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

Bryce appeared and slid behind the altar. Her skin had gone ashen, her breaths uneven. Sharp. She lifted a shaking hand toward him. “I …” She collapsed to her knees. She didn’t need to say the rest. She was tapped out. Yet she’d come back to him. To fight her way out with him.

“Another charge?” he asked, lightning twining down his arms as he lifted her to her feet.

“I don’t think my body can take it.” She leaned against him. “I feel like overcooked meat.”

Hunt peered around the altar. “How’d you manage to buy us time?”

“The Gates,” Bryce panted. “I had to teleport to a few of them before I found one that was pretty empty and unwatched. I used the dial pad to broadcast a report that Ophion was sacking Urd’s Temple—right in the middle of one of those stupid daily announcements. I figured a unit would be sent here. Probably the biggest and baddest they had, which happened to also be the closest.”

He remembered now—they’d avoided Pollux and Mordoc, along with the Hind’s dreadwolves, on the walk over here. “Your voice will be recognized—”

“I recorded the message, then played it through the Gate using a voice-warping app,” she said with a grim smile. “And I made sure to move fast enough that the cameras couldn’t pick it up as more than a blur, don’t worry.”

He could only gape at her, his clever, brilliant Bryce. Gods, he loved her.

Crouching behind the altar again as the fighting pressed into the temple, Hunt breathed, “We have to find some way to get through those doors unseen.”

“If you can give me a minute …” She brushed a shaking hand to her chest. The scar there.

But Hunt knew. Only time would allow her to gain back her strength, and it would sure as fuck take longer than they had to spare.

Hunt banked his lightning, fearful Pollux would spy it. The Hammer drew closer, Mordoc a menacing shadow behind him. Where they walked, rebels died. Hunt couldn’t get a visual on Pippa.

Bryce panted, and Hunt scented her blood before he looked. Her nose was bleeding. “What the fuck?” he exploded, covering her with his body as a stray spray of bullets shot over the top of the altar.

“My brain might be soup,” she hissed, though fear shone in her eyes.

If he could unleash his lightning, he might be able to fry their way out. No matter that everyone would know who’d been there, especially if Mordoc picked up on the scents afterward, but … he’d take that chance. For Bryce, he’d risk it.

They could, of course, say that they had been fighting Ophion, but there was a chance that the Hind would decide this was the moment to reveal what she knew.

“Hold on to me,” Hunt warned, reaching for Bryce as something crept out of the shadows behind Urd’s throne.

A black dog. Massive, with fangs as long as Hunt’s hand.

The Helhound motioned to the throne with a clawed paw. Then he vanished behind it.

There was no time to think. Hunt scooped up Bryce and ran, ducking low through the shadows between the altar and the dais, praying no one saw them in the chaos and smoke—

He whipped behind the throne to find the space empty. No sign of Baxian.

A growl came behind him, and Hunt whirled to the back of the throne. It wasn’t solid stone at all, but an open doorway, leading into a narrow stairwell.

Hunt didn’t question their luck as he sprinted through the stone doorway. Baxian, now in angelic form, shoved it shut behind him. Sealing them entirely in darkness.

Baxian lit the tight steps downward with his phone. Hunt held on to Bryce. From the way she clung to him, he wasn’t entirely certain she could walk.

“I heard Pollux give the order to come here over the radio,” Baxian said, hurrying ahead, wings rustling. Hunt let the male lead, glancing behind them to ensure the door didn’t open. But the seal was perfect. Not so much as a crack of light shone. “Given how pissed Pippa was after Ydra, I figured it was you lot involved. I researched the history of this temple. Found rumors about the door hidden in the throne. It’s what took me some time—finding the tunnel entrance in. Some priestess must have used it recently, though. Her scent was all over the alley and fake wall that leads in here.”

Hunt and Bryce said nothing. That was twice now that Baxian had interfered to save them from the Hind and Pollux. And now Pippa.

“Is Spetsos dead?” Baxian asked, as they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered a long tunnel.

“Don’t know,” Hunt grunted. “She probably escaped and left her people to die.”

“Lidia will be pissed she didn’t catch her, but Pollux seemed to be enjoying himself,” Baxian said, shaking his head. They walked until they hit a crossroads flanked by skulls and bones placed in tiny alcoves. Catacombs. “I don’t think they had any clue you were there,” Baxian went on, “though how they got tipped off—”

Bryce moved, so fast Hunt didn’t have time to stop her from dropping out of his arms.

To stop her from unslinging her rifle and pointing it at Baxian. “Stop right there.”

Bryce wiped the blood dripping from her nose on her shoulder as she aimed the rifle at the Helhound, paused in the catacombs’ crossroads.

Her head pounded relentlessly, her mouth felt as dry as the Psamathe Desert, and her stomach was a churning eddy of bile. She was never teleporting again. Never, ever, ever.