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All of it paid for by Danika. By that stupid fucking will.

Syrinx grumbled, his cage rattling. Another possessive and aggressive alphahole. But a small, fuzzy one, at least.

With a sigh, Bryce kicked off her heels, unhooked her bra at last, and went to let the little beast out of his cage.

9

“Please.”

The male’s whimper was barely discernible with the blood filling his mouth, his nostrils. But he still tried again. “Please.”

Hunt Athalar’s sword dripped blood onto the soaked carpet of the dingy apartment in the Meadows. Splatters of it coated the visor of his helmet, speckling his line of vision as he surveyed the lone male standing.

Kneeling, technically.

The male’s friends littered the living room floor, one of them still spurting blood from what was now his stump of a neck. His severed head lay on the sagging sofa, gaping face rolled into the age-flattened cushions.

“I’ll tell you everything,” the male pleaded, sobbing as he pressed his hand against the gash on his shoulder. “They didn’t tell you all of it, but I can.”

The male’s terror filled the room, overpowering the scent of blood, its reek as bad as stale piss in an alley.

Hunt’s gloved hand tightened on his blade. The male noted it and began shaking, a stain paler than blood leaking across his pants. “I’ll tell you more,” the man tried again.

Hunt braced his feet, rooting his strength into the floor, and slashed his blade.

The male’s innards spilled onto the carpet with a wet slap. Still the male kept screaming.

So Hunt kept working.

Hunt made it to the Comitium barracks without anyone seeing him.

At this hour, the city at least appeared asleep. The five buildings that made up the Comitium’s complex did, too. But the cameras throughout the 33rd Legion’s barracks—the second of the Comitium’s spire-capped towers—saw everything. Heard everything.

The white-tiled halls were dim, no hint of the hustle that would fill them come dawn.

The helmet’s visor cast everything into stark relief, its audio receptors picking up sounds from behind the shut bedroom doors lining either side of hallway: low-level sentries playing some video game, doing their best to keep their voices down as they cursed at each other; a female sentry talking on the phone; two angels fucking each other’s brains out; and several snorers.

Hunt passed his own door, instead aiming for the shared bathroom in the center of the long hallway, accessible only through the common room. Any hope for an unnoticed return vanished at the sight of the golden light leaking from beneath the shut door and the sound of voices beyond it.

Too tired, too filthy, Hunt didn’t bother to say hello as he entered the common room, prowling past the scattering of couches and chairs toward the bathroom.

Naomi was sprawled on the worn green couch before the TV, her black wings spread. Viktoria lounged in the armchair next to her, watching the day’s sports highlights, and on the other end of the couch sat Justinian, still in his black legionary armor.

Their conversation stalled as Hunt entered.

“Hey,” Naomi said, her inky braid draping over her shoulder. She wore her usual black—the triarii’s usual black—though there was no trace of her wicked weapons or their holsters.

Viktoria seemed content to let Hunt pass without greeting. It was why he liked the wraith more than nearly anyone else in Micah Domitus’s inner circle of warriors, had liked her since those early days in the 18th, when she’d been one of the few non-angel Vanir to join their cause. Vik never pushed when Hunt didn’t want to be bothered. But Justinian—

The angel sniffed, scenting the blood on Hunt’s clothes, his weapons. How many different people it belonged to. Justinian blew out a whistle. “You are one sick fuck, you know that?”

Hunt continued toward the bathroom door. His lightning didn’t so much as hiss inside him.

Justinian went on, “A gun would have been a Hel of a lot cleaner.”

“Micah didn’t want a gun for this,” Hunt said, his voice hollow even to his ears. It had been that way for centuries now; but tonight, these kills he’d made, what they’d done to earn the wrath of the Archangel … “They didn’t deserve a gun,” he amended. Or the swift bolt of his lightning.

“I don’t want to know,” Naomi grumbled, punching up the volume of the TV. She pointed with the remote at Justinian, the youngest in the triarii. “And neither do you, so shut it.”