“I’m not complaining. I’m just saying that we’ve got a friend in a bad situation literally right there and we’re not even trying to help him.” Ithan pointed to the second level of the cavernous warehouse, the nondescript door that led into the Viper Queen’s private quarters.

  “Again, Ketos defected. Not much we can do.”

  “He was desperate—”

  “We’re all fucking desperate,” Flynn murmured, eyeing a passing draki male carrying a sack of what smelled like elk meat. He sighed. “Seriously, Holstrom—go back to the house. Get some rest.” Again, Ithan noted the Fae lord’s exhausted face. “And,” Flynn added, “take that one with you.” Flynn nodded to the female sitting ramrod straight at a nearby table, alert and tense. The three fire sprites lay draped around her shoulders, dozing.

  Right. The other source of Ithan’s frustration these days: playing babysitter for Sigrid Fendyr.

  It would have been smarter to leave her back at the Fae males’ house—his house now, he supposed—but she’d refused. Had insisted on accompanying them.

  Sigrid insisted on seeing and knowing everything. If he’d thought she’d crawl out of her mystic’s tank and cower, he’d thought wrong. She’d been a pain in his ass for two days now, wanting the complete history of the Fendyrs, their enemies, Ithan’s enemies … anything and everything that had happened while she’d been the Astronomer’s captive.

  She hadn’t offered up much of her own past—not even a crumb about her father, whose history she hadn’t known until Ithan had filled her in, how the male had long ago been Prime Apparent until his sister, Sabine, had challenged him and won. Ithan had thought she’d killed him, but she’d apparently sent Sigrid’s father off into exile instead, where Sigrid had been born. Anything other than that was a complete mystery. Part of Ithan didn’t want to know what circumstances had been so dire as to make a Fendyr sell his heir—sell an Alpha—to the Astronomer.

  That heir was only sitting quietly right now because she’d taken two steps into the Meat Market and sneered, Who’d want to shop at a disgusting place like this? Promptly making Declan and Marc’s work infinitely harder by earning the ire of any vendor within earshot.

  The whisper network here put them all within earshot.

  So Flynn had ordered her to sit alone. Well, alone apart from her fiery little cabal. Wherever Sigrid went, the sprites went with her.

  Ithan had no idea if that bond was from the years in the tank, or from a shared trauma, or just because they were females living in a very male house, but the four of them together were a headache.

  “It’s too dangerous for her to be out in the open,” Flynn went on. “Anyone can report a sighting.”

  “No one knows who she is. To them, she’s a random wolf.”

  “Yeah, and all it takes is one mention to Amelie or Sabine that a female wolf is in your company, and they’ll know. I’m shocked they haven’t run right over here already.”

  “Sabine’s ruthless, but she’s not dumb. She wouldn’t start shit on the Viper Queen’s turf.”

  “No, she’ll wait until we cross into the CBD and then ambush us.” The angels had long ignored anything that went on at street level in their district, too preoccupied with the comings and goings in their lofty towers.

  Ithan glared at the male. Normally, he got along fine with Flynn. Liked him, even. But since Ruhn and Hunt and Bryce had disappeared …

  Disappeared wasn’t the right word, at least for Ruhn and Hunt. They’d been taken prisoner, but Bryce … no one knew what had happened to her. Hence their presence here, seeking any intel they could get their hands on after Declan’s computer searches had been fruitless.

  Any information on Bryce, on Ruhn, on Athalar … they were desperate for it. For a direction. A spark to light the way. Something that was better than sitting on their asses, not knowing.

  Ithan glanced at the chair beneath him. He was currently sitting on his ass. Not knowing anything.

  Before he could let self-loathing sink its teeth into him, he rose and stalked over to where Sigrid sat monitoring the patrons of the Meat Market. She lifted brown eyes full of irritation and disdain to him. “This is a bad place.”

  No shit, he refrained from saying. “It has it uses,” he hedged.

  He’d gone straight to the Fae males’ house when he’d hauled Sigrid out of the Astronomer’s tank. They’d stayed there while Flynn and Declan pretended that all was normal in their world. While they continued working for the Aux, Prince Ruhn’s absence dismissed as a much-needed vacation.

