Cormac gazed toward the billowing smoke rippling from the broad cave mouth. Like some giant was exhaling a mouthful of mirthroot. “They’ll hunt us down and kill us.”
“I’d like to see them try,” Bryce spat, wind whipping her hair. “Psychotic assholes.” She seethed at the prince, “You want to fight alongside those people? They’re no better than Philip fucking Briggs!”
Cormac shot back, “Why do you think I was doing all I could to find Emile? I don’t want him in their hands! But this is a war. If you can’t handle the game, then stay the fuck out of it.”
“Their methods mean that even if they do win,” Bryce shouted, “there will be nothing left of them that’s human at all!”
“This was a bad day,” Cormac said. “This whole encounter—”
“A bad day?” Bryce yelled, pointing to the smoldering cave. “All those people just got murdered! Is that how you treat your allies? Is that what you’ll do to us when we have no more value to you? We’ll be pawns for you to murder and then you’ll manipulate some other decent people into helping you? You’re Vanir, for fuck’s sake—don’t you realize they’ll do this to you as well?”
Cormac only stared at her.
Bryce hissed at Cormac, “You can fuck off. You and Pippa and the rebels. Let the Hind tear you to shreds. I want nothing to do with this. We’re done.” She said to Tharion, “And I’m done with helping you and your queen, too. I’m done with all of this.”
Hunt tried not to sag with relief. Maybe they could now wipe their hands clean of any damning association.
Tharion said nothing to her, to any of them, his face grave.
Bryce turned on Ruhn. “I’m not going to tell you what to do with your life, but I’d think twice about associating with Agent Daybright. She’ll stab you right in the back, if the way these people treat their allies is any indication.”
“Yeah,” Ruhn said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
For a moment, it seemed like she might fight him on it, but she kept quiet. Thinking it through, no doubt. Along with whatever other secrets she’d been keeping.
Hunt turned to monitor the island’s shoreline. No boats came after them, and nothing lay ahead except open water. But—
He went still at the sight of the sleek black dog running along one of the dry, white cliffs of the island. Its coat was a strange, matte black.
He knew that dog. That particular shade of black. Like the wings it bore in its other form. The hound ran along the cliffs, barking.
“Fuck,” Hunt said softly.
He lifted an arm to signal to the dog that he’d seen it. Seen him. The dog pointed with a massive paw westward, the direction they were headed. He barked once. As if in warning.
“Is that—” Ruhn asked, seeing the dog as well.
“Baxian.” Hunt scanned the western horizon. “Head northward, Tharion.”
“If Baxian’s on those cliffs …” Bryce looped an arm through Hunt’s and pressed tight.
Hunt could think of only one enemy Baxian might be summoned to work alongside. “The Hind can’t be far away.”
44
“You have to teleport us out,” Bryce ordered Cormac, who pressed a hand to his bloody shoulder. “Let me get that gorsian bullet out of you and—”
“You can’t. They’re designed to split apart into shrapnel on impact to make sure that the magic is suppressed for as long as possible. I’ll need surgery to get every last shard out of me.”
“How did the Hind find us?” Bryce demanded, breathing hard.
Cormac pointed to the smoke. “Someone must have tipped her off that there was something going down here today. And Athalar just let her know our precise location.”
Hunt bristled, lightning flaring around his head like a bright twin of the halo. Bryce grabbed his shoulder in warning, but said to Cormac, “I’ll try, then. Teleporting.”
“You’ll wind up in the sea,” Cormac hissed.
“I’ll try,” she repeated, and clenched Hunt’s hand harder. Only a little guilt stabbed her that it was his and not Ruhn’s that she grabbed, but if it came down to it … she’d get Hunt out first.
Tharion cut in, “I could protect us in the water, but we’d need to jump in first.”
Bryce shut out his voice as the others began arguing, and then—
“Fuck,” Hunt snarled, and she knew even before she opened her eyes that the Hind had appeared on the horizon. Guns cracked from a distance at a steady beat, but Bryce kept her eyes closed, willing herself to concentrate. Hunt said, “They want to keep me from flying.”
Ruhn asked, “Do they know who we are?”
“No,” Cormac said, “but the Hind always has snipers do this. You get airborne,” he said to Hunt as Bryce gritted her teeth, ordering her power to move them away, “and you’ll be vulnerable.”
“Can we make it to the next island before they reach us?” Ruhn asked Tharion.
Tharion rifled through the compartment beside the steering wheel. “No. They’re on a faster boat. They’ll be on us when we hit open water.” He pulled out a pair of binoculars. “A good two miles from shore.”
“Shit,” Ruhn said. “Keep going. We’ll run until there’s no other option.”
Bryce tried to calm her frantic breathing. Hunt squeezed her hand in encouragement, lightning zapping into her fingers, but Cormac said to her quietly, “You can’t do it.”
“I can.” But she opened her eyes, blinking at the brightness. This was such a beautiful place to die, with the turquoise sea and white islands behind them.
“Pollux and the Harpy are with the Hind,” Tharion announced, lowering the binoculars.
“Get down,” Hunt warned, ducking low. They all went with him, the water from the floor of the boat soaking into the knees of Bryce’s leggings. “If we can see them, they can see us.”
“You say that as if there’s a chance of us somehow getting away unseen,” Bryce muttered. She said to Tharion, “You can swim. Get the Hel out of here.”
“No way.” The wind tossed the mer’s red hair as they bounded over the swells, the boat steered on a current of his power. “We’re in this until the bitter end, Legs.” But then the mer stiffened and roared, “Into the water!”
Bryce didn’t second-guess him. She flung herself over the boat’s side, Hunt splashing in with her, wings spraying water wide. The others followed. Tharion used his water magic to propel them a safe distance away, a wave of power that had Bryce sputtering as she emerged, salt stinging her eyes.
Right as something massive and glowing shot beneath her legs.
The torpedo struck the boat.
The tremor in the water rippled through her, and Tharion propelled them farther out as the boat exploded into smithereens, a plume of spray shooting sky-high.
Then it subsided, a field of debris and lashing waves left in its wake.
Exposed and adrift in the water, Bryce scanned for anywhere to go. Hunt was doing the same.
But Ruhn said, “Oh gods.”
She looked to where her brother was treading water. Beheld the three massive black shapes aiming for them.