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“The Viper Queen said you could—”
“And what then?” The mer got to his feet. “I’ll be right back at the mercy of the River Queen. The Viper Queen knows that—she knows I don’t have any choice but to stay here, with her.” Tharion shook his head in disgust. “You dumb fucking idiot.” With that, the mer stalked out of the room.
Silence reigned for a moment. Then Declan said, “You should have talked to us first.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t,” Ithan snapped. Then sighed. “The Hind gave us two days. Marc’s a genius and all that, but legal shit takes time. We don’t have that.”
“The mer is right,” Sigrid said darkly. “You shouldn’t trust someone like her. Anyone who traffics in lives has no honor.”
“I know,” Ithan said. And for a moment, he could see it in Sigrid’s eyes—the rigid, yet fair Alpha she might be. With the emotional scars to understand the importance and value of each life.
Maybe he should have encouraged her to kill Sabine last night. Ithan sighed again.
Flynn walked to the wet bar. “Better drink up, Holstrom.”
“I never drink before a game,” Ithan said. “Even the day before.”
“Trust me,” Flynn said, pressing a glass of whiskey into Ithan’s hand, “with the Vipe hand-selecting your opponent, you’ll want something to take the edge off.”
* * *
“You left your blood all over the place to lead it along,” Nesta said. “It’s after you—not us. So you’re going to draw it back here.”
Bryce glanced between Nesta and Azriel. They were completely serious.
Bryce pointed to the boulder Nesta had been lying upon moments ago. “So, what, I’m supposed to sit on this rock and wait for the Wyrm to show up and eat me?”
“That last bit is up to you,” Nesta said, turning toward the other end of the river. “But from what I just saw, you’re a fast runner. You’ll get away in time. Probably.”
Asshole.
Azriel murmured, “Quiet,” and Bryce, without much of an alternative, obeyed.
It didn’t matter how brightly her starlight shone. The Wyrm was blind. And it was only a matter of time until it came sniffing again—
It was a matter of seconds, actually.
One moment, there was only the rushing river. The next, a wall of water exploded in front of Azriel, the behemoth body of the Wyrm dwarfing even the warrior’s powerful form.
Bryce had never seen such a horrible creature, even during the attack on Crescent City this spring. Rays of blue light flared from Azriel, spearing for the creature—
They pierced its dark, wet skin and vanished.
It was all Bryce saw before she leapt off the rock, splashing through the water, aiming for the tunnel archway.
Nesta shot past her, Ataraxia in hand, silver fire wreathing the other. But the Wyrm vanished—as fast as it had appeared, it went back into the sinkhole.
“Where is it?” Nesta shouted to Azriel, who pivoted, scanning the river, the tunnel—
Behind them, closer to Bryce, the Wyrm erupted from the water again from another sinkhole. Silver fire blasted past her. The Wyrm screeched as the raw power slammed into its side, setting the caverns shaking, debris and rock splashing into the river.
Then the fire vanished, sucked into its skin. The Wyrm again plunged beneath the water, into the sinkhole.
Azriel and Nesta returned to their back-to-back position, and Bryce gathered her wits enough to say, “What happened?”
“It … it ate my power,” Nesta murmured.
“That’s not possible,” Azriel said, eyes fixed on the river.
