House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

Ithan and Hypaxia raced across the city, the blocks either full of panicking residents and tourists or deathly, eerie quiet. People sat on the sidewalks in stunned shock. Ithan steeled himself for what he’d find in the northeastern quarter, but it wasn’t enough to prepare him for the bloodied humans, ghostlike with all the dust and ash on them, streaming out of it. Children screamed in their arms. As he crossed into Asphodel Meadows, the cracked streets were filled with bodies, lying still and silent.

Further into the smoldering ruin, cars had been melted. Piles of rubble remained where buildings had stood. Bodies lay charred. Some of those bodies were unbearably small.

He drifted someplace far, far away from himself. Didn’t hear the screams or the sirens or the still-collapsing buildings. At his side, Hypaxia said nothing, her grave face streaked with silent tears.

Closer to the origin of the blasts, there was nothing. No bodies, no cars, no buildings.

There was nothing left in the heart of Asphodel Meadows beyond a giant crater, still smoldering.

The brimstone missiles had been so hot, so deadly, that they’d melted everything away. Anyone who’d taken a direct hit would have died instantly. Perhaps it had been a small mercy to be taken out that fast. To be wiped away before understanding the nightmare that was unfolding. To not be scared.

Ithan’s wolf instinct had him focusing. Had him snapping to attention as Hypaxia pulled a vial of firstlight healing potion from her bag and ran to the nearest humans beyond the blast radius—two young parents and a small child, covered head to toe in gray dust, huddling in the doorway of a partially collapsed building.

Hypaxia might have defected from being queen, but she was, first and foremost, a healer. And with his Aux and pack training, Ithan could make a difference, too. Even though he was a wolf without a pack, a disgraced exile and murderer. He could still help. Would still help, no matter what the world called him. No matter what unforgivable things he’d done.

So Ithan sprinted for the nearest human, a teenage girl in her school uniform. The fuckers had chosen to strike in the morning, when most people would be out in the streets on their way to work, kids on their way to school, all of them defenseless in the open air—

A snarl slipped out of him, and the girl, bleeding from her forehead, half-pinned under a chunk of cement, cringed away. She scrambled to push the cement block off her lower legs, and it was him—his presence that was terrifying her—

He shoved the wolf, the rage down. “Hey,” he said, kneeling beside her, reaching for the chunk of cement. “I’m here to help.”

The girl stopped her frantic shoving against the block, and lifted her bloodied eyes to him as he easily hauled it off her shins. Her left leg had been shredded down to the bone.

“Hypaxia!” he called to the witch, who was already rising to her feet.

But the girl grabbed Ithan’s hand, her face ghastly white as she asked him, “Why?”

Ithan shook his head, unable to find the words. Hypaxia threw herself to her knees before the girl, fishing another firstlight vial from her satchel. One of a scant few, Ithan saw with a jolt. They’d need so many more.

But even if all the medwitches of Crescent City showed up … would it be enough?

Would it ever be enough to heal what had been done here?

“You getting anything?” Hunt asked Tharion as they stood on the bank of a deep, wide river rushing through the cave system. Bryce, standing a few feet away, let the males talk as she studied the river, the mists blocking its origin and terminus; the carved walls continuing on the other side of the river; the musty, wet scent of this place.

Nothing so far that would tell her anything new about the blades, mist, or how to kick some Asteri ass, but she filed away everything she saw.

“No,” the mer said. Bryce was half listening to him. “My magic just senses that it’s … cold. And flows all through these caves.”

“I guess that’s good,” Baxian said, tucking in his wings. He winked at Bryce, drawing her attention. “No Wyrms swimming about.”

Bryce glowered. “You wouldn’t be joking if you’d seen one.” She didn’t give the Helhound time to reply before she said to him and Hunt, “Wings up to carry us?”

Her mind was racing too much for conversation as they awkwardly crossed the river, Hunt flying Sathia and Bryce together, Baxian carrying Tharion. Bryce extended her bubble of starlight so they could all remain within it, which was about as much extra activity as she could be bothered with while she took in the carvings.

They didn’t tell the story that Silene’s carvings had narrated—there was no mention of a slumbering evil beneath their feet. Just a river of starlight, into which the long-ago Fae had apparently dragged those pegasuses and drowned them.

Yeah, the Fae here had been no better than the ones in Nesta’s world.

