The words spilled out of their own accord. “We’ve come a long way from when we first met, haven’t we? I know you’re more than an ice-cold bastard. You know I can handle anything you throw at me. We pulled off some pretty amazing missions when we put our heads together.”
He raised his hand to stop me before I could keep babbling. His expression hadn’t turned any less somber. I closed my eyes, groping for any shred of inner calm I could find. Whatever happened, I was not going to die flailing in panic. I had a smidge more dignity than that.
One last mangled ‘80s song to do Luna proud and offer a final plea? “Hate from the start,” I sang at a murmur. “Tell me we can take it all apart…”
“Sorsha.” His voice sounded strained. “I don’t like that I’ve had to do any of this.”
I could believe that. But he was going to do it anyway. Because why wouldn’t he? How could I possibly be worth more to him than finally getting his freedom back after eons under the thumb of these pompous ancients? I was sick of them already, and I hadn’t even met them yet.
Delay. Delay, and there was a chance, however miniscule, that I’d figure out another option.
“Can we talk a little more? I can go through some of my strongest memories of Luna in case there’s anything she did glamour over, and—”
Omen jerked around abruptly, as if he’d heard a noise beyond the door that I hadn’t. His posture tensed. He moved like he was about to spring into the shadows around that door—but at the same moment, an even larger and more muscular figure materialized beside him.
Thorn’s brawny bulk made the room feel twice as small, but I’d never been more relieved to see anyone in my life. I’d have leapt to him with a kiss designed to get across every particle of that gratitude if it hadn’t been for the damned chain fixing me to the cot.
The wingéd warrior took in my pose and the cuff around my wrist, his expression darkening with horror. He swiveled to face Omen. “What is the matter with you? You’ve chained her up like an animal!”
“The split-second before you noticed that, weren’t you simply pleased I’ve left her alive?” Omen retorted, his tone now dry. “You know how difficult it is to keep this one anyplace she doesn’t want to be.”
“You shouldn’t have dragged her off to begin with. She isn’t going to destroy the realms, and we’re not handing her over to the Highest.”
The warrior stepped toward me, but Omen sprang in front of him, holding up his hands. “Hold on. It’s not as simple as that.”
“Of course it is,” Thorn bellowed, the reverb of his shadowkind voice creeping into his words. I caught a dark flicker around his shoulders as if his wings had threatened to burst into sight. “Sorsha is the most compassionate being I’ve ever known—she’d never harm anyone who hadn’t brought it on themselves. She’s shown multitudes more dedication to us and our cause than any of our shadowkind brethren.”
The hellhound shifter arched his eyebrows. “You have to admit you might be a tad biased when it comes to assessing her worthiness. You’re not exactly an impartial party after how closely you’ve been getting to know her.”
“Whatever desire I’ve felt hasn’t clouded my mind. She’s proven herself time and time again. Get out of my way, hound.”
He loomed on Omen threateningly, a good half a foot taller and nearly twice as broad. The hard crystalline ridges that covered his knuckles glinted in the thin light.
My pulse skipped a beat. I’d never heard the wingéd speak to his boss like that before—hell, I’d never heard him talk to Omen with anything less than total respect and deference. The fact that he’d gotten this riled up on my behalf sent a flutter of affection through me, but also a jab of fear.
I’d had multiple occasions to witness Thorn’s preferred strategy when people he cared about were threatened. It tended to involve heads wrenched from necks and guts spilling on floors. I would’ve thought he cared enough about Omen as a colleague that it would at least mostly balance out his determination to help me, but maybe I’d underestimated his devotion. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
Omen’s natural shadowkind coloring, a dark gray tint lined with glowing magma-line rivulets, broke out over his skin. His hellhound claws formed at the tips of his still—for now—humanoid fingers. He let out a snarl that told me his fangs had come forth too.
“Back down, old friend,” he snapped. “This is my responsibility, my call, and I will not let you rush or override my decision.”
It kind of sounded like he might not have come to a definite decision yet after all. Maybe he would have taken me up on the suggestion to talk more. Maybe he’d only stopped by to ask how I wanted my morning coffee, and I’d started shooting my mouth off before he had the chance.
A hasty remark or two getting me into trouble? It wouldn’t be the first time for that either.
Thorn’s loyalty was too ingrained for him to push this stand-off straight to a battle without at least trying to reason with the other shadowkind. “What does it matter what the Highest say? They know nothing of who Sorsha is, and we owe them nothing. Only the four of us are aware of what we discovered about her, and Snap and Ruse would never think of sharing that information. If they did, they’d be dealing with a wingéd’s rage.” The muscles in his arms flexed to impressive effect.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Omen growled, and it struck me how true that was. Thorn clearly had no idea how much Omen did owe the Highest or the dire consequences he’d face if he failed to carry out their orders. No wonder the warrior was so furious. He assumed the hellhound shifter had carted me off on the basis of a little hearsay.
Omen didn’t appear to be inclined to fill the warrior in on his situation, though. “I’ll tell you again,” he added through gritted teeth. “Stand down.”
I felt the inexplicable need to speak up on my captor’s behalf. “Thorn, Omen has to—”
The hellhound shifter wheeled on me, a blaze lighting in his eyes. “Shut up, or I’ll sock the mouth right off of you.”
“Don’t you lay another hand on her,” Thorn roared, and shoved Omen away from me. He reached to smash the chain, but Omen spun around and lunged at the warrior.
Hellhound claws seared slashes through Thorn’s shoulder. The smoke that shadowkind contained instead of blood billowed up from the wound.
Thorn threw a punch I suspected would have been solid enough to send Omen crashing straight through the door, but the shifter dodged the worst of it, taking only a gash as the warrior’s knuckles grazed the side of his arm. He transformed into the massive beast of his hellhound form before my eyes. With a howl, he bounded off one of the walls and crashed into Thorn, his fangs gnashing and his underworldly glow hazing the room with an orange tint.
The warrior stumbled but pummeled Omen in the face at the same time. More smoke flooded the small space from so many more new wounds. It clogged in my throat and stung my eyes.
I scrambled back on the bed just before the fight brought Thorn slamming into the side of the cot. My lungs had constricted. “Stop it!” I hollered at them. “Just take a breath and talk about it.”