Not the Omega-boat?

  No. It’s … What the fuck is it?

  “Hurry now,” the Hind drawled. “Not much time.”

  Lightning wrapped around Hunt’s head. Ruhn’s heart stalled a beat as it lingered—like a crown, making of Hunt an anointed, primal god. Willing to slaughter any in his path to save the female he loved. He’d fry every single one of them if it meant getting Bryce out alive.

  Some intrinsic part of Ruhn trembled at it. Whispered that he should get far, far away and pray for mercy.

  But Bryce didn’t balk from the knee-wobbling power surging around Athalar. Like she saw all of him and welcomed it into her heart.

  Hunt, eyes nothing but pure lightning, nodded at Bryce. As if to say, Blind the bitch.

  Bryce sucked in a breath, and began to glow.

  Something solid and metal hit Bryce’s legs, her feet, and before she could fully release her light, she was hurled up with it. When the water washed away, she lay on the hull of an Omega-boat.

  No—it wasn’t imperial. The insignia on it was of two entwined fishes.

  Hunt lay beside her, wings dripping wet—lightning still crackling around him. His eyes …

  Holy fuck, his eyes. Pure lightning filled them. No whites, no irises. Nothing but lightning.

  It snapped around him, vines wreathing his arms, his brow. Bryce had the vague sense of the others behind them, but she kept her focus on Hunt.

  “Hunt,” she gasped out. “Calm down.”

  Hunt snarled toward the Hind. Lightning flowed like tongues of flame from his mouth. But the Hind had fallen back, revving her wave skimmer and retreating toward her line of boats. Like she knew what kind of death Hunt was about to unleash on her.

  “Hunt,” Bryce said, but something metal clanked against the broad snout of the ship, and then a female voice was bellowing, “Down the hatch! Now!”

  Bryce didn’t question their good luck. Didn’t care that the Hind had seen them, knew them, and they’d let the spy-breaker live. She hurtled to her feet, slipping on the metal, but Hunt was there, a hand under her elbow. His lightning danced up her arm, tickling, but not hurting. His eyes still blazed with power as they assessed the unknown female ahead, who—to her credit—didn’t run screaming.

  Bryce glanced behind to find Ruhn helping Cormac along, Tharion at their backs, a wave of water now towering between him and the Hind. Hiding them from the view of the approaching speedboat, with Pollux and the Harpy on it.

  It didn’t matter now. The Hind knew.

  A dark-haired female waved to them from a hatch midway along the massive length of the ship—as large as an Omega-boat. Her brown skin gleamed with ocean spray, her narrow face set with grim calm as she gestured for them to hurry.

  Yet Hunt’s lightning still didn’t ease. Bryce knew it wouldn’t, until they were sure what the fuck was happening.

  “Hurry,” the female said as Bryce reached the hatch. “We have less than a minute to get out of here.” Bryce gripped the rungs of a ladder and propelled herself downward, Hunt right behind her. The female swore, presumably at the sight of Hunt’s current state.

  Bryce kept going down. Lightning slithered along the ladder, but didn’t bite. Like Hunt was holding himself in check.

  One after another, they entered, and the female had barely shut the hatch when the ship shuddered and swayed. Bryce clenched the ladder as the craft submerged.

  “We’re diving!” the female shouted. “Hold on!”

  Bryce’s stomach lurched with the ship, but she kept descending. People milled about below, shouting. They halted as Hunt’s lightning surged over the floor. A vanguard of what was to come.

  “If they’re Ophion, we’re fucked,” Ruhn muttered from above Hunt.

  “Only if they know about what we did,” Tharion breathed from the end of their party.

  Bryce rallied her light with each step downward. Between facing the two enemies now at their throats, she’d take Ophion, but … Could she and Hunt take down this ship, if they needed to? Could they do it without drowning themselves and their friends?

  She dropped into a clean, bright white chamber—an air lock. Rows of underwater gear lined it, along with several people in blue uniforms by the door. Mer. The female who had escorted them joined the others waiting for them.

  A brown-haired, ample-hipped female stepped forward, scanning Bryce.

