House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City) (89 page)

“What business is it of ours?” Sabine demanded.

“She’s a wolf,” Ithan repeated. “That should be all we need to help her.”

“There are plenty of wolves. And plenty of Alphas. They are not all our responsibility.” Sabine exposed her teeth again. “Is this part of some scheme you and that half-breed whore are concocting?”

She sneered as she said it, but … Sabine had come to Bryce’s apartment that night to warn her to stay out of wolf business. Out of some fear, however unfounded, that Bryce would somehow back Ithan—as if Sabine herself could be at risk of being overthrown.

Ithan tucked that aside. Tossing out wild accusations wouldn’t help his cause right now. So he said carefully, “I just want to help the mystic.”

“Is this what you’ve dedicated your time to now, Holstrom? Charity cases?”

Ithan swallowed his retort. “Danika would have done something.”

“Danika was an idealistic fool,” Sabine spat. “Don’t waste our time with this.”

Ithan looked to the Prime, but the old wolf said nothing. Did nothing. Ithan turned to the door again and strode out.

Hypaxia rose to her feet as he appeared. “Done so soon?”

“Yeah, I guess.” He’d told someone about the mystic. He supposed … Well, now he supposed he could go to Pangera with few regrets.

Sabine strutted out of the study. She growled low in her throat at Ithan, but faltered upon seeing Hypaxia. Hypaxia held the wolf’s stare with steely calm. Sabine only snorted and stalked away, slamming the hall door behind her.

“Let’s go,” Ithan said to Hypaxia.

But the door to the study opened again, and the Prime stood there, a hand on the jamb to support himself. “The mystic,” the
Prime said, panting slightly, as if the walk from his desk to the door had winded him. “What did she look like?”

“Brown hair. Medium brown, I think. Pale skin.” A common enough description.

“And her scent? Was it like snow and embers?”

Ithan stilled. The ground seemed to sway. “How do you know that?”

The old wolf bowed his silvery head. “Because Sabine is not the only Fendyr heir.”

Ithan rocked back on his heels at that. Was that why Sabine had come to the apartment that night to warn off Bryce? Not to keep Ithan from becoming the Prime Apparent, but to scare Bryce away before she could discover there was a true alternative to Sabine. A legitimate one.

Because Bryce would stop at nothing to find that other heir.

And Sabine would kill them to prevent it.

67

Tharion burst into the Viper Queen’s nest. He had only minutes until all Hel broke loose.

Ariadne was sprawled on her belly on the carpet, a book splayed open before her, bare feet bobbing above her ample backside. The sort of ample backside that on any other day, he’d truly appreciate. The dragon didn’t remove her focus from her book as she said, “She’s in the back.”

Tharion ran for the rear room. The Viper Queen lounged on a couch before the window overlooking the fighting pit where the current match was unfolding, reading something on her electronic tablet. “Mer,” she said by way of greeting.

“I want to be one of your prize fighters.”

She slowly turned her head toward him. “I don’t take freelancers.”

“Then buy me.”

“You’re not a slave, mer.”

“I’ll sell myself to you.”

The words sounded as insane as they felt. But he had no other options. His alternative was another form of slavery. At least here, he’d be away from that stifling court.

The Viper Queen set down her tablet. “A civitas selling himself into slavery. Such a thing is not done.”

“You’re law unto yourself. You can do it.”

“Your queen will flood my district for spite.”

“She isn’t dumb enough to fuck with you.”

“I take it that’s why you’re rushing into my care.”

Tharion checked his phone. Ten minutes left at most. “It’s either be trapped in a palace down there or trapped up here. I choose here, where I won’t be required to breed some royal offspring.”

“You are becoming a
slave
. To be free of the River Queen.” Even the Vipe looked like she was wondering if he’d gone mad.

“Is there another way? Because I’m out of ideas.”

The Viper Queen angled her head, bob shifting with the movement. “A good businessperson would tell you no, and accept this absurd offer.” Her purple lips parted in a smile. “But …” Her gaze swept across the room, to the Fae males standing guard by an unmarked door. He had no idea what lay beyond. Possibly her bedchamber. Why it needed to be guarded when she wasn’t inside was beyond him. “They defected from the Autumn King. Swore allegiance to me. They’ve proved loyal.”

“So I’ll do it. I hereby defect. Give me some way to immerse myself in water once a day and I’m set.”