  Ithan had been waiting for soldiers to show up. Or assassins, sent by the Asteri or Sabine or the Astronomer.

  Yet there had been no questions. No interrogations. No arrests. The Autumn King hadn’t even grilled Flynn and Dec, though he no doubt knew something had happened to his son. And that where Ruhn went, his two best friends went with him.

  The public had no idea what had happened in the Eternal City. Granted, Ithan and the Fae warriors didn’t know much either, but they knew that their friends had gone into the Asteri stronghold and hadn’t come out again. The Asteri, the other powers at play … they knew that Ithan and the others had also been involved, even if they hadn’t been present. And yet they hadn’t made a move to punish them.

  It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  Sigrid angled her head with lupine curiosity. “Do you come here often?”

  With anyone else, he might have made a joke about pickup lines, but Sigrid didn’t know or care about humor. He couldn’t blame her, after what she’d been through. So Ithan said, “When my work for the Aux or my pack demands it. But rarely, thank the gods.”

  Her mouth tightened. “The Astronomer frequented this place.” That day Ithan had gone back to the Astronomer’s place to free her, he remembered, the ancient male had been over here buying some part for her tank.

  “Any idea who he patronizes?” It was more of a casual question than anything.

  Sigrid peered around. If she’d been in wolf form, he had no doubt her ears would have been flicking, picking up every sound. She replied without taking her focus off the teeming market, “A satyr, I heard him say once. Who sells salts and other things.”

  Ithan glanced to the balcony level—to the shut green door where the satyr lived. He knew who she was talking about, thanks to all those past visits on behalf of the Aux. The lowlife peddled in all kinds of contraband.

  Sigrid marked his shift in attention, tracing his line of sight. “That’s his place?”

  Ithan gave a slow nod.

  Sigrid shot to her feet, eyes gleaming with predatory intent.

  “Where are you going?” Ithan demanded, stepping into her path.

  The sprites jolted from their nap, clinging to Sigrid’s long brown hair to keep from being thrown off her shoulders.

  “Are we done?” Malana asked, yawning.

  “We’re terribly bored,” Sasa agreed, stretching her plump body along Sigrid’s neck. Rithi, the third sister, hummed in agreement.

  Ignoring the sprites, Sigrid’s teeth flashed as she faced Ithan. “I want to see why this satyr thinks it appropriate to supply people like the Astrono—”

  “We’re not here to cause trouble,” Ithan said, and didn’t move an inch from her path. But she stomped around him, pure Fendyr. A force of nature—one he’d just begun to see unleashed.

  Despite that noble bloodline, Ithan grabbed her arm. “Do not go up there,” he snarled softly, fingers digging into her bony arm.

  She looked down at his hand, then up at his face. Her nose crinkled with anger. “Or what?”

  The steel of an Alpha rang in her voice. Ithan’s very bones cried out to submit, to bow away, to step aside.

  But he fought it, pushed against it—met it with his own dominance. The Fendyrs might have been Alphas for generations, but the Holstroms weren’t pushovers. They were Alphas, too—leaders and warriors in their own right.

  Like Hel would he let this female push him around, Fendyr or no.

  Flynn’s chair scraped the ground, but Ithan didn’t take his eyes from Sigrid as the Fae male stalked over and hissed, “What the fuck is wrong with you two? Go snarl at each other somewhere it won’t be noticed by everyone in the gods-damned Meat Market.”

  Ithan bared his teeth at Sigrid. She bared hers right back.

  He said to Flynn, still not breaking Sigrid’s stare, “She wants to go confront the salt dealer about his association with the Astronomer. The satyr who got in all that trouble last year.”

  Flynn sighed at the wooden ceiling. “Now’s not the time to go on a self-righteous warpath, sweetheart.”

  Sigrid looked away from Ithan at last, though the wolf part of him knew she wasn’t conceding in their battle of wills. No, it was because she’d found another opponent to face. “Don’t speak to me like I’m some common female,” Sigrid raged at Flynn, who held up his hands. She whipped her head back to Ithan, “It’s within my rights—”

  “You have no rights,” a male voice said. Marc. The leopard shifter had stalked up behind them with preternatural grace. Though he was in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, the male still had an air of sleek professionalism. “Since you technically don’t even exist. You’re a ghost, for all intents and purposes.”

