, Lincatheron’s arm thrown protectively across his chest even in unconsciousness.

  Fenric’s eyes fluttered open, steel-blue and unfocused, his hand immediately reaching for where Lincatheron lay across him.

  “What else did he say?” Varyth’s voice was controlled, but I could feel the tension radiating off him in waves.

  Before I could answer, a groan echoed from across the tunnel. Cindrissian was pushing himself upright against the stone wall, one hand pressed to his ribs where Merrick’s lightning had caught him. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “That fucking bastard,” he rasped, the words slurred but venomous. “Still hits like a gods-damned boulder.”

  Lincatheron stirred next, his dark wings rustling against stone as consciousness returned. He immediately looked at Fenric beneath him, and for a heartbeat something vulnerable flickered across his usually stoic features.

  “Fenric,” he said quietly. “You’re hurt.” Lincatheron’s hand moved to check Fenric for injuries.

  “I’m fine.” But Fenric’s voice was tight, his gaze already moving past Lincatheron to where Cindrissian sat slumped against the wall. “Driss?”

  “Still breathing, unfortunately,” Cindrissian managed, though his attempt at his usual smirk was undercut by the way he winced with each word. “Takes more than a little lightning to put me down permanently.”

  The casual dismissal didn’t fool anyone. I could see the way he held himself, guarded, like something inside had shifted wrong and he was trying not to let it show.

  “We need to move,” Lincatheron said, already pushing himself to his feet despite the obvious effort it cost him. His wings folded tight against his back as he surveyed the carnage. The scorched bodies, the lightning-carved walls. “More soldiers will come when this squad doesn’t report back.”

  I wanted to press him about what Merrick had said, about the secrets and half-truths that apparently surrounded me like smoke. But he was right, this wasn’t the time or place for interrogation. Not when we were all barely standing, not when the scent of ozone and death hung thick in the air.

  “Can you walk?” I asked Cindrissian, moving to where he sat against the wall.

  His crimson eyes tracked my approach. “Concerned for me? How touching.”

  “I’m concerned about whether we’re going to have to carry you out of here,” I said flatly, though I was already extending my hand to help him up. “So answer the question.”

  Cindrissian studied my outstretched hand for a moment. Then he gripped my wrist and let me haul him to his feet, though I could feel the way his body shook with the effort of staying upright.

  “I’ll manage,” he said, but his voice was thinner than usual, lacking its customary edge of amusement.

  Fenric was there in an instant, sliding under Cindrissian’s other arm with movements that were careful, protective, and utterly unconscious. The way Cindrissian leaned into him suggested it wasn’t the first time they’d carried each other out of trouble.

  “Southwest passage,” Varyth said, pushing himself away from the wall with determination that didn’t quite hide the way his legs trembled. “We need to get out of here before reinforcements arrive.”

  Mist coiled around him as he spoke, silver and defensive, but I could see the way it flickered, unsteady, like his magic was fighting against the lingering effects of Merrick’s lightning.

  I slipped under his other arm despite his weak protest, feeling the tremor that ran through his frame. “You’re in no shape to lead us anywhere.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re bleeding from your ears and can’t stand,” I cut him off, sharp enough to make him flinch. “So shut up and let me help.”