She chuckled. “You think you’re the first mer fighter I’ve had? There is a tub a few levels down, with water piped in right from the Istros. It’s yours. But defecting … That is not as easy as simply saying the words.” She stood, rolling back the sleeve of her black jumpsuit to expose her wrist. A tattoo of a snake twining around a crescent moon lay there. She lifted her wrist to her mouth and bit, and blood—darker than usual—welled where her teeth had been. “Drink.”

The floor began rumbling, and Tharion knew it wasn’t from the fight. Knew something ancient and primordial was coming for him, to drag him back to the watery depths.

He grabbed her wrist and brought it to his mouth.

If he defected from the River Queen, then he could defect from the Viper Queen one day, couldn’t he?

He didn’t ask. Didn’t doubt it as he laid his lips on her wrist, and her blood filled his mouth.

Burned
his mouth. His throat.

Tharion staggered back, choking, grabbing at his neck. Her blood, her venom dissolved his throat, his chest, his heart—

Cold, piercing and eternal, erupted through him. Tharion crashed to his knees.

The rumbling halted. Then retreated. Like whatever it had been hunting for had vanished.

Tharion panted, bracing for the icy death that awaited him.

But nothing happened. Only that vague sense of cold. Of … calm. He slowly lifted his eyes to the Viper Queen.

She smiled down at him. “Seems like that did the trick.” He struggled to his feet, swaying. He rubbed at the hollow, strange place in his chest. “Your first fight is tonight,” she said, still smiling. “I suggest you rest.”

“I need to help my friends finish something first.”

Her brows rose. “Ah. This business with Ophion.”

“Of a sort. I need to be able to help them.”

“You should have bargained for that freedom before swearing yourself to me.”

“Allow me this and I’ll come back and fight for you until I’m chum.”

She laughed softly. “Fine, Tharion Ketos. Help your friends. But when you are done …” Her eyes glowed green, and his body turned distant. Her will was his, her desires his own. He’d crawl through coals to fulfill her orders. “You return to me.”

“I return to you.” He spoke in a voice that was and wasn’t his own. Some small part of him screamed.

The Viper Queen flicked a hand toward the archway. “Go.”

Not entirely of his own volition, he stalked back down the hallway. Each step away from her had that distance lessening, his thoughts again becoming his own, even as …

Ariadne peered up from her book as he stalked past. “Are you mad?”

Tharion retorted, “I could ask the same of you.” Her face tightened, but she returned to her book.

With each step toward his friends, he could have sworn a long,
invisible chain stretched. Like an endless leash, tethering him—no matter where he went, no matter how far—back to this place.

Never to return to the life he’d traded away.

Ithan sat on a park bench in Moonwood, a few blocks from the Den, still reeling from the world-shattering revelation the Prime had dropped on him.

The wolf mystic was a Fendyr. An
Alpha
Fendyr.

Ithan hadn’t been able to get any more than that out of the Prime before the male’s gaze had gone murky, and he’d needed to sit down again. Hypaxia had worked some healing magic to ease whatever pains ailed him, and he’d been asleep at his desk a moment later.

Ithan breathed in the fall day. “I think I’ve put her in grave danger.”

Hypaxia straightened. “In what way?”

“I think Sabine knows. Or has already guessed.” Another Alpha in the heritage bloodline could destroy the wolves. But how the fuck had she wound up in that tank? And in Nena? “Sabine will kill her. Even if Sabine thinks she
might
be a Fendyr Alpha, if there have been rumors about it before now … Sabine will destroy any threat to her power.”

“So the mystic isn’t some sister or long-lost daughter?”

“I don’t think so. Sabine had an elder brother, but she defeated him in open combat decades before I was born. Took his title as Prime Apparent and became Alpha. I thought he died, but … maybe he was exiled. I have no idea.”

Hypaxia’s face turned grave. “So what can be done?”

He swallowed. “I don’t like going back on my promises.”

“But you wish to leave my side to look into this.”

“Yes. And”—he shook his head—“I can’t go to Pangera with the others. If there’s a Fendyr heir who isn’t Sabine …” It might mean that the future Danika had hoped for could come to pass. If he could find some way to keep the mystic alive. And get her free of the Astronomer’s tank.

