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Or maybe it was the Hind who’d learned those tricks. She stood behind her lover and watched with dead eyes as the Hammer slowly—so slowly—took them apart.
That was the other secret he and Danaan would keep. The Hind—what and who she was.
Oblivion beckoned, a sweet release Hunt had come to crave as much as Bryce’s body entwined with his. He pretended, sometimes, that when he fell into the blackness, he was falling into her arms, into her sweet, tight heat.
Bryce. Bryce. Bryce.
Her name was a prayer, an order.
He had little hope of leaving this place alive. His only job was to make sure he held out long enough for Bryce to do what she had to do. After his series of colossal fuckups over the centuries … it was the least he could offer up.
He should have seen it coming—part of him had seen it coming a few weeks ago, when he’d tried to convince Bryce not to go down this road. He should have fought harder. Should have told her this outcome was inevitable, especially if he was involved.
He’d known not to trust Celestina with her whole new Governor, new rules bullshit. He’d let her win him over, and the Archangel had fucking betrayed them. All that talk about being a friend of Shahar’s—he’d eaten it up. Let the memory of his long-dead lover cloud his instincts, as Celestina had surely gambled it would.
What was this but another Fallen rebellion? On a smaller scale, yes, but the stakes had been so much higher this time. Then, he’d lost an army, lost his lover—had known she was dying as time had stretched and slowed around him. Had known she was dead when time had resumed its normal speed once more, and the whole world had changed.
Yet the ties that now bound him to others—not only Bryce, but to the two males in this dungeon with him—had become unbearable. Their pain was his pain. Perhaps worse than what he endured before.
Shahar had been given the easy end. To die at Sandriel’s hand, to die on the battlefield, swift and final … It had been easier.
A few feet away, Baxian groaned softly.
Hunt’s arms had gone numb, shoulders popping out of their sockets from trying to support the weight of their bodies. He mustered his energy, his focus, enough to say to Baxian, “How … how you doing?”
Baxian let out a wet cough. “Great.”
Next to Hunt, Ruhn grunted. It might have been a laugh. Their only options were screaming and sobbing, or laughing at this giant fucking disaster.
Indeed, Ruhn said, “Wanna … hear a … joke?” The prince didn’t wait for a reply before he continued, “Two angels … and a Fae Prince … walk into … a dungeon …”
Ruhn didn’t finish, and didn’t need to. A broken, rasping laugh came out of Hunt. Then Baxian. Then Ruhn.
Though every heave shrieked through his arms, his back, his broken body, Hunt couldn’t stop laughing. The sound bordered on hysteria. Soon tears were leaking down his cheeks, and he knew from the scent that the others were laughing and crying as well, like it was the funniest fucking thing in the world.
The door to the chamber banged open, echoing off the stones like a thunderclap.
“Shut the fuck up,” Pollux barked, stalking down the stairs, wings blazing in the dimness.
Hunt laughed louder. Footsteps trailed behind the Hammer—a dark-haired, brown-skinned male followed him in: the Hawk. The final member of Sandriel’s triarii. “What the Hel is wrong with them?” he sneered at Pollux.
“They’re stupid shits, that’s what,” Pollux said, strutting to the rack of torture devices and grabbing an iron poker. He thrust it into the embers of the fire, the light gilding his white wings into a mockery of a heavenly aura.
The Hawk prowled closer, peering at the three of them with a close scrutiny that echoed his namesake. Like Baxian, the Hawk hailed from two peoples: angels, who had granted him his white wings, and hawk shifters, who’d granted him his ability to transform into a bird of prey.
Those were about all the similarities between the two males. For starters, Baxian had a soul. The Hawk …
The Hawk’s gaze lingered on Hunt. Nothing of life, of joy, lay in those eyes.
“Athalar.”
Hunt nodded to the male in greeting. “Asshole.”
Ruhn snickered. The Hawk pivoted to the rack, where he pulled out a long, curving knife. The kind that was designed to yank out organs on the withdraw. Hunt remembered that one—from last time.
Ruhn laughed again, as if almost drunk. “Creative.”
“We’ll see how you laugh in a moment, princeling,” the Hawk said, earning a grin from Pollux as the Hammer waited for the poker to heat. “I heard your cousin Cormac pleaded for mercy before the end.”
