They once again assessed her. Three apex killers, contemplating a threat.

  Then Azriel said in a soft, lethal voice, “Explain or you die.”

  2

  Tharion’s blood dripped into the porcelain sink of the hushed, humid bathroom, the roar of the crowd a distant rumble through the cracked green tiles. He breathed in through his nose. Out through his mouth. Pain rippled along his aching ribs.

  Stay upright.

  His hands clenched the chipped edges of the sink. He inhaled again, focusing on the words, willing his knees not to buckle. Keep standing, damn you. He’d taken a beating tonight.

  The minotaur he’d faced in the Viper Queen’s ring had been twice his weight and at least four feet taller than him. He had a hole in his shoulder leaking blood down the sink drain thanks to the horns he hadn’t been fast enough to avoid. And several broken ribs thanks to blows from fists the size of his head.

  Tharion loosed another breath, wincing, and reached for the small medkit on the lip of the sink. His fingers shook, fumbling with the vial of potion that would blunt the edge of the pain and accelerate the healing his Vanir body was already doing.

  He chucked the cork into the trash can beside the sink, atop the wads of bloodied cotton bandages and wipes he’d used to clean his face. It had somehow been more important than addressing the pain—the hole in his shoulder—that he should be able to see his face, the male beneath.

  The reflection wasn’t kind. Purple smudges beneath his eyes matched the bruises along his jaw, the cuts on his lip, his swollen nose. All things that would fade and heal swiftly enough, but the hollowness in his eyes … It was his face, and yet a stranger’s.

  Tharion didn’t meet his own gaze in the mirror as he tipped back the vial and chugged it. Silky, tasteless liquid coated his mouth, his throat. He’d once done shots with the same abandon. In the span of a few weeks, everything had gone to shit. His whole fucking life had gone to shit.

  He’d given up everything he was and had been and ever would be.

  He’d chosen this, being chained to the Viper Queen. He’d been desperate, but the burden of his decision weighed on him. He hadn’t been allowed to leave the warren of warehouses in the two days since arriving—hadn’t really wanted to, anyway. Even the need to return to the water was taken care of for him: a special tub had been prepared below this level with water pumped in directly from the Istros.

  So he hadn’t been in the river, or felt the wind and the sun, or heard the chatter and rhythmic beats of normal life in days. Hadn’t so much as found an exterior window.

  The door groaned open, and a familiar female scent announced the identity of the new arrival. As if at this hour, in this bathroom, it could be anyone else.

  The Viper Queen had a crew of fighters. But the two of them … she treated them like prized racehorses. They fought during the prime-time slots. This bathroom was for their private use, along with the suite upstairs.

  The Viper Queen owned them. And she wanted everyone to know it.

  “I warmed them up for you,” Tharion rasped over a shoulder at Ariadne. The dark-haired dragon, clad in a black bodysuit that accentuated her luscious curves, turned toward him.

  Tharion and Ariadne were required to look sexy and stylish, even as the Viper Queen bade them to bloody themselves for the crowd’s amusement.

  Ariadne halted at a sink a few feet away, surveying the angles of her face in the mirror as she washed her hands.

  “Still as pretty as ever,” Tharion managed to tease.

  That earned him a sidelong assessment. “You look like shit.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” he drawled, the healing potion tingling through him.

  Her nostrils flared delicately. It wasn’t wise to taunt a dragon. But he’d been on a hot streak of making stupid decisions lately, so why stop now?

  “You have a hole in your shoulder,” she said without taking her gaze from his.

  Tharion peered at the ghastly wound, even as his skin knitted closed, the sensation like spiders crawling over the area. “Builds character.”

  Ariadne snorted, returning to her reflection. “You know, you throw around your attraction to females quite a bit. I’m starting to think it’s a shield.”

  He stiffened. “Against what?”

  “Don’t know, don’t really care.”

  “Ouch.”

  Ariadne continued examining herself in the mirror. Was she hunting for herself—the person she’d been before coming here—as well? Or maybe the person she’d been before the Astronomer had trapped her inside a ring and worn her on his finger for decades?

