House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

Not an ember of the mer’s usual spark lit his eyes.

“Thanks,” Hunt said. “Keep me posted.” Tharion nodded and strode off, still typing away.

Hunt finished his own plate of fish, then the rest of Tharion’s, before he left the mess hall. The ship halls were quiet. Using the walk to stretch and test the strength of his healed wings, he strode in silence along the glass-lined corridors, nothing but dark ocean beyond. All that crushing water held back by the Ocean Queen’s magic. Hunt could only marvel.

He hadn’t gone back to the biodome a few levels up. Couldn’t bear to see where he and Bryce had officially become mates.

He found Baxian in the gym they’d been assigned—one of dozens on this ship, and the closest to their living quarters—doing chest presses.

“You need a spotter for that much weight,” Hunt warned, pausing near the bench where the angel shifter grunted under the bar, dark wings splayed beneath him. “You should have asked.”

“You weren’t in your room,” Baxian said as he lowered the bar to his bare, muscled chest. Sweat dribbled down the groove between his pecs, his brown skin gleaming. Shreds of the tattoo across his heart—Through love, all is possible, inked in Danika’s handwriting—remained. How he’d ever get it replaced … Hunt’s own heart strained.

Baxian went on, “And when I asked the sprites if they’d seen you, they said you were off doing lunch.”

Hunt had stopped by the small interior room where Malana, Sasa, and Rithi had holed up since arriving, to ask if they wanted to join him and Tharion. They were at a low, constant level of panic being down here, under the water. But they hadn’t wanted to come to lunch. Didn’t want to see the ship, or any indication that an endless ocean was all around them. So they stayed in their windowless room, binge-watching some inane reality TV show about realtors selling beach villas in the Coronal Islands, and pretended they weren’t surrounded by a giant death trap for their kind.

It had pained him to see them gathered around the TV earlier. Lehabah would have loved them. Lehabah should have been there, with them. With all of them.

Baxian kept his eyes on the weights he’d been lifting. “I needed to get in here for a bit.”

“Why?”

“Bad thoughts” was all Baxian said.

“Ah.” Likely ones that included the taste of Ruhn’s blood in his mouth. Hunt silently stepped behind the bench, within reach of the bar as Baxian lifted it again, arms shaking. He easily had six hundred pounds on it. “What number is this?”

“Eighty,” Baxian grunted, arms straining, wings splayed beneath him. Hunt took it upon himself to guide the bar back to its posts. “I want to get to a hundred.”

“Baby steps, buddy.”

Baxian panted up at the ceiling, then his eyes slid toward Hunt, watching him upside down. “What’s up?”

“Just checking in on a friend.”

“I’m fine,” Baxian said, curling upward and bracing his hands on his thighs. His wings drooped to the black plastic tiles.

Hunt knew it was a lie, but he nodded anyway. If Baxian wanted to talk, he’d talk.

He’d told Baxian everything while they’d lain in the medwitch’s room yesterday, in between stitches and potions and pain. Told him about Bryce, and the Hind, and all the shit they’d learned.

Baxian had taken it well, though he clearly remained in shock about the Hind’s involvement. Hunt didn’t blame him. He still had trouble believing it himself. But Baxian had been working with Lidia for even longer than Hunt—it’d probably take longer to adjust his image of her.

Baxian nodded to Hunt’s face. “Any luck getting that shit removed?”

Hunt didn’t dare look at the wall of mirrors behind the Helhound. Hadn’t been able to stand the sight of his face with that halo once again marring his brow. He could have sworn its ink seared him every now and then. It had never done that before—but this halo, inked by Rigelus, felt different. Worse. Alive, somehow.

“No,” Hunt said. “Hypaxia Enador got rid of it the last time. So unless there’s a witch-queen hiding on this ship, I’ve gotta learn to live with it for the time being.”

“Rigelus is a fucking asshole. Always was.” Baxian wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Hunt angled his head. “What changed with you, really? Is this new Baxian Argos just the result of learning Danika was your mate?”

It was a potential minefield, to bring up his dead mate. To lose a mate was to lose half of your soul; to live without them was torture.

“I don’t want to talk about the past,” Baxian said, wings snapping in tight to his body, and Hunt let it drop.

“Then let’s talk about next steps,” Hunt said, folding his own wings with a lingering whisper of tightness. Another day and he’d be totally back to normal.

“What’s there to talk about? Big picture: the Asteri have to go.”

Hunt snorted. “Glad we’re on the same page.” He could only pray that Tharion was able to get Sendes to contact the Ocean Queen—and that she might be on the same page as them, too.

He surveyed the male he thought he’d known for so many years. “Is it too much to hope that some of Sandriel’s old triarii might also be secret anti-imperialists?”

“Don’t push your luck. Two’s already huge. Three, if we include you.”

Thankfully, he’d never been in her actual triarii—just had to put up with their shit while surviving the years he’d been shackled to Sandriel. Hunt ignored the familiar shiver of dread at the memory of those years and asked, “But you and Lidia never had any idea that you both were—”

“No. None. I thought she was no better than Pollux.” Baxian wiped more sweat from his brow, his breath steadying. “You think Lidia will make it?”

Hunt rubbed his jaw. “I hope so. We need her.”

“For what?”

Hunt gave his old enemy—now friend, he supposed—a slash of a smile. “To make these fuckers pay for what they’ve done.”



* * *



Tharion told himself to snap out of it. To focus on the fact that, against all odds, they’d succeeded in rescuing their friends from the Asteri dungeons—had even gone a step beyond and saved Lidia Cervos from certain death.

It didn’t matter, though. Holstrom had stayed behind. Holstrom, whose life Tharion had wrecked.

And not only Holstrom’s life, but the future of the wolves, too. That Fendyr heir was dead because of him. Technically because of Holstrom, but … none of it would have happened if it weren’t for Tharion’s own choices.

He hadn’t let anyone catch wind of the past day he’d spent since getting on this ship puking up his guts. Partially from the withdrawal to the Viper Queen’s venom, but also from sheer disgust at all he’d done, what he’d become.

Ariadne had been sold off, the gods knew where. To whom. And fine, she hadn’t been technically sold, because the Viper Queen hadn’t owned her, but … she’d left to avoid having to kill Holstrom. Or so the Viper Queen had let her believe, getting the advantageous trade while planning all along to put Sigrid in the ring against Ithan.

If there was a level below rock bottom, Tharion had found it.

He forced himself to stop grinding his teeth and concentrate on Sendes. She stood in the center of the bridge, taking a report from one of her soldiers.

None of the other technicians or officers on the bridge spoke to him. None even looked his way.

At least no one here called him a traitor. But they all knew he’d defected from the River Queen. And given how little she was liked on this ship, he knew it had more to do with the fact that he’d defected from the mer. From them.

He wanted to shout to this whole bridge that if he could, he’d defect from himself.

Sendes turned at last when she’d dismissed her soldier. “Sorry about that.”

Tharion waved her off. Considering how much they owed Sendes and this ship, she never needed to apologize to him for anything. “I feel like this is all I say these days, but I wanted to ask for a favor.”