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Sabine ignored him. But Ruhn ordered his father, “Pull our forces from FiRo. Send them where they’re needed.”
The Autumn King’s jaw worked. But he said, “The protocols are in place for a reason. We will not abandon them to chaos.”
Hunt demanded, “Are you both fucking kidding me?”
The afternoon sun inched toward the horizon. He didn’t want to think about how much worse it would get once night fell.
“I don’t care if they don’t want to,” Tharion was yelling into his phone. “Tell them to go to shore.” A pause. “Then tell them to take anyone they can carry under the surface!”
Isaiah was on the phone across the room. “No, that time warp was just some spell that went wrong, Naomi. Yeah, it caused the Gates to open. No, get the 33rd to the Old Square. Get them to the Old Square Gate right now. I don’t care if they all get ripped to shreds—” Isaiah pulled his phone away from his ear, blinking at the screen.
Isaiah’s eyes met Hunt’s. “The CBD is under siege. The 33rd are being slaughtered.” He didn’t muse whether Naomi had just been one of them, or had merely lost her phone in the fight.
Ruhn and Flynn dialed number after number. No one answered. As if the Fae leaders left in the city were all dead, too.
Sabine got through. “Ithan—report.”
Declan wordlessly patched Sabine’s number through to the room’s speakers. Ithan Holstrom’s panting filled the space, his location pinging from outside the bespelled and impenetrable Den. Unearthly, feral growls that did not belong to wolves cut between his words. “They’re fucking everywhere. We can barely keep them away—”
“Hold positions,” Sabine commanded. “Hold your positions and await further orders.”
Humans and Vanir alike were running, children in their arms, to any open shelter they could find. Many were already shut, sealed by the frantic people inside.
Hunt asked Isaiah, “How long until the 32nd can make it down from Hilene?”
“An hour,” the angel replied, eyes on the screen. On the slaughter, on the panicking city. “They’ll be too late.” And if Naomi was down, either injured or dead … Fuck.
Flynn thundered at someone on the phone, “Get the Rose Gate surrounded now. You’re just handing the city to them.”
Hunt surveyed the bloodshed and sorted through the city’s few options. They’d need armies to surround all seven Gates that opened to Hel—and find some way to close those portals.
Hypaxia had risen from her seat. She studied the screens with grim determination and said calmly into her phone, “Suit up and move out. We’re heading in.”
Everyone turned toward her. The young queen didn’t seem to notice. She just ordered whoever was on the line, “To the city. Now.”
Sabine hissed, “You’ll all be slaughtered.” And too late, Hunt didn’t say.
Hypaxia ended the call and pointed to a screen on the left wall, its footage of the Old Square. “I would rather die like her than watch innocents die while I’m sitting in here.”
Hunt turned to where she’d pointed, the hair on his neck rising. As if knowing what he’d see.
There, racing through the streets in Danika’s leather jacket, sword in one hand and gun in the other, was Bryce.
Running not from the danger, but into it.
She roared something, over and over. Declan locked into the feeds, changing from camera to camera to follow her down the street. “I think I can pull up her audio and isolate her voice against the ambient noise,” he said to no one in particular. And then—
“Get into the shelters!” she was screaming. Her words echoed off every part of the room.
Duck, slash, shoot. She moved like she’d trained with the Aux her entire life.
“Get inside now!” she bellowed, whirling to aim at a winged demon blotting out the mockingly golden afternoon sun. Her gun fired, and the creature screeched, careening into an alley. Declan’s fingers flew on the keyboard as he kept her on-screen.
“Where the fuck is she going?” Fury said.
Bryce kept running. Kept firing. She did not miss.
Hunt looked at her surroundings, and realized where she was headed.
