Isaiah, gods bless him, stepped forward, a fist on his heart. “Your Grace. I welcome you and your triarii.” Ephraim had only brought Sandriel’s triarii with him, Hunt realized. Had left his original members back in Pangera with the Hawk.

  Ephraim recovered from the awkward kiss and tucked his blindingly white wings close to his toned, powerful body. “I thank you for your welcome, Commander Tiberian. And hope that your triarii will welcome mine as you so warmly did.”

  Hunt at last glanced at the Hind, standing a few feet behind Ephraim, and then at Pollux, staring at her with wolfish intensity from across the room. The Hind’s golden eyes simmered, focused wholly on her lover. As if she were waiting for the go-ahead to jump his bones.

  “Yuck,” Naomi muttered, and Hunt suppressed his smile.

  Celestina seemed to be searching for something to say, so Hunt spared her and said, “We shall treat your triarii as our brothers and sisters.” The Harpy sneered at the last word. Hunt’s lightning sparked in answer. “For however long they remain here.” For however long I let you live, you fucking psychopath.

  Celestina recovered enough to say, “Their alliance shall be only one of the many successes for our mating.”

  Ephraim voiced his agreement, even as he raked his stare over his mate once more. Approval shone there, but Celestina … Her throat bobbed.

  She’d … been with a male, hadn’t she? Come to think of it, Hunt didn’t even know if she preferred males. Had the Asteri considered that? Would they care what her preferences were, what her experience was, before throwing her into bed with Ephraim?

  Baxian’s eyes remained on the Harpy and the Hind, cold and watchful. He didn’t seem particularly pleased to see them.

  “I have some refreshments prepared,” Celestina said, gesturing to the tables against the wall of windows. “Come, let us drink to this happy occasion.”

  Bryce had just finished telling Ruhn and Ithan what had gone down in the Bone Quarter—both of them looking as sick as Tharion had to hear about the real fate of the dead—when someone knocked on the door.

  “So Connor,” Ithan was saying, rubbing his face. “He’s … They fed his soul into the Gate to become firstlight? Secondlight? Whatever.”

  Bryce wrung her hands. “It seems like they’d wait until we’re all dust, and even our descendants have forgotten him, but considering how much we pissed off the Under-King, I feel like there’s a chance he might … move Connor up the list.”

  “I need to know,” Ithan said. “I need to fucking know.”

  Bryce’s throat ached. “I do, too. We’ll try to find out.”

  Tharion asked, “But what can be done to help him—any of them?”

  Silence fell. The knock on the door came again, and Bryce sighed. “We’ll figure that out, too.”

  Ruhn toyed with one of the hoops through his left ear. “Is there someone we should … tell?”

  Bryce unlocked the door. “The Asteri undoubtedly know about it and don’t care. They’ll say it’s our civic duty to give back whatever power we can.”

  Ithan shook his head, looking toward the window.

  Ruhn said, “We have to think carefully about this. Was the Prince of the Pit pushing you and Athalar to go there by sending those Reapers? Or by having his Reapers hint that Emile and Sofie might be hiding there? Why? To—activate your combined powers with that Gate trick? He couldn’t have known that would happen. We have to think about how the Asteri would retaliate if this is something they want kept under wraps. And what they’d do if we do indeed find and harbor Emile and Sofie.”

  “We’ll game it out,” Bryce said, and finally opened the door.

  A hand locked around her throat, crushing the air from her. “You little cunt,” Sabine Fendyr hissed.

  Ruhn should have considered who might need to knock on the front door. Instead, he’d been so focused on the truth Bryce had revealed about their lives—and afterlives—that he’d let her open it without checking.

  Sabine hurled Bryce across the room, hard enough that she slammed into the side of the sectional, scooting the behemoth couch back by an inch.

  Ruhn was up instantly, gun aimed at the Alpha. Behind him, Tharion helped Bryce to her feet. Sabine’s attention remained fixed on Bryce as she said, “What game are you playing, Princess?” That title was clearly what had kept Sabine from ripping out Bryce’s throat.

  Bryce’s brows lowered, but Ithan stepped to Ruhn’s side, violence gleaming in his eyes. “What the Hel are you talking about?”

  Sabine bristled, but she didn’t remove her focus from Bryce as she continued, “You just can’t stay out of wolf business, can you?”

