House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

Her scent hit him, wrapping around him, holding him awake as surely as she wrapped her arm around his middle to help keep him standing.

“How long, Lidia?” Baxian asked. “How long since you’ve turned?” His face was slack with shock.

“There’ll be time enough to trade rebel background stories,” she said shortly, watching the changing floor numbers. “When the doors open, go left, then take the first door, then down two flights, take the door after that, then jump into the car. It’s large enough to fit all of you—and the wings.” She glanced over a shoulder, gaze sweeping over Hunt, then Baxian. “Are they healed enough to fly? Did the firstlight injection work?”

She was the one to thank for the angels’ healing—in anticipation of this escape?

“Weak, but functional,” Baxian panted. “But you’re insane if you believe we can get out—”

“Shut up,” she snapped, her good arm tightening around Ruhn’s side before she angled him toward the door. “We only have one minute now.”

The elevator dinged, and Ruhn knew he should be bracing himself as Hunt and Baxian were, but he couldn’t move his body, his agonized, weak body, even when the doors opened—

Lidia moved him instead. She charged into the hall, half dragging him, and cut left, Athalar and Baxian behind her.

Sparks flickered in Ruhn’s vision, blackness creeping in at the edges. It was all he could do to keep his feet under him, keep them moving, as Lidia raced them down the corridor to that door she’d indicated, then the stairs—

Ruhn stumbled on the first step, and she was there, heaving him over her slender back, lifting him. Fucking carrying him, despite that injured arm. He might have been mortified had each movement not set every nerve in his arm screaming.

Down, then through the glass door into the above-ground parking garage. An imperial open-air jeep with an unmanned gunner mounted in the back waited at the curb.

“Baxian: gunner,” Lidia ordered as she dumped Ruhn into the front passenger seat, pain threatening to tear his fragile consciousness from him.

The Helhound needed no further explanation before crawling up to the machine gun. Athalar threw himself across the back row, wings barely able to squeeze in with him. And then Lidia slung herself into the driver’s seat. A stomp of her feet on the pedals as she slammed the stick shift into place, and the car rocketed off.

The many-tiered garage was crammed full of military vehicles. Someone was going to see them, someone was going to come—

On a downward turn, Ruhn collided with the side paneling, and the impact reverberated painfully through his body as Lidia let the car drift, drift—then punched it forward, flying down a ramp. Hunt let out a broken laugh, apparently impressed. Athalar cut it short, though.

Ruhn saw why a second later. The guard station. Six guards had been stationed around it: two angels, four wolves. They’d heard the racing car.

They hardly had time to notice Baxian at the gunner. They didn’t even manage to raise their rifles or summon a spark of magic before the Helhound unleashed a hundred rounds of bullets. With the angle of the down-ramp, they stood right in his line of fire.

Blood sprayed in a mist as Lidia sailed through them—the car bumping over their bodies with sickening thuds. She shattered the barrier.

They burst into the sunlight, but there was no relief. They were now in the middle of the city, with enemies all around. Ruhn couldn’t get a breath down.

A voice crackled over the radio—Declan Emmet’s voice. “Daybright, you read?”

Hot tears began to streak down Ruhn’s face.

Lidia shot the car down the long, wide stone bridge between the palace and the towering iron gates at its far end. Another guard station threatened ahead.

“Copy, Emmet,” Lidia said into the radio, wincing as she had to take the wheel with her bandaged arm. Whatever had happened to her had to be brutal if she was still in pain. Something in his chest twisted to think of it. “We’re approaching the bridge gates.”

“Camera feeds are wonky. We lost track of you in the elevator bay. All there?” Dec said.

“All here,” Lidia said, glancing at Ruhn.

“Thank fuck,” Dec said, and Ruhn choked on a sob. Then Dec said, “Camera’s showing twelve guards at the gate. Do not stop, Daybright. Go. I repeat, go, go, go.”

They sped toward the guard station, headed directly for the array of soldiers with guns aimed at them. They looked uncertain at the sight of the Hind driving the car. Everyone knew that to piss her off was to die.

“Lidia,” Baxian warned. There were too many to shoot at once, no matter how uncertain they were.

Lidia punched the jeep into the highest gear.

The nearest soldier—an angel—catapulted himself into the sky, aiming his rifle down at them. Athalar’s lightning sparked, a feeble attempt to halt the death about to come down.

But it was Baxian, unleashing the machine gun again, who downed the soldier. The angel’s wings flared as he plummeted, blood showering them in a ruby rain.

Lidia charged through the fray, ducking low as bullets flew. They careened through the barricade, wood exploding, the crystal palace of the Asteri looming behind them, a grim reminder of what they fled.

Then they were past the gates, splinters of wood still falling into the jeep as they cut hard down the nearest avenue. Tearing out of a nondescript alley, a white van fell in line with them, the sliding door open to reveal—