  Tharion had done what the Viper Queen had asked regarding Ari: he’d woven a web of lies to his Aux contacts about the dragon being commandeered for security purposes. So the Viper Queen didn’t technically own Ari as a slave—Ari remained a slave owned by someone else. She just … lived here now.

  “Your adoring public awaits,” Tharion said, grabbing another cotton wipe and holding it under the running water before beginning to clean the blood from his bare chest. He could have jumped in one of the showers to his left, but it would have stung like Hel on his still-mending wounds. He twisted, straining for the particularly nasty slice along his left shoulder blade. It remained out of reach, even for his long fingers.

  “Here,” Ariadne said, taking the wipe from his hand.

  “Thanks, Ar—Ariadne.” He’d almost called her Ari, but it didn’t seem wise to antagonize her when she’d offered to help him.

  Tharion braced his hands on the sink. Ariadne dabbed along the wound, wiping up blood, and he clenched the porcelain hard enough for it to groan beneath his fingers. He gritted his teeth against the stinging, and into the silence, the dragon said, “You can call me Ari.”

  “I thought you hated that nickname.”

  “Everyone seems inclined to use it, so it might as well be my choice for you to do so.”

  “Was that your thinking when you abandoned my friends right before a deathstalker attacked them?” He couldn’t keep the bite from his voice, antagonizing her be damned. “Everyone expected the worst of you, so why not just be the worst?”

  She snorted. “Your friends … you mean the witch and the redhead?”

  “Yes. Real honorable of you to ditch them.”

  “They seemed capable of looking after themselves.”

  “They are. But you bailed all the same.”

  “If you’re so invested in their safety, perhaps you should have been there.” Ari tossed the wipe in the trash and grabbed another one. “Who taught you to fight, anyway?”

  He let the argument drop—it’d get them nowhere. He couldn’t even have said why he’d felt inclined to bring it up now, of all times. “Here I was, thinking you didn’t care to know anything about me.”

  “Call it curiosity. You don’t seem … serious enough to be the River Queen’s Captain of Intelligence.”

  “Such a flatterer.”

  But embers sparked in her eyes, so Tharion shrugged. “I learned how to fight the usual way: I enrolled in the Blue Court Military Academy after school, and have spent the years since honing those skills. Nothing cool. You?”

  “Survival.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but the dragon turned on a booted heel. “Ari—” he called before she could reach the door. “We didn’t, you know.”

  She turned, eyebrows rising. “Didn’t what?”

  “Expect the worst of you.”

  Her face twisted—rage and sorrow and a drop of shame. Or maybe he was imagining that last bit. She didn’t answer before stalking out.

  The dripping of his blood again filled the bathroom.

  Tharion waited until the potion patched most of the holes in his skin, and didn’t bother tugging the upper half of the black bodysuit on before following the dragon back to the heat and smells and light of the fighting ring.

  Ari was just getting started. With impressive calm, she squared off against three male lion shifters, the enormous cats circling her with deadly precision. She turned with them, not letting the lions get behind her, her skin beginning to glow with molten scales, her black eyes flickering red.

  Across the pit, the one-way window that peered over the ring reflected the glaring spotlights. But Tharion knew who stood on the other side of it, amid the plush finery of her private quarters. Who watched the dragon fight, assessing the intensity of the crowd’s roar.

  “Traitor,” someone hissed to his left.

  Tharion found two young mer males glaring at him from the risers above. Both clutched beers and had the glazed look of guys who’d already downed a few.

  Tharion gave them a bland nod and faced the ring again.

  “Fucking loser,” the other male spat.

  Tharion kept his eyes on Ari. Steam rippled from the dragon’s mouth. One of the lions lunged, swiping with fingers that ended in curved claws, but she ducked away. The concrete floor singed where her feet had been. Preliminary blast marks.

  “Some fucking captain,” the first male taunted.

  Tharion ground his teeth. This wasn’t the first time in the past few days that one of his people had recognized him and told him precisely how they felt. Everyone knew Tharion had defected from the Blue Court. Everyone knew he’d defected and come here to serve the Meat Market’s depraved ruler. The River Queen and her daughter had made sure of it.