“I need to stay here,” he said finally. “To guard her.” He didn’t care if he had to camp on the street outside of the Astronomer’s place. Wolves didn’t abandon each other. Granted, friends didn’t abandon each other, either, but he knew Bryce and the others would get it.

“I need to find the truth,” Ithan said. Not just for his people. But for his own future.

“I’ll tell the others,” Hypaxia offered. “Though I’ll miss you as my guard.”

“I’m sure Flynn and his backup singers will be happy to protect you.” Hypaxia laughed softly. But Ithan said, “Don’t tell them—don’t tell Bryce, I mean. About the other Fendyr heir. She’d be distracted by it, at a time when she needs to focus elsewhere.”

And this task … this task was
his.

He hadn’t been there to help Danika that night she’d died. But he was here now. Urd had left him alive—perhaps for this. He’d fulfill what Danika had left unfinished. He’d protect this Fendyr heir—no matter what.

“Just tell the others that I need to stay here for wolf stuff.”

“Why not tell them yourself?”

He got to his feet. He might already be too late. “There’s no time to waste,” he said to the queen, and bowed to her. “Thanks for everything.”

Hypaxia’s mouth curled upward in a sad smile. “Be careful, Ithan.”

“You too.”

He broke into a jog, pulling out his phone as he did. He sent the message to Bryce before he could second-guess it.
I’ve got something important to do. Hypaxia will fill you in. But I wanted to say thanks. For not hating my guts. And having my back. You always had my back.

She replied immediately.
Always will.
She added a few hearts that had his own cracking.

Pocketing his phone, breathing in that old ache, Ithan shifted.

For the first time in weeks, he shifted, and it didn’t hurt one bit. Didn’t leave him feeling the ache of exile, of being packless. No, his wolf form … it had focus. A purpose.

Ithan darted through the streets, running as fast as he could toward the Astronomer’s place to begin his long watch.

Ruhn hadn’t seen Day since the night of the ball. Since he’d kissed her. Since that other male had dragged her away, and pain had filled her voice.

But now she sat on the couch before him. Quiet and wary.

“Hey,” Ruhn said.

“I can’t see you anymore,” she said in answer.

Ruhn drew up short. “Why?”

“What happened between us on the equinox is never to happen again.” She rose. “It was dangerous, and reckless, and utter madness. Pippa Spetsos was in your city. Attacked your temple with her Lightfall unit. Lunathion is soon to become a battlefield.”

He crossed his arms. Drew his focus inward, to the instinctual veil of night and stars. He’d never figured out where it had come from, why his mind had automatically hidden him, but—there. A neat little knot in his mind.

A tug on it, and it fell away, dropping all the night and stars. Letting her see all of him. “What happened to you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice was tight. “I can’t jeopardize all I’ve sacrificed for.”

“And kissing me is a threat to that?”

“It distracts me from my purpose! It throws me from my vigilance!
It will catch up to me.
” She paced a few feet. “I wish I were normal. That I had met you under any other circumstances, that I had met you long ago, before I got tangled in this.” Her chest heaved, flames flickering. She lifted her head, no doubt meeting his stare through the barrier of flames. “I told you that you remind me that I am alive. I meant that. Every word. But it’s because of that feeling that I’ll likely wind up dead, and you with me.”

“I don’t understand the threat,” he said. “Surely a kiss that’s good enough to distract you isn’t a bad thing.” He winked, desperate for her to smile.

“The male who … interrupts us. He will slaughter you if he finds out. He’ll make me watch.”

“You fear him.” Something primal stirred in Ruhn.

“Yes. His wrath is terrible. I’ve seen what he does to enemies. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.”

“Can’t you leave him?”

She laughed, harsh and hollow. “No. My fate is bound to his.”

“Your fate is bound to mine.” The words echoed into the darkness.

Ruhn reached for her hand. Took the flames within his own. They parted enough for him to see her slim, fiery fingers as he stroked his thumb over them. “My mind found yours in the darkness. Across an ocean. No fancy crystal required. You think that’s nothing?”

He glimpsed enough of her eyes to see that they were closed. Her head bowed. “I can’t.”

But she didn’t stop him when he stepped closer. When his other hand slid around her waist. “I’m going to find you,” he said against her burning hair. “I’ll find you one day, I promise.” She shuddered, but melted into him. Like she’d yielded any attempt at restraint. “You remind me that I’m alive, too,” he whispered.