Standing at the edge of the ring, Ithan found he couldn’t move.
He was doing this. This ultimate disgrace, this betrayal of all that he was as a person, as a wolf—
Across the ring, Sigrid was so small. So thin and frail and new to this world. This reality. Had he freed her from the tank for this? Only to wind up here?
“Begin,” the Viper Queen intoned.
Flynn, Dec, and Tharion stood at the sidelines, barely containing their rage.
Tharion had been right. He’d been so fucking stupid to tangle with the Viper Queen like this, to think it’d be as easy as bloodying himself, maybe getting a few burns—
And now Ariadne had been traded away because of it, too. He barely knew the dragon, yet that was also his burden to carry.
“I said begin,” the Viper Queen snapped.
Ithan met Sigrid’s light brown gaze.
Alpha. Fendyr. Prime. That’s what he was taking on. All that he’d bowed to, stood for—
Ithan didn’t let himself think. Didn’t broadcast his moves. He launched himself at her before he could back away from this precipice.
He swung a punch for Sigrid’s face and she lunged aside with surprising speed. An Alpha’s speed.
Ithan struck again, and she ducked once more, all instinct.
Sigrid leapt—a swipe of claw-tipped hands.
Shock blasted through Ithan at the sight of those claws, so readily drawn. He stood rooted to the floor—a second too long.
She slashed across his ribs, sharp pain blasting like acid through him—
He bounced away to the sound of Flynn cursing. Ithan pushed a hand to his side. Warm blood leaked over his fingers.
Something sharpened in him. Steadied him. They were doing this: wolf to wolf. Alpha to … whatever he was. A wolf without a pack.
Ithan lunged again, reaching low—
His fist collided with Sigrid’s soft belly, but she didn’t go down. She twisted, elbow slamming directly into his nose. It wasn’t an elegant maneuver, but it was a smart one. Bone crunched, blood spurted, and then claws were raking at his face—
He staggered back again. She’d gone for his fucking eyes. Ithan tackled her, throwing her to the floor.
“Holstrom!” Tharion shouted, and he couldn’t tell if it was a warning or a reprimand, but there was no time to think about it as Sigrid’s claws punched through his shoulder. Ithan reared back, roaring, wrenching her claws free.
She brought her legs up and kicked. Ithan grabbed her ankles, but too slow. Her feet connected with his gut, and then he was soaring back, back—
He hit the other side of the ring with a thud that echoed through his very bones.
Mired in shame, Tharion watched the bloodbath unfold before him.
He deserved to be here, in this place, with the Viper Queen. He didn’t deserve to be freed, to be fought for.
Ariadne. Her name clanged through him. Sold—or traded, whatever the fuck that meant. Because of him. Because of what he’d said to her, apparently.
Everything he touched turned to shit.
“This isn’t going to end well,” Flynn murmured. “Even if Ithan wins …” Whatever state Sigrid would be in, they wouldn’t be able to leave tonight.
Yet even through his shame, Tharion had to admit that she was fighting better than he’d expected. Sloppy and untrained, yes, but she was giving as good as she got. Holding her own.
She and Ithan rolled on the floor, claws out, blood spraying—
Ithan took a hit to the jaw, lacerating his skin. Sigrid seemed inclined to rip him to shreds.
“Solas,” Flynn muttered, rubbing his jaw in sympathy.
Tharion dug his nails into his palms, drawing blood.
He couldn’t watch this. Couldn’t let this happen. Not for his sake—not even for his freedom.
Sigrid slashed again, and Ithan rolled to the side, narrowly missing her wrath. But Sigrid was on him in an instant, and Holstrom’s roar of pain as her claws connected with his thigh had Flynn lunging for the ring.
Tharion grabbed the Fae lord, fingers grappling into hard muscle. “Easy,” he murmured. “He’s fine.”
Total fucking lie. Neither Ithan nor Sigrid were fine. Not even close.
Flynn struggled, thrashing out of Tharion’s grip and whirling on the Viper Queen. “This ends now.”
“It ends,” the ruler of the Meat Market drawled from the stands, “when I give the order.”
Tharion stilled. “It ends at a knockout.”
“It ends with one of them on their way to the Bone Quarter,” the Viper Queen said, taking out her phone and snapping a photo of the bloodied wolves squaring off in the ring.
A fight to the death. Tharion choked out, “Holstrom won’t—”
“We’ll see,” the Viper Queen said, and a grunt from Ithan had Tharion spinning back to the fight. From the rage flickering in Ithan’s eyes as he dodged another onslaught of blows from Sigrid, the wolf had heard everything.
“Please,” Tharion said to the Vipe. “Let me swap in for the Fendyr heir—”
“Enough, fish,” the Viper Queen said, pocketing her phone in her gold jumpsuit.
Tharion might have begged, had Ithan not panted from the ring, “It’s done, Tharion.” Holstrom was already back on his feet, circling Sigrid, leaking blood everywhere. He’d barely touched her.
He wouldn’t touch her, Tharion knew. To harm this female who’d faced such misery … Holstrom would never do it.
