House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City) (84 page)

“She lied,” Bryce said.

Cormac’s shoulders slumped. “I need to find him. I shouldn’t have put off questioning Spetsos—”

“Emile is safe, and cared for,” Bryce interrupted, “and that’s all you need to know.”

“I owe it to Sofie—”

“You owe it to Sofie to keep Emile out of this rebellion. Your life is hardly what I’d call a stable environment. Let him stay hidden.”

Cormac said to Tharion, “What are
you
going to tell your queen?”

Tharion offered him a razor-sharp smile. “Absolutely nothing.” A threat of violence simmered beneath the words. If Cormac breathed anything to the mer, to the River Queen, the Avallen Prince would find himself in a watery grave.

Cormac sighed. And to her shock, he said, “I apologize for the knife.” To Hunt, he said, “And I apologize for threatening your mate.”

Ruhn asked, “Don’t I get an apology?” Cormac bristled, but Ruhn grinned.

Bryce caught Hunt watching her, his expression proud. Like she’d done something worthy. Had it been her smooth weaving of lies and truth?

“Apology accepted,” Bryce said, forcing herself to sound chipper. Steering away from the topic of Emile. “Now back to training.”

Cormac shrugged, pointing to the spots he’d taped off: X’s on the floor, atop chairs, atop piled mats, beneath a table.

Bryce groaned, but marked them, cataloged the path she’d take.

“Well, that was exciting,” Tharion announced, groaning as he got to his feet. “Right. I’m out.”

Hunt arched a brow. “Where to?”

“I’m still technically employed by the River Queen. Regardless of what happened with Emile, there are other matters to attend to.”

Bryce waved at him. But Ruhn said, “Dinner tonight?”

Tharion winked. “You got it.” Then he sauntered through the metal doors and was gone.

“All right, Athalar,” Bryce muttered when the mer had shut the doors. “Time to level up.”

Hunt laughed, but his lightning flared again. “Let’s do this, Your Highness.”

There was something in the way he said
Your Highness
that made her realize that the expression on his face a moment before hadn’t been pride in her manipulation—it had been pride in the way she’d defused things without violence. Like he thought she might actually deserve the title she now bore.

Bryce tucked the thought aside. By the time the bolt of lightning slammed into her chest, she was already running.

Despite the exhaustion weighing on his very bones, despite the urgency that had sent him and Hypaxia racing here, Ithan couldn’t help gaping from the doorway as the party girl he’d loved moved through the Aux training space like the wind, vanishing and appearing at will. At his side, Hypaxia monitored the remarkable feats, studying Bryce intently.

Bryce finished the obstacle course and halted at Hunt’s side, bending over her knees to catch her breath.

Hypaxia cleared her throat, stepping into the gymnasium. Even the queen looked … ruffled after the endless, terrifying night they’d had.

They’d passed Tharion on his way out. The mer had been speaking in low tones to someone on the phone, and had raised his brows with concern at the sight of the dirt and sweat on them. But whoever had been on the phone must have been important enough that he couldn’t hang up, and Tharion had only continued on after Hypaxia had given him a gesture that seemed to assure him that she was fine. The mer had stopped and peered back over a shoulder at Ithan, as if needing to confirm the queen’s claim, but Ithan had nothing to offer him. What the Hel could he say? They weren’t fine. Not at all. So they’d left Tharion in the hall, the mer staring after them for a long moment.

“What’s up?” Ruhn asked Ithan, waving his greeting to Hypaxia. Then the prince did a double take. “What the Hel happened to you two? I thought you were summoning Connor.”

The others in the training space halted.

“We did indeed try to summon Connor Holstrom last night,” Hypaxia said gravely.

Bryce paled as she hurried over. “What happened? Is Connor all right? Are you guys all right?”

Ithan’s throat worked. “Ah …”

Hypaxia replied for him, “We did not encounter Connor. The Under-King answered.”

“What happened?” Bryce asked again, voice rising.

Ithan met her stare. Pure predatory wolf gleamed there. “He detained us for his amusement. Sicced Flame and Shadow’s nightmare dogs on us and warded us into an olive grove with them. It took Hypaxia until now to figure out an exit through the wards that wouldn’t get us ripped to shreds. We’re fine, though.” Ruhn whirled with alarm to his fianc
é
e, and the witch-queen nodded solemnly, shadows in her eyes. Ithan scrubbed at his face before he added, “He wants to see you at Urd’s Temple.”

