“You do. Go.”

  Wariness and apprehension flooded his sister’s face. But Bryce kissed Athalar’s cheek, then grabbed the witch by the arm. “Hold on. I’ve never taken anyone with me like this and it might be …” Her words cut off as they disappeared.

  Thank the gods. Thank the gods Bryce had made it out again, with Hypaxia in tow.

  Hunt held his breath.

  Ruhn said, “You should go next. You’re her mate.”

  “You’re her brother. And heir to the Fae throne.”

  “So is she.”

  Hunt blinked at the prince, but then Bryce was back, panting. “Oh gods, that fucking sucked.” She retched, and reached a hand for Ruhn. “Come on.”

  “Rest,” her brother ordered, but the doors dented further inward. Another few blows and they’d be open. And if Bryce’s plan didn’t get them a little more time …

  Bryce grabbed Ruhn’s arm and before her brother could object, they vanished. Alone, Hunt monitored the door, rallied his lightning. He could charge her up again, but she was clearly exhausted. Would it do any good?

  The doors shuddered, and light cracked in as they peeled apart a few inches.

  Hunt ducked behind the altar, away from the spray of bullets that followed, blindly aiming for whoever was within. “There!” Pippa shouted, and guns trained on him.

  Where the fuck was Bryce—

  The doors blew open, throwing three Lightfall soldiers to the ground.

  Pollux stood between the doors, white wings luminescent with power, laughing to himself as he brought a clenched fist down upon the head of a female rebel sprawled before him. Bone and blood sprayed. Beyond him, in the courtyard, rebels fired at Mordoc and the dreadwolves. And out in the street, standing beneath a palm tree, away from the fray, Hunt could see the Hind, surveying the brawl.

  Bryce appeared and slid behind the altar. Her skin had gone ashen, her breaths uneven. Sharp. She lifted a shaking hand toward him. “I …” She collapsed to her knees. She didn’t need to say the rest. She was tapped out. Yet she’d come back to him. To fight her way out with him.

  “Another charge?” he asked, lightning twining down his arms as he lifted her to her feet.

  “I don’t think my body can take it.” She leaned against him. “I feel like overcooked meat.”

  Hunt peered around the altar. “How’d you manage to buy us time?”

  “The Gates,” Bryce panted. “I had to teleport to a few of them before I found one that was pretty empty and unwatched. I used the dial pad to broadcast a report that Ophion was sacking Urd’s Temple—right in the middle of one of those stupid daily announcements. I figured a unit would be sent here. Probably the biggest and baddest they had, which happened to also be the closest.”

  He remembered now—they’d avoided Pollux and Mordoc, along with the Hind’s dreadwolves, on the walk over here. “Your voice will be recognized—”

  “I recorded the message, then played it through the Gate using a voice-warping app,” she said with a grim smile. “And I made sure to move fast enough that the cameras couldn’t pick it up as more than a blur, don’t worry.”

  He could only gape at her, his clever, brilliant Bryce. Gods, he loved her.

  Crouching behind the altar again as the fighting pressed into the temple, Hunt breathed, “We have to find some way to get through those doors unseen.”

  “If you can give me a minute …” She brushed a shaking hand to her chest. The scar there.

  But Hunt knew. Only time would allow her to gain back her strength, and it would sure as fuck take longer than they had to spare.

  Hunt banked his lightning, fearful Pollux would spy it. The Hammer drew closer, Mordoc a menacing shadow behind him. Where they walked, rebels died. Hunt couldn’t get a visual on Pippa.

  Bryce panted, and Hunt scented her blood before he looked. Her nose was bleeding. “What the fuck?” he exploded, covering her with his body as a stray spray of bullets shot over the top of the altar.

  “My brain might be soup,” she hissed, though fear shone in her eyes.

  If he could unleash his lightning, he might be able to fry their way out. No matter that everyone would know who’d been there, especially if Mordoc picked up on the scents afterward, but … he’d take that chance. For Bryce, he’d risk it.

  They could, of course, say that they had been fighting Ophion, but there was a chance that the Hind would decide this was the moment to reveal what she knew.