Tharion couldn’t get a breath down, his anger a violent sea churning through his body, drowning him. He’d fucking kill the Viper Queen for putting his friends through this. Even if he only needed to look in the mirror to find the person at fault for this mess.
Sigrid slashed her claws again, and Ithan ducked low with athletic grace.
Sigrid launched an offensive then, powerful and steady in a way that told Tharion it was pure instinct. Swipe, punch, duck—
She wasn’t just an heir to the Fendyr line. She was the Fendyr line, at its most potent.
It was clearly all Ithan could do to keep ahead of each blow. Blood coated his mouth, his teeth. His brown eyes shone bright and furious. Not at the wolf attacking him, but at the female who’d led them to this.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Flynn chanted, pulling at his hair.
Ithan’s back hit the ropes, and there was nowhere to go, absolutely nowhere at all, as Sigrid slammed her fist toward his face.
Tharion’s stomach flipped. This was all for him, and he was the biggest fucking loser on the planet—
Ithan had been waiting, though. He ducked—and punched his claws into the Fendyr heir’s gut.
Sigrid screamed, staggering back, collapsing to her knees.
Ithan halted, panting hard. His face was empty as he walked toward the female clutching her bleeding stomach. It had been a hard blow—but not a fatal one. Claws glinted at his fingertips.
Tharion couldn’t breathe as Ithan raised his hand to make the final blow.
Silene’s voice remained as steady, unmoved, as it had been throughout. A bored immortal, blandly reciting a history of others’ suffering.
We were still waging our war on the humans when the door between worlds opened again. More Fae appeared—from another world this time.
Tall, beautiful beings entered. Even Bryce’s rage and despair stalled.
Fae from another world—but they looked so similar to the ones from this place. How was it possible? Another ancient conquest of the Asteri? Another place they’d colonized and tampered with, and eventually lost?
They were Fae like us, but not. The ears, the grace, the strength were identical, but they were shape-shifters, all of them. Each capable of turning into an animal. And each, even in their humanoid body, equipped with elongated canine teeth.
It was a puzzle—enough of one that my mother paused her warmongering. There were two types of Fae. From two seemingly unconnected and distant worlds. These new Fae bore elemental magic, strong enough to make Pelias wary of them. They were more aggressive than the Fae we knew—wilder. And they answered directly to Rigelus.
It seemed, in fact, like they’d known Rigelus a long while.
My mother soon began to suspect that our host was not as benevolent as he claimed. But by the time she learned just how wrong she had been about him, it was too late.
“No shit,” Nesta growled, disgust coating her voice, and Bryce could only manage a nod.
My mother would trust only us. Pelias, she might have once included, but he had taken to the pleasures of this new world too eagerly, championed by Rigelus himself.
A glimpse through a curtain of Pelias dumping a human woman’s body into a river beside a white-stoned villa. Bruised and naked and dead.
Bryce nearly fell to her knees as the brutalized woman’s corpse drifted and sank beneath the clear river, Pelias already long gone.
“They’ve got some nerve,” Nesta grated out. “They were murdering children in those human cities.”
“It’s still going on today,” Bryce said hoarsely. “Humans tossed in dumpsters after the Vanir have tormented and killed them. It goes on every single day in Midgard, and it started with that fucker.” She pointed a shaking finger at the memory. “With him, and Theia, and all those monsters.”
She might have truly erupted then, but Silene continued her story.
My mother eventually trusted only Helena and myself to seek the truth. She knew we could be of great use to her, because we bore the shadows as well as starlight.
Helena and Silene crept through the dimness of a mighty crystal palace. Down a winding crystal staircase. “That’s the Asteri’s palace,” Bryce whispered to Azriel and Nesta. “In the Eternal City.”
We spent a month hidden in the enemy’s stronghold, no more than shadows ourselves. By the time we returned to our mother, we’d learned the truth: Rigelus and his companions were not Fae at all, but parasites who conquered world after world, feeding off the magic and lives of their citizens. The Daglan, now under their true name: the Asteri.
It was then that my mother told us, showed us, what had happened so long ago. All that she had done since. But she did not waste time apologizing for the past. If we had indeed walked into an enemy’s trap, she said, then we must defeat them.
Bryce placed a hand over the star-shaped scar on her chest, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt. Could she carve it out of herself, the connection to these two-faced hypocrites, and walk away from it forever?
My mother had kept the star map that the Daglan had long ago annotated. And a world on it had caught her attention—a world, like ours, that had overthrown the Daglan.
In an elaborate bedroom, standing before a desk with her two daughters, Theia waved a hand. As if she’d pulled them from that pocket of nothingness, the Harp and Horn appeared on the desk, glimmering alongside the Starsword and the knife.
Theia nodded once, slowly, as if making a decision, and then played the Horn and Harp. A portal between worlds swirled. It solidified, an archway to nowhere. A handsome, golden-haired male stood before it, with eyes like blue opals.
Bryce inhaled sharply.
Prince Aidas only asked my mother one thing when she opened the gate to his world: “Have you come to ask for Hel’s help, then?”