  Sigrid slowly turned, lip curling. “Did I ask for your opinion, cat?”

  Normally, Ithan would have been glad to engage in some inter-shifter rivalry. But Marc was a good male—her disdain was utterly misplaced. Declan sauntered up beside his boyfriend and slung an arm around his broad shoulders. “I think it’s past someone’s bedtime.”

  Sigrid growled. But the sprites drifted from her shoulders to float in front of her face as Sasa said carefully, “Siggy, we are here to … do other things. Perhaps we could come back another time.”

  Ithan almost laughed at the nickname. Someone as intense as the female before him had no business being called Siggy.

  “The next time they let us out of the house,” Sigrid said, bristling. “In days or weeks.”

  “I’ll remind you,” Declan drawled, “that you’re currently Sabine’s primary enemy.”

  “Let her come find me,” Sigrid said without an ounce of fear. “I’ve a score to settle.”

  “Luna spare me,” Flynn muttered. Ithan could have sworn he caught the sprites nodding their agreement as they resettled themselves on Sigrid’s shoulders. The Fae lord turned to Declan and Marc. “Anything?”

  The couple shook their heads. “No. It really does seem like the Asteri put a lock on the information. Nothing’s getting in or out.” Silence fell, heavy and tense.

  It was Sigrid who said, “So what now?”

  Only two days out of the tank and she was already assuming the mantle of leader, whether she knew it or not. A true Alpha, expecting to be answered … and obeyed.

  “We keep trying to find out what’s going on,” Declan said with a one-shouldered shrug.

  Flynn blew out an exasperated breath and plopped onto his chair again. “We’re no closer than we were two days ago: Ruhn and Athalar are being held as traitors. That’s all we know.” That was all Marc’s inside source at the Eternal City had been able to glean. Nothing else.

  Declan sank into a seat and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Honestly? We’re lucky we aren’t in those dungeons, too.”

  “We have to break them out,” Flynn said, crossing his muscled arms. Rithi, on his left shoulder, made an identical gesture.

  “Urd knows what shape they’re in,” Declan said bleakly. “We’d need medwitches on hand, probably.”

  “You’ve got healing magic,” Flynn countered.

  “Yeah,” Dec said, shaking his head, “but the kind of injuries they’d have … I’d need to be working alongside a team of trained professionals.”

  The thought of what those injuries might be to require such a team of medwitches made them all fall silent again. A heavy, miserable sort of quiet.

  “And,” Declan challenged, head lifting, “where would we even go once we rescued them? There’s no one on Midgard who could hide or harbor us.”

  “What about that mer ship?” Flynn mused. “The one that picked them up at Ydra. It outran the Omega-boats. Seems pretty damned good at hiding from the Asteri, too.”

  “Flynn,” Marc warned with a glance at the teeming market. All those listening ears.

  Ithan kept his voice low. “Tharion could get us onto that ship.”

  He expected Flynn to roll his eyes at the mention of helping Ketos, but the male glanced to the second level. “He can’t set foot beyond this market.”

  None of them had seen or heard from the mer male since he’d left for Pangera. But they’d learned of his whereabouts thanks to a neon-green piece of paper taped to a lamppost, advertising an upcoming match in the Viper Queen’s fighting pit with Tharion as the main event. It was clear enough what had happened: the male had defected from the Blue Court and run straight here.

  Ithan countered, “Then we ask Tharion how to get a message to them.”

  Declan shook his head. “And what then? We all live under the ocean forever?”

  Ithan shifted on his feet. The wolf in him would go insane. No ability to run freely, to respond to the moon calling his name—

  “She lived in a tank for the gods know how long,” Flynn said, gaze darting to Sigrid. “I think we can manage a cushy, city-sized submarine.”

  Sigrid flinched—a crack in her usually cocky exterior.

  “Careful,” Ithan warned Flynn.