  “Hold on to me,” Hunt warned, reaching for Bryce as something crept out of the shadows behind Urd’s throne.

  A black dog. Massive, with fangs as long as Hunt’s hand.

  The Helhound motioned to the throne with a clawed paw. Then he vanished behind it.

  There was no time to think. Hunt scooped up Bryce and ran, ducking low through the shadows between the altar and the dais, praying no one saw them in the chaos and smoke—

  He whipped behind the throne to find the space empty. No sign of Baxian.

  A growl came behind him, and Hunt whirled to the back of the throne. It wasn’t solid stone at all, but an open doorway, leading into a narrow stairwell.

  Hunt didn’t question their luck as he sprinted through the stone doorway. Baxian, now in angelic form, shoved it shut behind him. Sealing them entirely in darkness.

  Baxian lit the tight steps downward with his phone. Hunt held on to Bryce. From the way she clung to him, he wasn’t entirely certain she could walk.

  “I heard Pollux give the order to come here over the radio,” Baxian said, hurrying ahead, wings rustling. Hunt let the male lead, glancing behind them to ensure the door didn’t open. But the seal was perfect. Not so much as a crack of light shone. “Given how pissed Pippa was after Ydra, I figured it was you lot involved. I researched the history of this temple. Found rumors about the door hidden in the throne. It’s what took me some time—finding the tunnel entrance in. Some priestess must have used it recently, though. Her scent was all over the alley and fake wall that leads in here.”

  Hunt and Bryce said nothing. That was twice now that Baxian had interfered to save them from the Hind and Pollux. And now Pippa.

  “Is Spetsos dead?” Baxian asked, as they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered a long tunnel.

  “Don’t know,” Hunt grunted. “She probably escaped and left her people to die.”

  “Lidia will be pissed she didn’t catch her, but Pollux seemed to be enjoying himself,” Baxian said, shaking his head. They walked until they hit a crossroads flanked by skulls and bones placed in tiny alcoves. Catacombs. “I don’t think they had any clue you were there,” Baxian went on, “though how they got tipped off—”

  Bryce moved, so fast Hunt didn’t have time to stop her from dropping out of his arms.

  To stop her from unslinging her rifle and pointing it at Baxian. “Stop right there.”

  Bryce wiped the blood dripping from her nose on her shoulder as she aimed the rifle at the Helhound, paused in the catacombs’ crossroads.

  Her head pounded relentlessly, her mouth felt as dry as the Psamathe Desert, and her stomach was a churning eddy of bile. She was never teleporting again. Never, ever, ever.

  “Why the fuck do you keep popping up?” Bryce seethed, not taking her attention off the Helhound. Hunt didn’t so much as move at her side. “Hunt says you’re not spying for the Hind or the Asteri, but I don’t fucking believe it. Not for one second.” She clicked off the safety. “So tell me the gods-damned truth before I put this bullet through your head.”

  Baxian walked to one of the curved walls full of skulls. Didn’t seem to care that he was a foot away from the barrel of her gun. He ran a finger down the brown skull of what seemed to be some fanged Vanir, and said, “Through love, all is possible.”

  The rifle nearly tumbled from her fingers. “What?”

  Baxian peeled back the collar of his battle-suit, revealing brown, muscled flesh. And a tattoo scrawled over the angel’s heart in familiar handwriting.

  Through love, all is possible.

  She knew that handwriting. “Why,” she asked carefully, voice shaking, “do you have Danika’s handwriting tattooed on you?”

  Baxian’s dark eyes became pained. Empty. “Because Danika was my mate.”

  65

  Bryce aimed the rifle at Baxian again. “You are a fucking liar.”

  Baxian left his collar open, Danika’s handwriting inked there for all to see. “I loved her. More than anything.”

  Hunt said harshly, words echoing in the dry catacombs around them, “This isn’t fucking funny, asshole.”

  Baxian turned pleading eyes to him. Bryce wanted to claw the male’s face off. “She was my mate. Ask Sabine. Ask her why she ran the night she burst into your apartment. She’s always hated and feared me—because I saw how she treated her daughter and wouldn’t put up with it. Because I’ve promised to turn her into carrion one day for what Danika endured. That’s why Sabine left the party last night so fast. To avoid me.”