  Her eyes widened as Hunt dropped to the wet floor, lightning flowing around him. She had the good sense to hold up her hands. The people behind her did, too. “We mean you no harm,” she said with firm calm.

  Hunt didn’t back down from whatever primal wrath he rode. Bryce’s breathing hitched.

  Ruhn and Cormac dropped on Bryce’s other side, and the female scanned them, too, face strained as she noted the injured Avallen Prince, who sagged against Ruhn. But she smiled as Tharion entered on Hunt’s right. Like she’d found someone of reason in this giant clusterfuck that had just tumbled down the hatch.

  “You called for us?” she asked Tharion, glancing nervously toward Hunt.

  Bryce murmured to Hunt, “Chill the fuck out.”

  Hunt stared at each of the strangers, as if sizing up a kill. Lightning sizzled through his hair.

  “Hunt,” Bryce muttered, but didn’t dare reach for his hand.

  “I …” Tharion drew his wide eyes from Hunt and blinked at the female. “What?”

  “Our Oracle sensed we’d be needed somewhere in this vicinity, so we came. Then we got your message,” she said tightly, an eye still fixed on Hunt. “The light.”

  Ruhn and Tharion turned to Bryce, Cormac nearly a dead weight of exhaustion in her brother’s arms. Tharion smiled roughly. “You’re a good luck charm, Legs.”

  It was the stupidest stroke of luck she’d ever had. Bryce said, “I, uh … I sent the light.”

  Hunt’s lightning crackled, a second skin over his body, his soaked clothes. He didn’t show any signs of calming down. She had no idea how to calm him down.

  This was how he was that day with Sandriel, Ruhn said into her mind. When he ripped off her head. He added tightly, You were in danger then, too.

  And what’s that supposed to mean?

  Why don’t you tell me?

  You seem like you know what the fuck is happening with him.

  Ruhn glared at her as Hunt continued to glow and menace. It means that he’s going ballistic in the way that only mates can when the other is threatened. It’s what happened then, and what’s happening now. You’re true mates—the way Fae are mates, in your bodies and souls. That’s what was different about your scent the other day. Your scents have merged. As they do between Fae mates.

  She glared right back at her brother. So what?

  So find some way to calm him down. Athalar’s your fucking problem now.

  Bryce sent a mental image of her middle finger back in answer.

  The mer female squared her shoulders, unaware of Ruhn and Bryce’s conversation, and said to Tharion, “We’re not out of this yet. There’s an Omega on our tail.” She spoke like Hunt wasn’t a living thunderstorm standing two feet away.

  Bryce’s heart strained. True mates. Not only in name, but … in the way that Fae could be mates with each other.

  Ruhn said, Athalar was dangerous before. But as a mated male, he’s utterly lethal.

  Bryce countered, He was always lethal.

  Not like this. There’s no mercy in him. He’s gone lethal in a Fae way.

  In that predatory, kill-all-enemies way. He’s an angel.

  Doesn’t seem to matter.

  One look at Hunt’s hard face, and she knew Ruhn was right. Some small part of her thrilled at it—that he’d descended this far into some primal instinct to try to save her.

  Alphaholes can have their uses, she said to her brother with a bravado she didn’t feel, and returned to the conversation at hand.

  Tharion was saying to the female, “Captain Tharion Ketos of the Blue Court, at your service.”

  The female saluted as the people with her opened an airtight door to reveal a shining glass hallway. Blue stretched around it, a passageway through the ocean. A few fish shot past—or the ship shot past the fish. Faster than Bryce had realized. “Commander Sendes,” the female said.

  “What mer court do you come from?” Bryce asked. Hunt walked at her side, silent and blazing with power.

  Commander Sendes glanced over a shoulder, face still a little pale at the sight of Hunt. “This one.” Sendes gestured to the glass walkway around them, the behemoth of a ship that Bryce could now make out through it.

  They hadn’t entered along the flat back of the ship as Bryce had thought, but rather at the tip of it. As if the ship had pierced the surface like a lance. And now, with a view of the rest of the ship expanding beyond—below—the glass passage, what she could see of it appeared to be shaped like some sort of squid as it shot into the gloom below. A squid as large as the Comitium, and made of glass and matte metal for stealth.