Hunt cringed as Baxian vomited blood and flesh and bone. All of it splattered on the floor below them, and the smell—
Ruhn was gasping, shaking, but the prince hadn’t asked the Helhound to stop.
“A little more,” Baxian said, panting hard. Hunt’s own stomach churned at the blood sliding down the male’s chin. “Two more bites and it’ll be off.”
Ruhn whimpered but nodded grimly. They swung into each other, legs locking tight, and Baxian gave no warning before he bit down again. There was no time to waste.
Hunt shut out the sounds. The smells. Bryce and his future and those beautiful kids—that was the image he held in his mind instead. Escape—survival—was the goal. Bryce was the goal.
Even if he had no idea how he’d face her again after failing to protect them from this fate. After agreeing to let his friends do this. He had no idea how he’d look her in the eye.
Ruhn let out a muffled shout, and Baxian retched again, mouth still around Ruhn’s wrist. Balking.
They’d come too fucking far to stop now. So Hunt said, voice hardening into that cold, flat tone of the Umbra Mortis, just as Ruhn had said they needed, “Again, Baxian.”
“Please,” Ruhn moaned, and it wasn’t a request to stop, but to hurry. To get it over with.
“Again,” the Umbra Mortis ordered Baxian.
Baxian, who’d shouldered this unspeakable task for Hunt so he didn’t have to endure it—
The Helhound heaved forward, teeth clamping down, and crunched.
Ruhn screamed, swinging away wildly.
Hunt didn’t know where to look first. At Baxian, spewing blood and flesh onto the stones beneath him. At the hand and part of a wrist still attached to the chain, or at Ruhn surging for the rack, sobbing through his teeth at all the weight now on one arm, feet straining—
Hunt acted, lifting his feet and pushing. Ruhn’s toes nudged the top of the iron.
“More,” Hunt barked. He’d become the Umbra Mortis, become that fucking monster again if it gave his friends a shot at survival—
Ruhn swung toward Hunt, blood everywhere, and Hunt steeled himself, then gave him another kick. The prince’s toes connected with the iron poker. Held. And as he swung back—the poker came with him.
Ruhn came to a halt, dangling from that one arm. How the fuck would Ruhn curl upward with one arm, not two? Hunt began swinging for him. If he could use his legs and help Ruhn twist—
“What acrobatics,” drawled a familiar male voice from the doorway. “And what determination.”
Cold horror cracked through Hunt as Rigelus approached, flanked by Pollux and the Hawk.
Ithan panted as he stood over Sigrid, claws raised. The Fendyr heir’s face was white with pain, her hand still clutching her bloodied side.
“Kill her, Holstrom,” the Viper Queen purred from the sidelines, rising to her feet in a ripple of gold. “And it’s done.”
The Viper Queen had wanted him to be presented with this choice—this true amusement: deciding between saving his friends, saving Athalar and Ruhn and possibly Bryce … and Sigrid. The future of the Fendyr line. An alternative to Sabine.
On the ground, Sigrid lifted her head to look at him. Blood dribbled from her nose.
He’d done that to her. He’d never felt so dirty, so worthless as when he’d punched his claws through her stomach.
But Sigrid said with a mouth full of bloody teeth, “I never thanked you.”
The entire world stilled. The Viper Queen faded into nothing. “For what?” Ithan panted.
“For getting me out.” Her eyes were so trusting, so sad—
If Connor were here …
Ithan lowered his claws. Slowly, he turned to the Viper Queen, whose face was tight with displeasure. “Fuck you, and fuck this bargain. If you don’t let—”
Sigrid struck.
A cheap, cruel lunge for his throat, designed to rip it out. Ithan barely blocked the blow, her claws sinking into his forearm with a blinding flash of pain.
“Fendyr through and through,” the Viper Queen said approvingly. It wasn’t a compliment. Ithan wrenched his arm away, flesh tearing with it, and he could hardly breathe around the pain—
Sigrid slashed for his throat again. Then again. She hurled him against the ropes with strength only a Fendyr Alpha could wield. And as he rebounded, shooting right for her, he saw it. The death in her eyes.
She’d kill him. He might have pulled her from the tank, but she was, first and last, an Alpha.
And Alphas did not lose. Not to lesser wolves.
Make your brother proud.
They were the only words in his head as Ithan hurtled through the air. As he met Sigrid’s eyes. The primal, intrinsic dominance there that took no prisoners. Had no mercy. Could never have mercy.
Make your brother proud.
Ithan aimed his clawed fist for her shoulder, a blow that would send her to her knees.
But Sigrid was fast—too fast. And did not yet understand how swiftly she could move.
Neither did Ithan.
One moment, his claws were heading for her shoulder. The next, she’d managed to bob to the right, planning to sidestep the blow—
Ithan saw it in slow motion. As if watching someone else—another wolf, caught in this ring.
One moment, Sigrid was dodging him, so swift he didn’t have time to pull the punch. The next, she was still, eyes wide with shock and pain.
His claws hadn’t gone through her shoulder.
They’d punched straight through her throat.