  Bryce didn’t lower the gun. “You’re full of shit.”

  Baxian splayed his arms, wings rustling. “Why the fuck would I lie about this?”

  “To win our trust,” Hunt said.

  Bryce couldn’t get a breath down. It had nothing to do with the teleporting. “I would have known. If Danika had a mate, I would have known—”

  “Oh? You think she would have told you that her mate was someone in Sandriel’s triarii? The Helhound? You think she’d have run home to dish about it?”

  “Fuck you,” Bryce spat, focusing the scope right between his eyes. “And fuck your lies.”

  Baxian walked up to the gun. To the barrel. Pushed it down and against his heart, right up against the tattoo in Danika’s handwriting. “I met her two years before she died,” he said quietly.

  “She and Thorne—”

  Baxian let out a laugh so bitter it cracked her soul. “Thorne was delusional to think she’d ever be with him.”

  “She fucked around,” Bryce seethed. “You were no one to her.”

  “I had two years with her,” Baxian said. “She didn’t fuck anyone else during that time.”

  Bryce stilled, doing the mental tally. Right before her death, hadn’t she teased Danika about …

  “Two years,” she whispered. “She hadn’t gone on a date in two years.” Hunt gaped at her now. “But she …” She racked her memory. Danika had hooked up constantly throughout college, but a few months into their senior year and the year after … She’d partied, but stopped the casual sex. Bryce choked out, “It’s not possible.”

  Baxian’s face was bleak, even in the dimness of the catacombs. “Believe me, I didn’t want it, either. But we saw each other and knew.”

  Hunt murmured, “That’s why your behavior changed. You met Danika right after I left.”

  “It changed everything for me,” Baxian said.

  “How did you even meet each other?” Bryce demanded.

  “There was a gathering of wolves—Pangeran and Valbaran. The Prime sent Danika as his emissary.”

  Bryce remembered that. How pissed Sabine had been that Danika had been tapped to go, and not her. Two weeks later, Danika had come back, and she’d seemed subdued for a few days. She’d said it was exhaustion but …

  “You’re not a wolf. Why were you even there?” Danika couldn’t have been with Baxian, couldn’t have had a mate and not told her about it, not smelled like it—

  She was a bloodhound. With that preternatural sense of smell, she’d know better than anyone how to hide a scent—how to detect if any trace of it had remained on her.

  “I wasn’t at the gathering. She sought me out while she was there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was researching shifter ancestry. Mine is … unique.”

  “You shift into a dog,” Bryce raged. “What’s unique about that?” Even Hunt gave her a disapproving frown. She didn’t care. She was sick of these surprises about Danika, about all the things she’d never known—

  “She wanted to know about my shifter ancestry. Really old shifter ancestry that manifested in me after years of lying dormant. She was examining the most ancient bloodlines in our world and saw a name on an early ancestor’s family tree that could be traced all the way to the last living descendant: me.”

  “What the Hel could you even tell her if it was that ancient?” Hunt asked.

  “Ultimately, nothing. But once we knew we were mates, once we’d sealed it … She started to open up about what she was looking into.”

  “Was it about the synth?” Bryce asked.

  “No.” Baxian clenched his jaw. “I think the synth was a cover for something else. Her death was because of the research she was doing.”

  Through love, all is possible. One last clue from Danika. To look where she’d stamped the phrase—right on this male.

  So Bryce said, “Why did she care about any of this?”

  “She wanted to know where we came from. The shifters, the Fae. All of us. She wanted to know what we’d once been. If it might inform our future.” Baxian’s throat worked. “She was also … She told me she wanted to find an alternative to Sabine.”

  “She was the alternative to Sabine,” Bryce snapped.

  “She had a feeling she might not live long enough for that,” Baxian said hoarsely. “Danika didn’t want to leave the wolves’ future in Sabine’s hands. She was seeking a way to protect them by uncovering a possible alternative in the bloodline to challenge Sabine.”

  It was so … so Danika.