  Sendes lifted her chin. “Welcome to the Depth Charger. One of the six city-ships of the Ocean Queen’s court Beneath.”

  45

  “All right, so you’ll be charged with breaking and entering, and probably theft. Tell me again how you think you’ve still got grounds to go after this old creep?” Declan’s boyfriend, Marc, leaned against the couch cushions, muscled arms crossed as he grilled Ithan.

  Ithan blew out a breath. “When you put it like that, I can see what you mean about it being a tough case to win.”

  Flynn and Declan, beside them, attempted to murder each other in a video game, both cursing under their breath. “It’s admirable,” Marc admitted. The leopard shifter frowned toward the small black box Ithan had taken from the Astronomer’s lair. “But you just waded knee-deep into shit.”

  “It’s not right that she’s trapped in there. What choice did she even have as a kid?”

  “No arguments from me against that,” Marc said. “But there’s a legal contract involved, so she’s technically owned by the Astronomer. She’s not a slave, but she might as well be, legally. And theft of slaves is a big fucking crime.”

  “I know,” Ithan said. “But it feels wrong to leave her there.”

  “So you took the fire sprites instead?” Marc arched a brow. “You wanna take a guess at how much they cost?” He nodded at the box in the center of the table. “What were you even thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Ithan muttered, swigging from his beer. “I was pissed.”

  Declan cut in, not tearing his attention from the screen and his shooting, “There were no cameras, though, right?”

  “None that I saw.”

  “So it all comes down to whether the girl in the tank tells on you,” Declan said, thumbs flying against the controller. Flynn swore at whatever Dec did to his avatar.

  “You could return them,” Marc suggested. “Say you were drunk, apologize, and send them back.”

  Ithan opened his mouth, but the box on the table rattled.

  Rattled. Like the beings inside had heard. Even Declan and Flynn paused their game.

  “Um,” Declan said, wincing.

  “Hello?” Flynn said, eyeing the box.

  It rattled again. They all flinched.

  “Well, someone has an opinion,” Marc said, chuckling softly, and leaned forward.

  “Careful,” Dec warned. Marc threw him a wry look and opened the black box.

  Light, golden and red, erupted, washing over the walls and ceiling. Ithan shielded his eyes, but the light was immediately sucked back in, revealing four rings nestled in black velvet, the tiny glass bubbles atop them glowing.

  The glow inside faded and faded, until …

  Declan and Marc glanced at each other in horror.

  “Solas,” Flynn swore, tossing aside his controller. “That old fuck should be crucified for this.”

  “All right,” Marc murmured to Ithan. “I get why you took them.”

  Ithan grunted in answer, and peered at the four female figures inside the rings. He’d never met Lehabah face-to-face, as Bryce had never let him into the library beneath the gallery, but he’d seen Bryce’s photos.

  Three of the sprites were just like her—flames shaped into female bodies. Two were slim, one as sinfully curvy as Lehabah had been. The fourth globe was pure fire.

  That fourth ring rattled. Ithan recoiled. That was clearly the one who’d shaken the box.

  “So do we let them out?” Flynn asked, studying the box and the sprites trapped inside.

  “Fuck yeah, we do,” Declan said, shooting to his feet.

  Ithan stared at the sprites, especially the fourth, radiant one who seemed so … angry. He didn’t blame her. He murmured to his roommates, “You sure you’re cool with freeing a bunch of pissed-off fire sprites in your house?”

  But Flynn waved him off. “We’ve got sprinklers and smoke alarms.”

  “I’m not reassured,” Marc said.

  “Got it,” Declan called, trotting from the kitchen with a hammer.

  Marc rubbed his temples and leaned back against the cushions. “This cannot end well.”

  “Ye of little faith,” Flynn said, catching the hammer as Declan tossed it to him.

  Ithan winced. “Just … be careful.”

  “I don’t think that word’s in either of their vocabularies,” Marc quipped, earning an elbow in the ribs from Declan as the male settled onto the couch beside him.

  Flynn tugged the box toward him and said to the sprites, “Cover your heads.” The three visible ones crouched down. The fourth one remained a ball of flame, but shrank slightly.

