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In the brief moment between attacks, he looked to his team. They saw what he saw, and mercy ate at them as well. Fucking hell, they needed every advantage they could get, but he couldn’t stomach killing those whom Tisiphone had taken advantage of.

The team felt it too.

Punches pulled. Knockouts instead of kills.

Slowed them down. Risked everything, to save a few they’d never met.

Whose lives were bound to Tisiphone’s anyway.

Another fury screeched and aimed for him. Not exactly a throwing knife, but fuck it. Vann steadied his sword, reached back, and let it fly before she could reach him.

Steel impaled.

Blood seeped from the wound. Wings flapped wildly, but she spiraled.

Vann ran for her, for his blade. His abdomen ached. Scars pinched. His breath unsteady. Fuck, if he’d had another month to heal.

Her body crumpled to the ground.

Without pause, he plucked his blade from her body and kept moving.

Outnumbered. These weren’t the best fighters, nor the toughest, but they could fly, and there was a damned horde of them. With no self-preservation.

Blood and wings and screams. He couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t hear which way the next attack was coming from.

Blunted iron smashed into the back of his skull.

Bone cracked. Pain was a distant wish, the throbbing numbness of his mushed skull muddling everything.

He gripped his sword as he dropped to his knees.

A blade slashed across his back, denting into the armor.

A metallic taste filled his mouth, blood pooling under his tongue.

Dizzy as hell, his brainstem fucked, he collapsed to the ground.

The team rushed toward him. Surrounded him and fought to keep him safe, but there were too many.

A gap opened between him and the door. Four furies grabbed him. Dragged him.

Over rough asphalt, rocks dug into his skin.

Light washed over him as the front door swung open. Like a heap of trash, he was dumped on the entry mat.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Separated from the team.

Eryn took the glass of glinting amber liquid and swirled it. “I’m here. Willingly. Yes, I brought backup, in case you are not true to your word. Please, let them go.”

Tisiphone smiled as she listened to the fight outside, the screeching, the clashing of steel. And took a smiling sip of wine. “But sister, you already sent my insurance from my grasp. I know you will never love me as well as your birth sister, and I won’t pretend I am not jealous. Well-chosen, by the way. Werewolves are formidable, and invading a pack’s lair is not my cup of tea.”

Eryn froze, the glass not quite to her mouth. A clandestine exit. A private plane. An isolated ranch known to only a handful of people.

Yet she knew.

Fear swelled in Eryn’s chest. “I thought you were banished because you were too bloodthirsty. It was your cowardice, though, wasn’t it?”