Page 114 of House of Flame and Shadow

Vesperus’s dark head tumbled to the stones.

Silver fire wreathed Ataraxia as Nesta plunged the blade into the Asteri’s fallen head. Again. And again. Ichor and light leaked from the broken body, and between one stab and the next, Nesta’s arm slowed, slowed, slowed—

That was time slowing again. Bryce could see every spark of silver flame coiling about the blade, see it reflected in Nesta’s eyes.

The sword descended into Vesperus’s head one last time. Inch by inch, shattering bone and spraying gore—

Time snapped back into movement, but Vesperus did not.

Vesperus, the only Asteri left on this world, lay dead.

* * *

There was a small boat waiting for them. That much had gone right.

Tharion couldn’t stand to look at Ithan. At any of his friends, even the sprites, who’d done so much for him.

The captain was waving to them, a silent order to hurry up while they still had the cover of darkness. Dawn was beginning to turn the sky gray.

They ditched the car at the end of the dock and walked quickly toward the small boat. Once they were on the Depth Charger, they’d be untraceable, even if the Viper Queen tracked the car here.

Tharion slid a hand into his pocket and fingered the white stone that would summon the ship. Dec, Flynn, and the sprites jumped into the boat, Dec quietly talking to the captain, but Holstrom had paused at the edge of the dock.

Silently, Tharion came up beside him.

The water was clear, even twenty feet above the bottom. Where he might have once jumped in, luxuriated in the crisp ocean water …

He didn’t dare send a ripple through the waters of the world announcing his presence. Coward.

Flynn called to them, “Get on, assholes!”

Tharion glanced to Ithan, but the wolf was staring at the eastern horizon. The rising sun.

“Ready?” Tharion asked.

“I have to go back,” Holstrom rasped.

“What?” Tharion faced him fully. “What do you mean?”

The wolf slowly turned to look at him, his eyes bleak. Tharion felt the weight of his guilt at what he’d done to this male, in having Holstrom fight for him.

“To Crescent City,” Ithan said, face like stone. “I have to go back.”

“Why?”

“Holstrom! Ketos!” Dec hollered as the boat’s engine churned.

Ithan just said quietly, “To make it right.”

A shudder of muscle and a ripple of light, and the human form became a massive wolf.

“Ithan—” Tharion started.

The wolf turned and sprinted down the dock, back toward the arid countryside, golden in the rising light.

Flynn bellowed, “Holstrom, what the fuck!”

But the wolf had already reached the shore. Then the main building of the marina. Then the alley beside it … and then he vanished.

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