House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2) by Sarah J. Maas

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.

She glared right back at her brother. So what?

So find some way to calm him down. Athalar’s your fucking problem now.

Bryce sent a mental image of her middle finger back in answer.

The mer female squared her shoulders, unaware of Ruhn and Bryce’s conversation, and said to Tharion, “We’re not out of this yet. There’s an Omega on our tail.” She spoke like Hunt wasn’t a living thunderstorm standing two feet away.

Bryce’s heart strained. True mates. Not only in name, but … in the way that Fae could be mates with each other.

Ruhn said, Athalar was dangerous before. But as a mated male, he’s utterly lethal.

Bryce countered, He was always lethal.

Not like this. There’s no mercy in him. He’s gone lethal in a Fae way.

In that predatory, kill-all-enemies way. He’s an angel.

Doesn’t seem to matter.

One look at Hunt’s hard face, and she knew Ruhn was right. Some small part of her thrilled at it—that he’d descended this far into some primal instinct to try to save her.

Alphaholes can have their uses, she said to her brother with a bravado she didn’t feel, and returned to the conversation at hand.

Tharion was saying to the female, “Captain Tharion Ketos of the Blue Court, at your service.”

The female saluted as the people with her opened an airtight door to reveal a shining glass hallway. Blue stretched around it, a passageway through the ocean. A few fish shot past—or the ship shot past the fish. Faster than Bryce had realized. “Commander Sendes,” the female said.