“Choose wisely,” the Hind crooned. “Come with me,” she said to Hunt, to Bryce, “or see what the seafloor has to offer you.”
“Get fucked,” Hunt seethed.
“Oh, I plan to, once this is done,” she said, smiling wickedly.
Hunt’s lightning flickered again. Glowed in his eyes. Shit—Athalar was walking a fine line of control.
Bryce murmured Hunt’s name in warning. Hunt ignored her, but Tharion cursed softly.
What is it? Ruhn asked the male, who didn’t look his way as Tharion replied, Something big. Gunning for us.
Not the Omega-boat?
No. It’s … What the fuck is it?
“Hurry now,” the Hind drawled. “Not much time.”
Lightning wrapped around Hunt’s head. Ruhn’s heart stalled a beat as it lingered—like a crown, making of Hunt an anointed, primal god. Willing to slaughter any in his path to save the female he loved. He’d fry every single one of them if it meant getting Bryce out alive.
Some intrinsic part of Ruhn trembled at it. Whispered that he should get far, far away and pray for mercy.
But Bryce didn’t balk from the knee-wobbling power surging around Athalar. Like she saw all of him and welcomed it into her heart.
Hunt, eyes nothing but pure lightning, nodded at Bryce. As if to say, Blind the bitch.
Bryce sucked in a breath, and began to glow.
Something solid and metal hit Bryce’s legs, her feet, and before she could fully release her light, she was hurled up with it. When the water washed away, she lay on the hull of an Omega-boat.
No—it wasn’t imperial. The insignia on it was of two entwined fishes.
Hunt lay beside her, wings dripping wet—lightning still crackling around him. His eyes …
Holy fuck, his eyes. Pure lightning filled them. No whites, no irises. Nothing but lightning.
It snapped around him, vines wreathing his arms, his brow. Bryce had the vague sense of the others behind them, but she kept her focus on Hunt.
“Hunt,” she gasped out. “Calm down.”
Hunt snarled toward the Hind. Lightning flowed like tongues of flame from his mouth. But the Hind had fallen back, revving her wave skimmer and retreating toward her line of boats. Like she knew what kind of death Hunt was about to unleash on her.
“Hunt,” Bryce said, but something metal clanked against the broad snout of the ship, and then a female voice was bellowing, “Down the hatch! Now!”
Bryce didn’t question their good luck. Didn’t care that the Hind had seen them, knew them, and they’d let the spy-breaker live. She hurtled to her feet, slipping on the metal, but Hunt was there, a hand under her elbow. His lightning danced up her arm, tickling, but not hurting. His eyes still blazed with power as they assessed the unknown female ahead, who—to her credit—didn’t run screaming.
Bryce glanced behind to find Ruhn helping Cormac along, Tharion at their backs, a wave of water now towering between him and the Hind. Hiding them from the view of the approaching speedboat, with Pollux and the Harpy on it.
It didn’t matter now. The Hind knew.
A dark-haired female waved to them from a hatch midway along the massive length of the ship—as large as an Omega-boat. Her brown skin gleamed with ocean spray, her narrow face set with grim calm as she gestured for them to hurry.
Yet Hunt’s lightning still didn’t ease. Bryce knew it wouldn’t, until they were sure what the fuck was happening.
“Hurry,” the female said as Bryce reached the hatch. “We have less than a minute to get out of here.” Bryce gripped the rungs of a ladder and propelled herself downward, Hunt right behind her. The female swore, presumably at the sight of Hunt’s current state.
Bryce kept going down. Lightning slithered along the ladder, but didn’t bite. Like Hunt was holding himself in check.
One after another, they entered, and the female had barely shut the hatch when the ship shuddered and swayed. Bryce clenched the ladder as the craft submerged.
“We’re diving!” the female shouted. “Hold on!”
Bryce’s stomach lurched with the ship, but she kept descending. People milled about below, shouting. They halted as Hunt’s lightning surged over the floor. A vanguard of what was to come.
“If they’re Ophion, we’re fucked,” Ruhn muttered from above Hunt.
“Only if they know about what we did,” Tharion breathed from the end of their party.
Bryce rallied her light with each step downward. Between facing the two enemies now at their throats, she’d take Ophion, but … Could she and Hunt take down this ship, if they needed to? Could they do it without drowning themselves and their friends?
She dropped into a clean, bright white chamber—an air lock. Rows of underwater gear lined it, along with several people in blue uniforms by the door. Mer. The female who had escorted them joined the others waiting for them.
A brown-haired, ample-hipped female stepped forward, scanning Bryce.
Her eyes widened as Hunt dropped to the wet floor, lightning flowing around him. She had the good sense to hold up her hands. The people behind her did, too. “We mean you no harm,” she said with firm calm.
Hunt didn’t back down from whatever primal wrath he rode. Bryce’s breathing hitched.
Ruhn and Cormac dropped on Bryce’s other side, and the female scanned them, too, face strained as she noted the injured Avallen Prince, who sagged against Ruhn. But she smiled as Tharion entered on Hunt’s right. Like she’d found someone of reason in this giant clusterfuck that had just tumbled down the hatch.
“You called for us?” she asked Tharion, glancing nervously toward Hunt.
Bryce murmured to Hunt, “Chill the fuck out.”
Hunt stared at each of the strangers, as if sizing up a kill. Lightning sizzled through his hair.
“Hunt,” Bryce muttered, but didn’t dare reach for his hand.
“I …” Tharion drew his wide eyes from Hunt and blinked at the female. “What?”
“Our Oracle sensed we’d be needed somewhere in this vicinity, so we came. Then we got your message,” she said tightly, an eye still fixed on Hunt. “The light.”
Ruhn and Tharion turned to Bryce, Cormac nearly a dead weight of exhaustion in her brother’s arms. Tharion smiled roughly. “You’re a good luck charm, Legs.”
It was the stupidest stroke of luck she’d ever had. Bryce said, “I, uh … I sent the light.”
Hunt’s lightning crackled, a second skin over his body, his soaked clothes. He didn’t show any signs of calming down. She had no idea how to calm him down.
This was how he was that day with Sandriel, Ruhn said into her mind. When he ripped off her head. He added tightly, You were in danger then, too.
And what’s that supposed to mean?
Why don’t you tell me?
You seem like you know what the fuck is happening with him.
Ruhn glared at her as Hunt continued to glow and menace. It means that he’s going ballistic in the way that only mates can when the other is threatened. It’s what happened then, and what’s happening now. You’re true mates—the way Fae are mates, in your bodies and souls. That’s what was different about your scent the other day. Your scents have merged. As they do between Fae mates.