House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City Series)

Ruhn kept perfectly still as Brann and Actaeon, bound in gorsian shackles, were shoved to their knees before Pollux by those two imperial guards.

The Hammer smiled at Lidia, who’d gone utterly still and pale. “I knew instantly that they weren’t mine, of course. No sons of my blood could be captured so easily. Pathetic,” he sneered at a seething Brann, who was sporting a bloody nose. The kid would take on the Hammer with his bare hands.

Actaeon, however, watched Pollux carefully, though the boy was equally battered. His golden eyes missing nothing. Assessing all. Trying to find an opening.

Lidia rasped, “Please.”

Pollux laughed. “Too late for niceties now, Lidia.”

Ruhn’s mind raced, sifting through every angle and advantage they might have. The math was damning.

Even if Pollux lowered the gun pointed at Ruhn’s head, he still stood close enough to kill the boys with one strike. There was no way either Lidia or Ruhn could reach the boys in time, physically or magically. A bullet would be slower than the striking Hammer.

And even with Tharion at Lidia’s side … No, there was no chance.

“Go get Rigelus,” Pollux said to the two guards, not taking his gaze off Lidia, off Ruhn. “He’ll enjoy watching this, I think.”

Without question, without so much as a blink at the atrocities they were leaving behind, the guards departed down the hall. Turned into the stairwell and out of sight.

Tharion struck.

A blast of water, so concentrated it could have shattered stone, speared for Pollux. Ruhn darted to the left as Pollux fired his gun. But not for him, he realized as the bullet raced, faster than it should have, borne on a wave of angelic power—

Pollux dove aside, the plume of water missing his wing. But his bullet and power struck true.

Tharion grunted, going down before Ruhn could see where the mer had been hit. Somewhere in the chest—

As water dripped off the walls and ceiling around them, Lidia said, “Let them go, Pollux. Your quarrel is with me.”

He snickered. “And what better way to destroy you? I suppose I can make one allowance: you can choose which boy dies first.”

Brann snarled through his gag at Pollux, but Actaeon looked at his mother, eyes sharp, as if telling her to kill this asshole.

“They’re children,” Lidia said, voice cracking. Ruhn couldn’t stand it—the pure desperation in her face. The agony.

“They’re your children,” Pollux said, power flickering at his hand. “Ordinarily, I’d like to make this last a while, but sacrifices must be made in battle.” As if in answer, the very building around them shuddered. “I hear there are deathstalkers loose in here. Perhaps I’ll feed the brats to them.”

“Don’t,” Lidia said, falling to her knees. “Tell me what you want, what I must do, and I’ll do it—anything—”

Ruhn’s heart cleaved in two. For the boys; for her, debasing herself for this prick.

He rallied his shadows. But if Tharion hadn’t been able to hit his mark …

Pollux smiled at Lidia. “I always liked you on your knees, you know.”

“Whatever you want,” Lidia pleaded. “Please, Pollux. I am begging you—”

She’d do it. Give Pollux whatever he wanted.

Her boys stiffened. Seeing that, too. Perhaps finally understanding what—who—their mother was. What had guided her all these years, and would continue to guide her in her final moments.

Ruhn just saw Lidia. Lidia, who had given so much, too much. Who would do this without a thought.

So Ruhn stepped forward. “I’ll trade you. Me, for them.”

Any other opponent would have dismissed it. But Pollux looked him over with a cruel, hungry sort of curiosity.

Ruhn snarled, saying the words he hadn’t dared voice until now, “She’s my mate, you fucker.”

Lidia inhaled a sharp breath.

Ruhn taunted the Hammer, “You want me to tell you how she said we measured up?” Crass, crude words—but ones he knew would strike the Hammer’s fragile ego.

The blow landed. “I’ll kill the lot of you,” Pollux seethed, his beautiful face ugly with rage.

“Nah,” Ruhn said. “You touch her or the boys, and your attention will be split. Giving me the opening I need to blast you to Hel.”

He should have taken that shot when Tharion attacked. He’d wasted the mer’s blow—and now Tharion was lying on the ground, alarmingly still, blood leaking from a hole in his chest.

“Ruhn,” Lidia warned.

“But,” Ruhn went on smoothly, “you hand over the boys unharmed, you let them and Lidia and Tharion go, and I’ll walk right up to you. With no guns, no magic. You can pull me apart piece by piece. Take all the time you want.”

“Ruhn,” Lidia’s voice broke.

He didn’t look at her. Didn’t have the strength to see whatever was in her eyes. He knew she hated him for putting that bullet in her thigh—but it had been to save her. To keep them from this terrible fate that they’d all arrived at anyway.

So he said to her, mind-to-mind, I love you. I fell in love with you in the depths of my soul, and it’s my soul that will find yours again in the next life.

He shut off the connection between them before she could reply.

Then Ruhn faced the white-winged angel, lifting his hands. “All yours, Hammer.”