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The double doors on the other side of the space creaked open to reveal the Viper Queen in a metallic gold jumpsuit and matching high-tops.
“She’ll probably have Ari jump down from the rafters in a ball of flame,” Tharion murmured as the snake shifter moved across the chamber with sinuous, unhurried grace. Ithan looked up, but the shadowed top of the ring remained empty as far as his wolf-sharp eyes could see.
The Viper Queen halted a few feet away and frowned at Ithan. “That’s what you chose to wear?” He examined his T-shirt and jeans. The same ones he’d been wearing since arriving in this Helhole. But she nodded to Tharion. “You should have spruced him up a bit.”
Tharion said nothing, his face like stone.
The Viper Queen turned, jumpsuit glimmering like molten gold, and strutted toward the nearest riser. She plunked herself down and waved an elegant hand to Ithan. “Begin.”
Ithan glanced to the empty ring. “Where’s the dragon?”
The Viper Queen pulled out her phone and typed into it, the screen casting her already pale face in an unearthly pallor. “Ariadne? Oh, she’s no longer in my employ.”
“What?” Tharion and Flynn blurted at the same time.
The Viper Queen didn’t look up from her phone, thumbs flying. The light bounced off her long nails, also painted a metallic gold. “An offer too good to refuse came in an hour ago.”
“She’s not your slave,” Tharion snapped, face more livid than Ithan had ever seen. “You don’t fucking own her.”
“No,” the Viper Queen agreed, typing away, “but the arrangement was … advantageous to us both. She agreed.” She at last lifted her head. Nothing remotely kind lay within her green eyes as she surveyed Tharion. “If you ask me, I think she said yes in order to avoid having to toast Holstrom to a crisp. I wonder who might have made her feel bad about that?”
They all turned to the mer, who gaped at the Viper Queen.
“Of course,” the Vipe went on, typing again on her phone, “I didn’t inform her new employer that the dragon’s a softhearted worm. But given her new surroundings, I think she’ll harden up quickly.” The swish of a message being sent punctuated her words.
Tharion looked like he was going to be sick. Ithan didn’t blame him.
But Ithan willed himself to focus, his breathing to steady. She wanted him off-balance. Wanted him reeling. He squared his shoulders. “So who am I fighting, then?”
The Viper Queen slid her phone into her pocket and smiled, revealing those too-white teeth.
“The Fendyr heir, of course.”
* * *
“We should get Rhys.”
“We’d have to hike up through the mountain, climb down past the wards, then hope we’re not too far to reach him mind-to-mind.”
Bryce listened to Azriel and Nesta quietly argue, content to let them debate while she took in the chamber.
“This place is lethal,” Azriel insisted gravely. “The wards in there are sticky as tar.”
“Yes,” Nesta admitted, “but we’ve come all this way, so let’s see why we’ve been dragged here.”
“Why she’s been dragged here—by that star.” They both turned toward her at last, expressions taut.
Bryce composed her own face into the portrait of innocence as she asked, “What is the Prison?”
Nesta’s lips pursed for a heartbeat before she said, “A misty island off the coast of our lands.” She glanced at Azriel and mused, “Do you think we somehow walked beneath the ocean?”
Azriel slowly shook his head, his dark hair shining in the faelights bobbing overhead. “There’s no way we walked that far. The door must have been a portal of some sort, moving us from the mainland out here.”
Nesta’s brows lifted. “How is that possible?”
“There are caves and doors throughout the land,” Azriel said, “that open into distant places. Maybe that was one of them.” His gaze flicked to Bryce, noting how closely she was listening to all that, and said, “Let’s go in.”
He took Bryce’s hand in his broad, callused one, pulling her toward the chamber beyond.