  “Careful,” Ithan warned again. Flynn, with a snap of the wrist, cracked the top of the first ring. It splintered, and he tapped it again. It broke into three pieces on the third rap of the hammer, but the sprite remained crouched.

  Flynn moved onto the next, then the next.

  By the time he’d cracked open the third ring, the sprites were poking their fiery heads out like chicks emerging from eggs. Flynn moved the hammer above the fourth one. And as it came down, Ithan could have sworn one of the sprites shouted, in a voice almost too hoarse to hear, “Don’t!”

  Too late.

  All it took was one crack, and the flame within shoved outward, rupturing the glass.

  They all leapt over the couch with a shout, and fuck, it was hot and bright and wind was roaring and something was screeching—

  Then something heavy thudded on the coffee table. Ithan and the others peeked over the couch.

  “What the fuck?” Flynn breathed, smoke curling from where the shoulders of his shirt had been singed.

  The three sprites cowered in their shattered orbs. All shrinking from the naked, human-sized female smoldering on the coffee table beside them.

  The female pushed up onto her arms, hair like darkest iron falling in curling waves around her delicately featured face. Her tan body simmered, the wood table beneath her charring everywhere her nude, luscious form touched. She lifted her head, and her eyes—fucking Hel.

  They blazed crimson. More boiling blood than flame.

  Her back heaved with each long, sawing breath, ripples of what seemed like red-and-gold scales flowing beneath her skin.

  “He is going to kill you,” she said in a voice rasping with disuse. But her eyes weren’t on Ithan. They were on Flynn, his hammer raised again, as if it would do anything against the sort of fire she bore. “He is going to find you and kill you.”

  But Flynn, stupid, arrogant asshole that he was, got to his feet and grinned cheerfully down at the curvy female on the coffee table. “Good thing a dragon now owes me a debt.”

  Athalar was a time bomb—one that Ruhn had no idea how to defuse. He supposed that honor went to his sister, who kept a step away from the angel, one eye on him and the other on the unfolding race for the seafloor.

  His sister was mated. It was rare enough among the Fae, but finding a mate who was an angel … His mind reeled.

  Ruhn shook off the thought, approaching Commander Sendes and saying, “I don’t hear any engine noise.”

  “You won’t,” Sendes said, opening an air lock door at the end of the long glass tunnel. “These are stealth ships, fueled by the Ocean Queen’s power.”

  Tharion whistled, then asked, “So you think we can outrun an Omega in something this big?”

  “No. But we’re not outrunning it.” She pointed through a wall of thick glass to the dimness below. “We’re going into the Ravel Canyon.”

  “If you can fit,” Ruhn challenged, hoisting Cormac up a little higher as the male groaned, “then so can the Omega-boats.”

  Sendes gave him a secret, knowing smile. “Watch.”

  Ruhn nodded to the prince hanging off his shoulder. “My cousin needs a medwitch.”

  “One is already coming to meet us,” Sendes said, opening another air lock. The tunnel beyond was massive, with halls branching out in three directions like the arteries of a mighty beast. The hall directly ahead … “Well, that’s a sight,” Ruhn murmured.

  A cavernous biodome bloomed at the end of the hall, brimming with lush tropical trees, streams winding through the fern-covered floor, and orchids blooming in curling mists. Butterflies flitted around, and hummingbirds sipped from the orchids and neon-colored flowers. He could have sworn he spied a small, furred beast running beneath a drooping fern.

  “We have desalinators on this ship,” Sendes explained, pointing to the biodome, “but should they ever fail, this is a wholly separate ecosystem that generates its own fresh water.”

  “How?” Tharion asked, but Sendes had halted at the intersection of the three halls. “The River Queen has a similar one, but nothing that can do this.”

  “I doubt your bleeding friend would appreciate the lengthy explanation right now,” Sendes said, turning down the hallway to their right. People—mer, from their scents—walked past them, a few gaping, a few throwing confused looks their way, some waving to Sendes, who waved back.

  Their surroundings had the air of a corporate building—or a city block. People going about their days, dressed in business or casual clothes, some exercising, some sipping from coffee cups or smoothies.