They walked for hours and hours—miles and miles. There were occasional stops, alternating who took watch, but sleep was difficult.

The ghouls lurked in crevices and alcoves all around, scraps of malevolent shadow. They hissed with hunger for warm blood—and in abject fear of her starlight. Only someone with the Starborn gift—or someone under their protection—could survive here.

The Starsword pressed on her back; the dagger dug into her hip. They burdened each step, locked in some strange battle to be near each other that intensified as she got farther into the cave.

Bryce ignored them, and instead tracked the carvings on the walls. On the ceilings. Brutal images carved with care and precision: Merciless, unending battles and bloodshed. Cities in ruins. Lands crumbling away. All falling into that river of starlight, as if the Starborn power had swept it away in a tide of destruction.

“I have a question.” Sathia’s voice echoed through the tunnel. “It might be considered impertinent.”

Bryce snorted. “Didn’t you know? That’s the motto of Team Caves.”

Sathia increased her pace until she was at Bryce’s side. “Well, you don’t seem to want anything to do with the Fae.”

“Bingo,” Bryce said.

“Yet you’re here, bearing our two most sacred artifacts—”

“Three, if you count the Horn in my back.”

Sathia’s stunned silence seemed to bounce through the cave. “The … the Horn? How?”

“Fancy magic tattoo,” Bryce said, waving a hand. “But go on.”

Sathia’s throat worked. “You bear three of our most sacred artifacts. Yet you plan to … do what with the Fae?”

“Nothing,” Bryce said. “You’re right: I want nothing to do with them.” The carvings around them only strengthened that resolve. Especially the ones of the pegasus slaughter. She glanced sidelong at the female. “No offense.”

But Sathia said, “Why?”

This really wasn’t a conversation Bryce felt like having, and she gave the female a look that said as much. But Sathia held her stare, frank and unafraid.

So Bryce sighed. “The Fae are … not my favorite people. They never have been, but after this spring even more so. I really don’t want to associate with a group of cowards who locked out innocents the day demons poured into our city, and who seem intent on doing that again on a larger scale here on Avallen.”

“Some of us had no choice but to be locked in our villas,” Sathia said tightly. “My parents forbade me from—”

“I never let something being forbidden stop me from doing it,” Bryce said.

Sathia glared, but went on. “If you … if we … survive all this, what then?”

“What do you mean, what then?”

“What do you do with the sword and knife? With the Horn? Let’s say your wildest hopes about the Asteri come true, and we find the knowledge here or in the archives to help defeat them. Once they’re gone, do you keep these objects, when you want nothing to do with our people?”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t keep them?”

“I’m asking you what you plan to do—with them, and yourself.”

“I’m changing the motto of Team Caves,” Bryce announced. “It’s now Mind Your Own Business.”

“I mean it,” Sathia said, not taking Bryce’s shit for one second. “You’ll walk away from it all?”

“I don’t see much of a reason to hang around,” Bryce said coldly. “I don’t see why you’d want to, either. You’re chattel to them. To the Autumn King, to Morven, to your dad. Your only value comes from your breeding potential. They don’t give a fuck if you’re smart or brave or kind. They only want you for your uterus, and Luna spare you if you have any troubles with it.”

“I know that,” Sathia answered with equal ice. “I’ve known that since I was a child.”

“And you’re cool with it?” Bryce countered, unable to stop the sharpness in her voice. “You’re cool with being used and treated like that? Like you’re lesser than them? You’re cool with having no rights, no say in your future? You’re cool with a life where you either belong to your male relatives or your husband?”

“No, but it is the life I was born into.”

“Well, you’re Mrs. Ketos now,” Bryce said, nodding back at Tharion, who was watching them carefully. “So brace yourself for all that entails.”

“What does that mean?” Tharion demanded.

But Sathia ignored her taunts and said, “What are you going to do to the Fae?”

“Do?” Bryce asked, halting.

Sathia didn’t back down. “With all that power you have. With who you are, what you bear.”

Hunt let out a low whistle of warning.

But Bryce seethed at Sathia, “I just want the Fae to leave me the fuck alone. And I’ll leave them the fuck alone.”

Sathia pointed at the Starsword on Bryce’s back. “But the prophecy—when those blades are reunited, so shall our people be. That has to mean you, uniting all the Fae peoples—”

“I already did that,” Bryce cut in. “I connected the Fae of Midgard to the ones in our home world. Prophecy fulfilled. Or were you hoping for something else?”

