Page 293 of House of Earth and Blood

Ruhn snarled, “They can’t kill her. She’s the only one who can shut those fucking Gates.”

Sandriel leaned back in her chair. “She hasn’t made the Drop yet, Prince. So they most certainly can.” She added, “And it looks like she’s wholly drained anyway. I doubt she’ll be able to close a second Gate, let alone six more.”

Hunt’s fingers curled.

Hypaxia met his stare again and smiled slightly. An invitation and challenge. Her magic shimmered through him, over his forehead.

Sandriel had informed the Asteri—so they’d kill Bryce.

His Bryce. Hunt’s attention narrowed on the back of Sandriel’s neck.

And he rose to his feet as Hypaxia’s magic dissolved the halo from his brow.

89

The conference room shook.

Ruhn had kept Sandriel distracted, kept her talking while Queen Hypaxia had freed Hunt from the halo’s grip. He’d sensed the ripple of her power down the table, then seen Athalar’s halo begin to glow, and had understood what the witch, her hand on Hunt’s, was doing.

There was nothing but cold death in Hunt’s eyes as the halo tattoo flaked away from his brow. The true face of the Umbra Mortis.

Sandriel whirled, realizing too late who now stood at her back. No mark across his brow. Something like pure terror crossed the Archangel’s face as Hunt bared his teeth.

Lightning gathered around his hands. The walls cracked. Debris rained from the ceiling.

Sandriel was too slow.

Ruhn knew Sandriel had signed her own death warrant when she didn’t bring her triarii back with her. And stamped the official seal on it the moment she’d revealed that she’d put Bryce in the Asteri’s line of fire.

Even her Archangel’s might couldn’t protect her from Athalar. From what he felt for Bryce.

Athalar’s lightning skittered over the floors. Sandriel barely had time to lift her arms and summon a gale-force wind before Hunt was upon her.

Lightning erupted, the entire room cracking with it.

Ruhn threw himself under a table, grabbing Hypaxia with him. Slabs of stone slammed onto the surface above them. Flynn swore up a storm beside him, and Declan crouched low, curled around a laptop. A cloud of debris filled the space, choking them. Ether coated Ruhn’s tongue.

Lightning flared, licking and crackling through the room.

Then time shifted and slowed, sliding by, by, by—

“Fuck,” Flynn was saying between pants, each word an eternity and a flash, the world tipping over again, slowing and dragging. “Fuck.”

Then the lightning stopped. The cloud of debris pulsed and hummed.

Time began its normal pace, and Ruhn crawled out from under the table. He knew what he’d find within the whirling, electrified cloud everyone gaped at. Fury Axtar had a gun pointed at where the Archangel and Hunt had stood, debris whitening her dark hair.

Hypaxia helped Ruhn to his feet. Her eyes were wide as they scanned the cloud. The witch-queen had undoubtedly known that Sandriel would kill her for freeing Hunt. She’d taken a gamble that the Umbra Mortis would be the one to walk away.

The cloud of debris cleared, lightning fading into the dust-choked air. Her gamble had paid off. Blood splattered Hunt’s face as his feathers fluttered on a phantom wind.

And from his hand, gripped by the hair, dangled Sandriel’s severed head.

Her mouth was still open in a scream, smoke rippling from her lips, the skin of her neck so damaged Ruhn knew Hunt had torn it off with his bare hands.

Hunt slowly lifted the head before him, as if he were one of the ancient heroes of the Rhagan Sea surveying a slain creature. A monster.

He let the Archangel’s head drop. It thumped and lolled to the side, smoke still trickling from the mouth, the nostrils. He’d flayed her with his lightning from the inside out.

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