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The Hawk snickered. “Just a taste of what Rigelus will do to you.” The two dreadwolves chuckled with him.

Hunt squinted as he lowered his wing and met the shithead’s eyes. “Fuck you.” Like Hel would these assholes make him beg and grovel—either for his own life or Ruhn’s.

Lidia said mildly, “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Athalar.” Hunt looked, but not fast enough.

The Hawk certainly didn’t look fast enough.

And Hunt knew he’d treasure this moment forever: the moment when Lidia Cervos pulled out her gun and fired it right between the Hawk’s eyes.

33

All Ruhn knew was blinding light, and the blast of gunshots.

Three bodies hit the floor. The Hawk, followed by two dreadwolves. And before them, lowering her gun to her side … Lidia.

“What the fuck!” Baxian shouted.

He didn’t know—Ruhn had never told him. Even in his rage and loathing, he’d never dared risk sharing the knowledge of Daybright’s identity with another person who could betray her.

Using her good hand, Lidia hit a button on the elevator. “We have one minute and thirty-five seconds to get to the car.” She yanked a ring of keys from her pocket and knelt in front of Athalar. Fumbling a bit with her bandaged hand, she freed first his ankles, then his wrists from the gorsian shackles. Then Baxian’s.

Ruhn blinked and she was in front of him, eyes bright and clear. “Hang on,” she whispered. Her slender fingers brushed his skin, and gorsian stone fell away. His magic swelled, a tide of starlight rising within him.

It stopped at the end of his arm. He was missing his fucking hand—

He swayed. Lidia caught him, hauling him upright with ease. But he didn’t miss the grunt of pain from whatever it did to her arm, now free of its sling.

Her scent hit him, wrapping around him, holding him awake as surely as she wrapped her arm around his middle to help keep him standing.

“How long, Lidia?” Baxian asked. “How long since you’ve turned?” His face was slack with shock.

“There’ll be time enough to trade rebel background stories,” she said shortly, watching the changing floor numbers. “When the doors open, go left, then take the first door, then down two flights, take the door after that, then jump into the car. It’s large enough to fit all of you—and the wings.” She glanced over a shoulder, gaze sweeping over Hunt, then Baxian. “Are they healed enough to fly? Did the firstlight injection work?”

She was the one to thank for the angels’ healing—in anticipation of this escape?

“Weak, but functional,” Baxian panted. “But you’re insane if you believe we can get out—”

“Shut up,” she snapped, her good arm tightening around Ruhn’s side before she angled him toward the door. “We only have one minute now.”

The elevator dinged, and Ruhn knew he should be bracing himself as Hunt and Baxian were, but he couldn’t move his body, his agonized, weak body, even when the doors opened—

Lidia moved him instead. She charged into the hall, half dragging him, and cut left, Athalar and Baxian behind her.

Sparks flickered in Ruhn’s vision, blackness creeping in at the edges. It was all he could do to keep his feet under him, keep them moving, as Lidia raced them down the corridor to that door she’d indicated, then the stairs—

Ruhn stumbled on the first step, and she was there, heaving him over her slender back, lifting him. Fucking carrying him, despite that injured arm. He might have been mortified had each movement not set every nerve in his arm screaming.

Down, then through the glass door into the above-ground parking garage. An imperial open-air jeep with an unmanned gunner mounted in the back waited at the curb.

“Baxian: gunner,” Lidia ordered as she dumped Ruhn into the front passenger seat, pain threatening to tear his fragile consciousness from him.

The Helhound needed no further explanation before crawling up to the machine gun. Athalar threw himself across the back row, wings barely able to squeeze in with him. And then Lidia slung herself into the driver’s seat. A stomp of her feet on the pedals as she slammed the stick shift into place, and the car rocketed off.

The many-tiered garage was crammed full of military vehicles. Someone was going to see them, someone was going to come—

On a downward turn, Ruhn collided with the side paneling, and the impact reverberated painfully through his body as Lidia let the car drift, drift—then punched it forward, flying down a ramp. Hunt let out a broken laugh, apparently impressed. Athalar cut it short, though.

Ruhn saw why a second later. The guard station. Six guards had been stationed around it: two angels, four wolves. They’d heard the racing car.