Sathia’s gaze simmered. An unbroken female, despite the life she’d led. “I was hoping for a Fae Queen. Someone who might change things for the better.”

“Well, you got me instead,” Bryce said, and continued into the dark, fingers curling at her sides. Maybe she’d use her laser power to wipe these carvings from the walls. As easily as Rigelus had shattered the statues in the Eternal Palace. Maybe she’d send out a blast of her light so vicious it would obliterate all the hissing ghouls around them. “The Fae dug their own graves. They can lie in them.”

Sathia let it drop.

Hunt fell into step beside Bryce, putting a hand on her shoulder as if to offer his support, but she could have sworn that even her mate was disappointed in her.

Whatever. If they wanted to preserve a long, fucked-up line of Fae tyrants, that was on them.

Flynn and Dec abandoned Ruhn the moment they called it quits at the archives, leaving him and Lidia to share a painfully quiet meal in the castle’s empty dining room.

There was so much he wanted to ask her, to talk to her about, to know. He couldn’t find the words. So he ate, fork unbearably loud against his plate, each bite like crunching glass. And when they finished, they walked back to their rooms in silence, each step echoing in the hallway, loud as a thunderclap.

But before they parted ways, as Ruhn was about to enter his room, he blurted, “You think my sister’s okay?”

“You’re the one who’s been in the Cave of Princes,” Lidia said, but turned toward him. “You tell me.”

He shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know. Bryce has got a lot of shit going on right now. Those caves are confusing on a good day. If you’re not focused, they can be deadly.”

Lidia crossed her arms. “Well, I have faith that between her, Athalar, and Baxian, your sister will be fine.”

“Tharion will be insulted.”

“I don’t know Ketos well enough as a warrior to judge him.”

“Ithan Holstrom calls him Captain Whatever, but I think it’s selling him a bit short. Tharion’s a badass when he feels like it.”

She smiled, and damn if it didn’t do funny things to Ruhn’s chest. She said again, “Your sister will be fine.”

He nodded, blowing out a breath. “Do you and Hypaxia have any contact?”

“No. Not since the ball.”

His mouth moved before he could think through his next question. “That night … were you ever going to meet me in the garden?”

Surprise flickered in her eyes, then vanished. Her mouth pursed, like she was debating her answer. “The Harpy got there before I did,” she said finally.

He stepped toward her, the hall suddenly too small. “But were you going to show up like we’d planned?”

“Does it matter?”

He dared another step. He hadn’t realized how her hips swelled so invitingly before dipping to her waist.

His hands curled, and he hated himself for the punch of lust that went through him, nearly knocking the breath from his lungs. He wanted her. Wanted her naked and under him and moaning his name, wanted her to tell him everything, and wanted … wanted his friend back. The friend he could speak honestly to, who knew things about him that no one else knew.

He took one more step, and he could see her trembling. With fear or restraint, he had no idea.

“Lidia,” he murmured, in front of her at last, and she closed her eyes, the pulse in her throat fluttering.

Her scent shifted—like flowers unfurling under the morning sun. That scent was pure arousal. His cock tightened painfully.

He didn’t care that they were in the middle of a hallway with his awful cousins running amok. He slid a hand onto her waist, nearly groaning at the steep curve, the way it fit his hand perfectly.

She kept her eyes closed, her pulse still flickering. So he took his other hand and tilted her head to the side. Leaned down and brushed his mouth over that fluttering spot.

Her breathing hitched, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head. She tasted … fuck. He needed more. His teeth grazed the soft skin of her throat, and his tongue skimmed along the space just under her ear. His cock throbbed in answer.

Her body loosened, pliant in his hands, and her head tipped a little further to the side. An invitation. He licked up the column of her throat, hand drifting from her waist down to her ass—

She stiffened. Pulled away.

Like she’d caught herself. Remembered who she was. Who he was.

He stood there like a fucking moron, panting slightly, cock fully hard and straining against his pants, and she just … stared at him. Wide-eyed.

“I …” He had no idea what to say. What to do.

His head swam. This female had so much blood on her hands, yet—

“Good night,” he rasped, and turned to his own room before he could make a greater fool of himself.

She didn’t stop him.