  Captain Whatever, Ithan Holstrom had once called him. It seemed he truly embodied it now.

  You gave that up, he reminded himself. He could never again so much as set foot in the Istros. The moment he did, his former queen would kill him. Or order her sobeks to rip him to shreds. Something twisted in his gut.

  He was aware that his parents lived only because he’d gotten messages from them expressing their outrage and disappointment. We already lost one child, his mother had written. Now we lose another. Defecting, Tharion? What in Ogenas’s depths were you thinking?

  He didn’t write back. Didn’t apologize for being so reckless and selfish that he hadn’t thought of their safety before committing this act of insanity. He’d not only sworn himself to the Viper Queen, he’d bound himself to her, too. After all the shit that had gone down in Pangera … no place else was safe for him, anyway. Only here, where the Viper Queen was allowed to rule.

  He watched Ari pace in the ring. You gave that up, he told himself again firmly. For this.

  “You’re a disgrace,” the other mer male went on.

  Something liquid and foamy splashed on Tharion’s head, his bare shoulders. The fucker had thrown his beer.

  Tharion snarled up at them, and the males had the good sense to back up a step, like they might have finally remembered what Tharion was capable of when provoked. But before he could beat the living shit out of them, one of the Viper Queen’s personal guards—one of those glassy-eyed Fae defectors—said, “Fishboy. Boss wants you. Now.”

  Tharion stiffened, but he had no choice. The tugging sensation in his gut would only worsen the longer he resisted. Best to get this over with now.

  So he left the assholes behind. Left Ari with the lions, who’d be deep-fried in about twenty minutes, or whenever the dragon had put on enough of a show to please the audience and did what she could have accomplished without so much as stepping into the ring.

  He had no doubt there’d be some vendor waiting in the wings to scoop up the cooked carcasses and sell them in a food stall nearby. It wasn’t called the Meat Market for nothing.

  The walk upstairs, to the room behind that one-way window, was long and quiet. He willed his mind to be that way, too. To stop caring.

  It was easier said than done, when everything kept circling: the failed attack on the lab, Cormac’s death … They’d all been so fucking dumb, thinking they could take on the Asteri. And now here he was.

  Honestly, he’d been headed this way for a while before that. Starting with the debacle with the River Queen’s daughter. Then Lesia’s death a year ago. This last month had been a culmination of that shit. Of what a pathetic, weak failure he’d always been beneath the surface.

  Tharion knocked once on the wooden door, then entered.

  The Viper Queen stood at the window overlooking the pit, where Ari had switched to taunting the lions. They were now frantic to escape. Everywhere the cats lunged to flee the ring, a wall of flame blocked their exit.

  “She’s a natural performer,” the Viper Queen observed without turning. The ruler of the Meat Market wore a white silk romper cut to her slim figure, feet bare. A cigarette dangled from her manicured hand. “You could learn from her.”

  Tharion leaned against the wooden doorframe. “Is that an order or a suggestion?”

  The Viper Queen pivoted, shiny dark hair swaying with her. Her lips were painted their usual dark purple, offsetting the snake shifter’s pale skin. “Do you know the lengths I went to in procuring that minotaur for you tonight?”

  Tharion kept his mouth shut. How many times had he stood like this in front of the River Queen, silent while she ripped into him? He’d lost count long ago.

  The Viper Queen’s teeth flashed, delicate fangs stark against the purple of her lips. “Five minutes, Tharion?” Her voice dropped to a deadly purr. “A great deal of effort on my part, and all I get out of it, all my crowd gets, is a five-minute fight?”

  Tharion gestured to his shoulder. “I’d think goring me and then hurling me across the ring was spectacle enough.”

  “I’d have liked to see that several more times. Not witness you flying into a rage and snapping the bull’s neck.”

  She crooked a finger. That tugging in his gut increased. As if they possessed a mind of their own, his feet and legs moved. They carried him to the window, to her side.