  The sprites murmured their comfort to Sigrid, their flames now a deep raspberry. But Sigrid silently rose from her seat and walked toward a nearby vendor selling opals. The sweatshirt and pants Ithan had given her hung off her lean frame, swishing with each step.

  “You need to remind her to shower,” Dec said a shade quietly, eyes shining with concern.

  She hadn’t known what shampoo was. Or soap. Or conditioner. Hadn’t even known what a shower was, and had refused to step into the stream until Ithan had done so himself, fully clothed, to demonstrate that it was safe. That it wasn’t some version of a tank.

  She’d never slept in a proper bed before, either. Or at least not one that she remembered.

  “Okay,” Declan said, drawing attention back to the matter at hand. “We’re clearly not learning anything by asking around, but let’s think about it … Ruhn has to be alive. The Asteri wouldn’t kill him right away—he’s too big of a political presence.”

  “Yeah, so let’s go rescue him,” Flynn pushed. “Him and Athalar.”

  “What about Bryce?” Declan asked so softly it was barely a whisper.

  “She’s gone,” Flynn said tightly. “Went wherever.”

  Ithan didn’t like that tone—not one bit. “What, you think Bryce bailed?” he demanded. “You think she’d willingly leave Ruhn and Hunt to the Asteri? Come on.”

  Flynn leaned back in his chair. “You got a better guess about where she might be?”

  Ithan restrained the urge to punch the Fae lord in the throat. Flynn was angry and hurting and scared, Ithan reminded himself. “Bryce doesn’t give up on the people she loves. If she went somewhere, it’s gotta be important.”

  “Doesn’t matter where she went,” Flynn said. “All I know is we have to get Ruhn out before it’s too late.”

  Ithan glanced at the second level again, that sunball captain part of his mind calculating, thinking it through …

  Dec gripped Flynn’s shoulder, squeezing tight. “Look, the mer ship isn’t a bad idea, but we need to think long-term. Need to consider our families, too.”

  “My parents and sister can go to Hel for all I care,” Flynn said.

  “Well, I want my family to be safe,” Declan snapped. “If we’re going to rescue Ruhn and Athalar, we need to make sure no one else gets caught in the cross fire.”

  Dec looked to Ithan, and Ithan shrugged. He had no one left to warn. Would anyone even miss him if he were gone? His duty was to protect the wolf at the stall across the way. Out of some stupid hope that she might … He had no idea. Challenge and defeat Sabine? Correct the dangerous path Sabine was leading the wolves down? Fill the void that Danika had left?

  Sigrid was a loose cannon. An Alpha, yes, but she had no training. Her impulses were all over the place, too unpredictable. With time, she might learn the necessary skills, but time wasn’t their ally these days.

  So Ithan said, “You want to save Ruhn and Athalar? That mer ship is the only way we can cross the ocean unnoticed. Maybe the mer on it will have some idea how to break them out. They might even help us if we’re lucky.” He pointed to the second level. “Tharion’s our way in.”

  “Seems convenient,” Flynn said at last, “given that you were insisting we needed to spring him loose from here.”

  “Two birds, one stone.”

  “Tharion can’t leave,” Marc mused, “but nothing’s stopping him from talking to us. Maybe he can provide contact information.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Ithan said.

  Flynn sighed, which Ithan took as acceptance. “Someone’s gotta tell her to go home.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward Sigrid.

  “And be her escort,” Dec added.

  “Not it,” Flynn and Ithan said at the same moment.

  Declan whipped his head to Marc and said, “Not it,” before the leopard could grasp what was going on.

  Marc rubbed his temples. “Remind me how it is that the three of you are considered some of the most feared warriors in this city?”

  Dec just kissed his cheek.

  Marc sighed. “If I have to bring Siggy home, then Holstrom has to be the one to tell her.”

  Ithan opened his mouth, but … fine. With a mocking smile to the males, he walked over to retrieve the Alpha. And spare the opal dealer from her endless questions.

  How do you know it bestows luck or love or joy? What do the colors have to do with anything? What proof do you have that these work?

  He couldn’t tell if it was curiosity, pent up from years in that tank, or sheer Alphaness, needing to question everyone and everything. Needing order in the world.