Page 166 of The Crown of Nyx

I scented the air, pulling in deep breaths of air. Just as Grey said, through the smoke and rotting flesh, I faintly caught the scent of coffee.

I released the breath slowly. “It wasn’t long ago, either,” I muttered, as the overgrown beast moved tostand with us. Fuck, it was weird. I shook my head and turned back to Grey. “Can you reach her?”

The vampire pressed her lips together, eyes dark. “No.” There was a deep anger in her voice as the words left her lips. “And I do not know if that is because she is blocking us, or if he has already found her.”

“What will he do when he finds her?” the creature growled, standing on all fours, rather than his hind legs. “How much danger is she in?”

He’d barely addressed her before, even after coming to understand what a fucking mate bond was. But there was a hint of worry in his voice, and his eyes kept flickering away, like he hoped to spot her somewhere in battle or through the thick smoke coming from the fires behind us.

“He’ll strip her of her magic, and probably kill her,” I muttered, looking away from him. “The only way she survives this is if she has her mates.”

I still remembered the conversation she’d briefly had with the Seer. When Nyx told her the only way to survive was going to be finding her mates and completing all her bonds. Nash was making that more than difficult; and he knew just how badly she needed them. He’d been there when her magic was out of control, seeing first-hand what not having all her mate bonds could do to her—to everyone. He’d been drained just like we had in her healing after the explosion, and he’d been right there after with Sable to know that in order for us to win, Ivy would need to have all her bonded mates.

But this male didn’t know all that. He had a reason to be hesitant. Mate bonds clearly weren’t a thing in this world anymore. He didn’t understand the severity, but he would now.

A growl rippled from the creature. “But she is safe with the males she is with?”

Grey and I shared a look. It was fucking hard leaving her with the demon king and Kingsley. The former was still an unsettling ally, and the latter weakened to the point where he might not be much help until he finished the enchantment he was working on.

“They’ll protect her,” Grey said. “But we will, too. I will not let him take my mate from me again.”

Grey already knew my stance; everything I did now was for Ivy. She’d pulled me out of the hole I’d been in, away from the belief I would never be good enough. I’d been a broken shell of a male before meeting her, and I’d taken out my own low self-worth on her because I’d expected her to reject me, just like everyone else had.

But she’d been the only person to see me as the male I really was. Who hadn’t been afraid of me, who had given me a new life—a new purpose.

And I knew Ivy had done the same for Grey. Had given her hope, a life beyond making up for her past mistakes.

Before we could move from the square, the roar of a bear sounded behind us. We turned to find a large bear standing on its hind legs, blood and saliva dripping from his teeth. Behind him stood a demon, older looking, but unfamiliar. Grey-black hair tumbled from his head to his shoulders, curling around his ears. Based on scent, he might have been a hybrid, part Fae, though with all the bullshit Dante and his cowardly followers spouted, born hybrids weren’t his thing.

The only creatures we’d captured were full blooded, not hybrids of two different species. It was the shifters we’d found had been experimented on, forced to age slower.

The bear shifter was no different. He, too, was a full-blooded shifter based on scent, but that didn’t meanhe hadn’t been used for other things. Even from this distance, I could see scars across the beast’s belly, his eye. I had no doubt there were more along his back.

Flashes of a memory hit me then; of a life I’d worked hard to forget, a boy who had been broken by the whips of someone I could never identify. I hadn’t told Ivy the truth of the scars on my back, but that hadn’t been because I’d wanted to hide it.

It had been because I couldn’t really remember how they’d happened.

I’d always assumed it happened before I reached the Phoenix Compound orphanage. Or that it had happened there, and I couldn’t remember.

I stumbled back a step as the bear roared again. I felt the weight of Grey’s stare on me, her confusion swirling in the depths of her red eyes, but she stepped forward, pulling a gun from her belt.

“I recognise the bear,” she murmured, low enough for me and the Old World creature to hear. “We’d seen him during our assessment of the village.”

I swallowed hard, my eyes drawn to the demon. I’d thought him unfamiliar before, but now a spark of recognition hit me like the force of an explosion. I recognised his black eyes. The hatred, the dead look in them as he stood over me.

It was only a flash, but it was enough to have my hands trembling. Fuck.Fuck. I didn’t recognise the pressure building within me. I’d felt it before from Ivy, when she’d spiralled into a panic attack, or during one of her nightmares. But never on my own. I knew this was from me and not her. This was all my own anxiety; born from the flashes of a memory that I wasn’t even sure was real.

Because if it was real, that meant that at some point in my life, I hadn’t just been at the orphanage. I’d been where Dante held his army. I’d been in one of those cages, had been experimented on. Had been hurt by the hand of the male standing only feet from us.

The Old World creature stalked forward, as if sensing my spiral, putting himself between me and the bear.

“Your bitch of a Queen is in for a real surprise,” the demon shouted, a dark smile curling his lips. I hated that I recognised it. I hated that it made my chest tighten with unfounded fear. “You handed her right over, and you didn’t even realise it.”

No, not Ivy. She can’t be with him. She would have said she was going into the cottage. She would have told us that she was worried he might be there. But Grey said, when they’d last spoken, Ivy and Kingsley both believed Dante to be in his tents. That his magical signature was coming from there.

The bear lowered himself onto all fours and shook his large head.

“Will say, though,” the demon continued, “we should have expected the Elysian King to turn on us. Loyal for over three thousand years. But we really hadn’t expected him to join you here.”

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