Hunt’s lightning sparked at his fingertips. “Fuck no.”

Ithan swallowed hard. “You don’t have a choice.” He turned, pleading and exhausted, to Bryce. “Connor is safe for right now, but if you don’t show within an hour, the Under-King will throw him and the rest of the Pack of Devils through the Gate immediately. He’ll make secondlight of them all.”

64

Tharion strolled through the Meat Market, casually browsing the stalls. Or at least, he tried to appear casual. While surveying an array of luck stones, he kept an ear open. In the midday bustle, the general assortment of lowlifes had come here for lunch, shopping, or fucking, and at this point, they’d likely have downed at least a few drinks. Which meant loose tongues.

I hear the bitch is already pregnant
, one satyr grunted to another as they sat around a barrel converted into a table, smoked kebabs half-eaten in front of them.
Ephraim’s been fucking her good.

Tharion pushed aside his disgust at the crude words. He hated that word—
bitch
. How many times had it been thrown at his sister whenever she’d ventured Above? She’d always laughed it off, and Tharion had laughed it off with her, but now … He shook off the pang of guilt and moved to the next stall, full of various types of mushrooms from the damp forests to the northeast.

He checked his phone—the quick message exchange between him and Pax.

What happened? Are you all right?
he’d written nearly an hour ago, after running into her and Holstrom in the hall of the Aux training center. She’d been dirty and tired-looking, and he hadn’t been able to so much as ask if she was okay, because he’d been on the phone with the River Queen. Who had wanted updates on Emile.

Which was why he had come here. To maintain the fiction that he was hunting for the kid. He figured he’d do some listening to the idle chatter while pretending, though. Pick up gossip from the city creeps.

His phone buzzed, and Tharion scanned the message on the screen before loosing a long breath. Hypaxia had written,
I’m fine. Just some Flame and Shadow posturing.

He didn’t like that one bit. But what the Hel could he do about any of it?

“Lion’s head is in season,” said the gnome perched on a stool behind the baskets of fungi, drawing Tharion from his thoughts. “Morels finished their run, but I’ve got one last basket left.”

“Only browsing,” Tharion said, flashing a smile at the rosy-cheeked, red-capped male.

“Let me know if you have any questions,” the gnome said, and Tharion again tuned in to the tables behind him.

Fight last night was brutal. There was nothing left of that lion after—

I drank so much I can’t remember who the Hel I was fucking—

—that dragon finished with them. Only embers—

I need more coffee. They should give us the day off
after
a holiday, you know?

Tharion stilled. Slowly turned, pinpointing the speaker who’d snagged his attention.

Dragon.

Well,
that
was interesting. And … fortunate.

He’d been lounging on that bench while Legs trained, needing the company of others as a distraction from the shuddering earthquake of nerves after last night. He’d fucked the leopard shifter in the garden shadows. Had enjoyed every second of it, and from her two orgasms, she had, too.

He
might have walked away from the River Queen’s daughter last night, but he hadn’t told her that. As far as the River Queen and her daughter knew, and judging by the former’s tone on the phone earlier when she’d called to ask about the hunt for Emile, they were still engaged. But if either of them found out …

If they found out, wouldn’t it be convenient to have a dragon
to offer as an apology present? Wouldn’t a dragon be perfect in lieu of Emile?

“This place isn’t nearly as fun when you’re sober,” Flynn observed from behind him thirty minutes later as he approached in civilian clothes, precisely as Tharion had requested. The attire did little to hide the gun tucked down the back of his shorts.

Tharion hadn’t dared say much on the phone when he’d asked the Fae lord to meet him here. And while Flynn might act like an unworried frat boy, Tharion knew he was too smart to risk asking questions on an open phone line.

Tharion rose from a table in the midst of the food stalls, where he’d been sipping coffee and filing old emails, and began a casual walk through the market. Low enough that no one—not even the fennec-fox shifter working a row over—would be able to hear, he said, “I found something you might be interested in.”

Flynn feigned typing into his phone. “Yeah?”