  Bryce said coolly, “Wolf business?”

  Sabine pointed a clawed finger toward Ithan. “He was exiled. And yet you decided to harbor him. No doubt part of some plan of yours to rob me of my birthright.”

  “So the big bad wolf came all the way here to yell at me about it?”

  “The big bad wolf,” Sabine seethed, “came all the way here to remind you that no matter what my father might have said, you are no wolf.” She sneered at Ithan. “And neither is he. So stay the fuck out of wolf affairs.”

  Ithan let out a low growl, but pain seemed to ripple beneath it.

  Ruhn snarled, “You want to talk, Sabine, then sit the fuck down like an adult.” At his side, he was vaguely aware of Bryce thumbing in a message on her phone.

  Ithan squared his shoulders. “Bryce isn’t harboring me. Perry dropped me here.”

  “Perry’s a moon-eyed fool,” Sabine spat.

  Bryce angled her head, though. “What about this arrangement, exactly, bothers you, Sabine?” The way her voice had iced over … Fuck, she sounded exactly like their father.

  Ithan said, “Bryce has nothing to do with you and me, Sabine. Leave her out of it.”

  Sabine pivoted toward him, bristling. “You’re a disgrace and a traitor, Holstrom. A spineless waste, if this is the company you choose to keep. Your brother would be ashamed.”

  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?”

  Mordoc—the Hind’s captain?

  “I will rip out your throat,” Sabine growled, stepping closer. But Bryce saw it—the glimmer of surprise. Doubt. He’d thrown Sabine off her game a little with that volley.

  Again, Ithan didn’t lower his eyes. “He’s here in this city. Are you going to see him? Take him to the Black Dock to bid farewell to his daughter?”

  Bryce’s stomach dropped, but she kept her face neutral. Danika had never said. Had always claimed it was a …

  A male not worth knowing or remembering.

  Bryce had assumed it was some lesser wolf, some male too submissive to keep Sabine’s interest, and Sabine had refused to let Danika see him because of it. Even when Danika had known the truth of Bryce’s parentage, she’d never told Bryce about her own lineage. The thought burned like acid.

  Sabine spat, “I know what you’re trying to do, Holstrom, and it won’t work.”

  Ithan flexed his broad chest. Bryce had seen that same intense expression while facing off against opponents on the sunball field. Ithan had usually been the one to walk away from the encounter. And he’d always walked away if a teammate joined in the fight.

  So Bryce stepped up. Said to Sabine, “Was Danika a rebel?”

  Sabine whipped her head to her. “What?”

  Bryce kept her shoulders back, head high. She outranked Sabine in position and power now, she reminded herself. “Did Danika have contact with the Ophion rebels?”

  Sabine backed away. Just one step. “Why would you ever ask that?”

  Ithan ignored the question and countered, “Was it because of Mordoc? She was so disgusted by him that she helped the rebels to spite him?”

  Bryce shoved from the other side, “Maybe she did it out of disgust for you, too.”

  Sabine backed away one more step. Predator turning into prey. She snarled, “You’re both delusional.”

  “Is that so?” Bryce asked, and then took a stab in the dark. “I’m not the one who ran all the way here to make sure Ithan and I weren’t plotting some kind of wolf-coup against you.”

  Sabine bristled. Bryce pushed, getting no small delight out of it, “That’s the fear, right? That I’m going to use my fancy princess title to get Holstrom to replace you somehow? I mean, you’ve got no heir beyond Amelie right now. And Ithan’s as dominant as she is. But I don’t think the Den likes Amelie—or you, for that matter—nearly as much as they love him.”

  Ithan blinked at her in surprise. But Bryce smiled at Sabine, who’d gone stone-faced as she snarled, “Stay out of wolf business.”

  Bryce taunted, “I wonder how hard it would be to convince the Prime and the Den that Ithan is the bright future of the Valbaran wolves—”

  “Bryce,” Ithan warned. Had he truly never considered such a thing?

  Sabine’s hand drifted to something at her back, and Ruhn aimed his gun. “Nah,” Bryce’s brother said, smiling wickedly. “I don’t think so.”

  A familiar ripple of charged air filled the room a moment before Hunt said, “Neither do I,” and appeared in the doorway so silently Bryce knew he’d crept up. Relief nearly buckled her knees as Hunt stepped into the apartment, gun pointed at the back of Sabine’s head. “You’re going to leave, and never fucking bother us again.”