  He hated it—not the summoning, but the fact that he’d stopped any attempt at defying it.

  “To make up for you blowing your load,” the Viper Queen drawled, “I told Ari to drag out her fight.” She inclined her head to the ring. Ari’s face had gone empty and cold as she made the lions scream under her flames.

  Tharion’s gut churned. No wonder Ari hadn’t stayed long to talk to him. But she’d helped him anyway. He had no idea how to unpack that.

  “Try a little harder next time,” the Viper Queen hissed in his ear, lips brushing his skin. She sniffed. “The mer punks really drenched you.”

  Tharion stepped away. “Is there a reason you called me up here?” He wanted a shower, and the relief that only sleep could offer him.

  Her lips curled upward. She tugged back the pristine sleeve of her romper, exposing her moon-pale wrist. “Considering how little heart you put into your performance, I thought you might need a pick-me-up.”

  Tharion clenched his teeth. He wasn’t a slave—though he’d been stupid and desperate enough to offer himself as such to her. But instead she’d offered him something nearly as bad: the venom only she could produce.

  And now, after that initial taste of it … His mouth filled with saliva. The scent of her skin, the blood and venom beneath it—he was helpless before her, a hungry fucking animal.

  “Maybe if I offered you some before your fights,” she mused, forearm extended to him like a personal feast, “you would find a bit more … stamina.”

  With every scrap of will left in him, Tharion lifted his eyes to hers. Let her see how much he hated this, hated her, hated himself.

  She smiled. She knew. Had known when he’d defected to her, to this life. He’d told himself that this was a place of refuge, but it was getting harder to hide from what it really was.

  A long-overdue punishment.

  The Viper Queen slid one of her gold-painted nails down her wrist. Opened a vein churning with that milky, opalescent venom that made him see the gods themselves.

  “Go ahead,” she urged, and Tharion wanted to scream, to weep, to run, as he grabbed her arm to his mouth and sucked in a mouthful of the venom.

  It was beautiful. It was horrific. And it punched through him. Stars flickered in the air. Time slowed to a syrupy, languid scroll. Exhaustion and pain faded to nothing.

  He’d heard the whispers long before he’d come here: her venom was the best high an immortal could ever attain. Having tasted it, he didn’t disagree. Didn’t blame those Fae defectors who served as her bodyguards in exchange for hits of this.

  He’d once pitied them, scorned them.

  Now he was one of them.

  The Viper Queen’s hand trailed up his chest to his neck, tracing over the spot where his gills usually appeared. She scraped her painted nails over it—a mark of pure ownership. Not only of his body, but of who he was, who he’d once been.

  Her fingers tightened on his throat. An invitation, this time.

  The Viper Queen’s lips brushed against his ear again as she whispered, “Let’s see what kind of stamina you have now, Tharion.”

  * * *

  “We can’t just leave Tharion in here.”

  “Trust me, Holstrom, Captain Whatever can look after himself.”

  Ithan frowned deeply at Tristan Flynn from across the rickety table. Declan Emmet and his boyfriend, Marc, were chatting up a vendor at one of the Meat Market’s many stalls. The owl-headed Vanir was the third person they’d spoken to tonight, hoping to get news of their imprisoned friends—the twelfth lowlife they’d contacted in the past two days.

  And Ithan was getting sick enough of their fruitless talking that he taunted Flynn, “Is this what Fae do? Leave their friends to suffer?”

  “Fuck you, wolf,” Flynn said, but didn’t take his eyes off where Declan and Marc worked their charm. Even the usually unflappable Flynn now had bags beneath his eyes. He’d rarely smiled in the past few days. Seemed to be sleeping as little as Ithan was.

  Yet despite all that, Ithan went for the throat. “So Ruhn’s life means more—”

  “Ruhn is in a fucking dungeon being tortured by the Asteri,” Flynn snarled. “Tharion is here because he defected. He made that choice.”

  “Technically, Ruhn also made a choice to go to the Eternal City—”

  Flynn dragged his hands through his brown hair. “If you’re going to complain, then get the fuck out of here.”