Tharion muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Remember how your new best friend with the … fiery temperament went missing?”

“You found Ari?” Flynn’s voice had become dangerously solemn. A voice that few ever heard, Tharion knew. Unless they were about to die.

Tharion pointed toward the wooden walkway built above the market. Leading toward an ordinary door that he knew opened into a long hallway. Two blank-faced Fae guards armed with semiautomatic rifles stood before it. “I’ve got a wild guess about where she might be.”

Now he had to figure out how to get the dragon Beneath.

Tharion eyed the bare-bones wooden hallway as he and Flynn strode down the worn planks, aiming for a round door at its far end. It looked like the entry to a vault, solid iron that didn’t reflect the dim firstlights.

They’d been halted at the first door by the Viper Queen’s guards. Flynn had snarled at them, but the males had ignored him, their drug-hazed eyes unblinking as they radioed their leader. That Tharion knew of this door at all told her guards he was important enough to warrant a call.

And here they were. About to go into the Viper Queen’s nest.

The massive vault door swung open when they were about ten feet away, revealing ornate red carpets—definitely Traskian—over marble floors, three tall windows with heavy black velvet drapes held back with chains of gold, and low-slung couches designed for lounging.

The Viper Queen was sitting on one of them in a white jumpsuit, feet bare, toenails painted a purple so dark it was almost black. The same color as her lipstick. Her gold-tipped nails, however, glinted in the soft lights as she lifted a cigarette to her mouth and puffed away.

But beside her, sprawled on the couch …

He’d been right. The Viper Queen did like to collect valuable fighters.

“Ari,” Flynn said tightly, halting just beyond the door. Mirthroot hung heavy in the air, along with a secondary, cloying scent that Tharion could only assume was another drug.

The dragon, clad in black leggings and a tight black tank top, didn’t take her eyes off the massive TV mounted above the dark fireplace across the room. But she replied, “Tristan.”

“Good to see you,” Flynn said, voice taking on that dangerously low quality that so few lived to tell about. “Glad you’re in one piece.”

The Viper Queen chuckled, and Tharion braced himself. “The lion she fought last night can’t say the same. Even confined to her humanoid form, she is … formidable.”

Tharion grinned sharply at the ruler of the Meat Market. “Did you capture her?” He needed to know how she’d done it. If only so he could do it himself.

The Viper Queen’s snake eyes flared to a nearly neon green. “I’m not in the business of snatching slaves. Unlike some people I know.” She smirked at Ariadne. The dragon continued to stare at the TV
with fixed intent. “She sought me out and asked for asylum, since she realized there was nowhere on Midgard she might flee from her captor. We reached a bargain that suited us both.”

So the dragon had come of her own free will. Maybe he could convince her to go Beneath. It’d be a Hel of a lot easier.

Even if once he got her down there, she’d never get out again.

“You’d rather be here,” Flynn asked the dragon, “fighting in her pit, than with us?”

“You threw me on guard duty,” Ari spat, at last snapping her attention from the TV to Flynn. Tharion didn’t envy the male as she fixed her burning gaze on him. “Is that any better than fighting in the pit?”

“Uh, yeah. A fuck-ton better.”

“You sound like someone who’s grown accustomed to his life being dull as dust,” Ari said, turning back to the TV.

“You’ve been trapped inside a
ring
for the gods know how long,” Flynn exploded. “What the Hel do you know about anything?”

Molten scales flowed under her skin, then vanished. Her face remained placid. Tharion wished he had some popcorn. But he caught the Viper Queen’s narrowed eyes on him.

She said coolly, “I remember you: dead sister. Rogue shifter.”

Tharion suppressed the flicker of ire at the casual reference to Lesia and threw the snake shifter his most charming smile. “That’s me.”

“And the River Queen’s Captain of Intelligence.”

“The one and only.” He winked. “Care to have a word?”

“Who am I to deny the wishes of the River Queen’s daughter’s beloved?” Tharion tensed, and her purple lips curled, the razor-sharp bob swaying as she rose. “Don’t roast the Faeling,” she said to Ariadne, then curled a finger at Tharion. “This way.”

She led him through a narrow hall lined with doors. He could see ahead that the corridor opened into another chamber. All he could make out of it was more carpets and couches as they approached. “Well, mer?”