  Sabine seethed, “Allow me to give you a bit of advice. You tangle with Mordoc, and you’ll get what’s coming to you. Ask him about Danika and see what he does to get answers out of you.”

  Ithan’s teeth flashed. “Get out, Sabine.”

  “You don’t give me orders.”

  The wolves faced off: one young and brokenhearted, the other in her prime—and heartless. Could someone like Ithan, if he wanted it, ever win in a battle for dominance?

  But then another figure stepped into the apartment behind Hunt.

  Baxian. The angel shifter had a gun drawn, aimed at Sabine’s legs to disable her if she tried to run.

  Only a glimmer of surprise on Hunt’s face told Bryce this wasn’t a planned appearance.

  Sabine turned slowly. Recognition flared in her eyes. And something like fear.

  Baxian’s teeth gleamed in a feral grin. “Hello, Sabine.”

  Sabine simmered with rage, but hissed, “You’re all carrion,” and stormed from the apartment.

  “You all right?” Hunt asked Bryce as he looked her over. The redness around her throat was fading before his eyes.

  Bryce scowled. “I could have done without being hurled into the side of the couch.”

  Baxian, still by the door, huffed a laugh.

  Hunt turned toward him, lightning at the ready. “You got nothing better to do with your time than follow me around?”

  “It seemed like you had an emergency,” Baxian retorted. “I figured you might need backup. Especially considering where you were this morning.” A slash of a smile. “I worried something had followed you back across the Istros.”

  Hunt clenched his jaw hard enough to hurt. “What about Isaiah?”

  “You mean his pathetic distraction attempt?” Baxian snorted.

  Before Hunt could reply, Ithan asked the Helhound, “You know Sabine?”

  Baxian’s face darkened. “In passing.” From the way Sabine had acted, there was definitely more to it than that.

  But Bryce suddenly asked Ithan, “Mordoc is … was … He’s Danika’s father?”

  Ithan gazed at his feet. “Yeah.”

  “As in, the male who sired her. Like, gave her his genetic material.”

  Ithan’s eyes blazed. “Yeah.”

  “And no one thought to fucking tell me?”

  “I only knew because he visited the Den once, a year before we met you. She got her bloodhound gift from him. It was her secret to keep, but now that she’s gone—”

  “Why wouldn’t she tell me?” Bryce rubbed at her chest. Hunt took her hand. Brushed his thumb over her knuckles.

  “Would you want that asshole for a father?” Hunt asked.

  “I have an asshole father already,” Bryce said, and Ruhn grunted his agreement. “I’d have understood.” Hunt squeezed her hand in gentle reassurance.

  “I don’t know why she didn’t say anything to you.” Ithan dropped onto the couch and ran his hands through his hair. “Danika would have become my Alpha one day, and Sabine ruler of us all, so if they wanted it kept quiet, I had no choice.” Until Sabine had exiled him, freeing Ithan from those restrictions.

  “Would you have taken Sabine down just now?” Tharion asked.

  “I might have tried,” Ithan admitted.

  Hunt whistled. But it was Baxian who said, “You wouldn’t have won tonight.”

  Ithan growled, “Did I ask for your opinion, dog?”

  Hunt glanced between them. Interesting, that Ithan saw him as a dog, not an angel. His animal form took precedence for another shifter, apparently.

  Baxian growled right back. “I said you wouldn’t have won tonight. But another day, give yourself a few more years, pup, and maybe.”

  “And you’re an expert in such things?”

  Ithan was still itching for a fight. Perhaps Baxian was about to give him one, sensing his need for it. Baxian’s wings tucked in. Definitely primed for a fight.

  Bryce massaged her temples. “Go to the gym or the roof if you’re going to brawl. Please. I can’t afford to lose any more furniture.” She scowled at Ithan at that.

  Hunt snickered. “We’ll get through the mourning process together, Quinlan. Have a proper send-off for the coffee table. Holstrom should give the eulogy, since he broke it.”

  His phone buzzed, and he checked it to find Isaiah’s message. All ok?

  He wrote back, Yeah. You?

  She’s upset you left. Didn’t say anything, but I can tell. Baxian bailed, too.