  “But after we met,” Baxian went on, “she started hunting for a way into a world where we could be together—since there was no way Sabine or Sandriel, or even the Asteri, would have allowed it.”

  Bryce clicked the safety back on the gun and lowered it to the ground.

  Baxian said with quiet ferocity, “I was so fucking glad when you killed Micah. I knew … I had this feeling that prick was involved in her death.”

  Glad someone finally put a bullet through Micah’s head, Baxian had said when they’d first met. Bryce surveyed the male who’d loved her friend—the male she’d never known about. “Why wouldn’t she have told me?”

  “She wanted to. We didn’t dare talk on the phone or write to each other. We had a standing agreement to meet at a hotel in Forvos—I could never get away from Sandriel for long—on a given day every two months. She worried that the Asteri would use me against her to keep her in line, if they found out about us.”

  “Did she tell you she loved you?” Bryce pushed.

  “Yes,” Baxian replied without a moment of hesitation.

  Danika had once claimed she’d only said those words to Bryce. To her, not to this … stranger. This male who’d freely and willingly served Sandriel. Hunt had been given no choice in that matter. “She didn’t care that you’re a monster?”

  Baxian flinched. “After I met Danika, I tried my best to counteract all I did for Sandriel, though sometimes all I could do was … lessen Sandriel’s evil.” Yet his eyes softened. “She loved you, Bryce. You were the most important person in the world to her. You were—”

  “Shut up. Just … shut the fuck up,” Bryce whispered. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Don’t you?” he challenged. “Don’t you want to know all of it? Isn’t that why you’ve been digging around? You want to know—need to know what Danika knew. What she was up to, what she kept secret.”

  Her face hardened into stone. She said flatly, “Fine. Let’s start with this one, if you knew her so well. How did Danika meet Sofie Renast? You ever hear that name in all your secret little conversations? What did Danika want from her?”

  Baxian bristled. “Danika learned about Sofie’s existence while investigating thunderbird lineage as part of her research into shifters and our origins. She traced the bloodlines—and then confirmed it by tracking her down and scenting her. Being Danika, she didn’t let Sofie walk away without answering some questions.”

  Bryce stilled. “What kind of questions?” Hunt put a hand on her shoulder.

  Baxian shook his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t know how they pivoted to working together on the Ophion stuff. But I think Danika had some theories about thunderbirds beyond the lineage thing. About their power in particular.”

  Bryce frowned. “Do you know why Sofie Renast might have felt the need to carve a series of numbers and letters on herself while she drowned a few weeks ago?”

  “Solas,” Baxian murmured. And then he recited the sequence from Sofie’s body, down to the last numeral. “Was that it?”

  “What the fuck are you playing at, Baxian?” Hunt growled, but Bryce snapped at the same time, “What is it?”

  Baxian’s eyes flashed. “It’s a system of numbering rooms used in only one place on Midgard. The Asteri Archives.”

  Hunt swore. “And how in Urd’s name do you know that?”

  “Because I gave it to Danika.”

  Bryce was surprised enough that words failed her.

  “Sandriel was the Asteri’s pet.” Baxian turned to Hunt. “You know that, Athalar. She made me serve as escort on one of her visits to their palace. When they brought her down to the archives for a meeting, I saw them go through that door. When Sandriel emerged, she was pale. It was odd enough that I memorized the series of numbers and letters and passed it to Danika later as something to look into. Danika became … obsessed with it. She wouldn’t tell me why, or what she thought might be in there, but she had theories. Ones that she said would alter this very world. But she couldn’t go in herself. She was too recognizable. She knew the Asteri were already watching her.”

  “So after she met Sofie, Danika gave her the information, and had Sofie sneak in to investigate,” Bryce murmured. “Since Sofie’s record wouldn’t have shown anything suspicious about her.”

  Baxian nodded. “From what I gleaned from the Hind’s reports, it took Sofie three years of work to get in. Three years of spying and going undercover as one of the archivists. I’m assuming she finally found a way to sneak into that room—and ran to Kavalla soon after. By that time, Danika was … gone. She died without ever learning what was in the room.”