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Even if he had no idea how he’d face her again after failing to protect them from this fate. After agreeing to let his friends do this. He had no idea how he’d look her in the eye.

Ruhn let out a muffled shout, and Baxian retched again, mouth still around Ruhn’s wrist. Balking.

They’d come too fucking far to stop now. So Hunt said, voice hardening into that cold, flat tone of the Umbra Mortis, just as Ruhn had said they needed, “Again, Baxian.”

“Please,” Ruhn moaned, and it wasn’t a request to stop, but to hurry. To get it over with.

“Again,” the Umbra Mortis ordered Baxian.

Baxian, who’d shouldered this unspeakable task for Hunt so he didn’t have to endure it—

The Helhound heaved forward, teeth clamping down, and crunched.

Ruhn screamed, swinging away wildly.

Hunt didn’t know where to look first. At Baxian, spewing blood and flesh onto the stones beneath him. At the hand and part of a wrist still attached to the chain, or at Ruhn surging for the rack, sobbing through his teeth at all the weight now on one arm, feet straining—

Hunt acted, lifting his feet and pushing. Ruhn’s toes nudged the top of the iron.

“More,” Hunt barked. He’d become the Umbra Mortis, become that fucking monster again if it gave his friends a shot at survival—

Ruhn swung toward Hunt, blood everywhere, and Hunt steeled himself, then gave him another kick. The prince’s toes connected with the iron poker. Held. And as he swung back—the poker came with him.

Ruhn came to a halt, dangling from that one arm. How the fuck would Ruhn curl upward with one arm, not two? Hunt began swinging for him. If he could use his legs and help Ruhn twist—

“What acrobatics,” drawled a familiar male voice from the doorway. “And what determination.”

Cold horror cracked through Hunt as Rigelus approached, flanked by Pollux and the Hawk.

* * *

Ithan panted as he stood over Sigrid, claws raised. The Fendyr heir’s face was white with pain, her hand still clutching her bloodied side.

“Kill her, Holstrom,” the Viper Queen purred from the sidelines, rising to her feet in a ripple of gold. “And it’s done.”

The Viper Queen had wanted him to be presented with this choice—this true amusement: deciding between saving his friends, saving Athalar and Ruhn and possibly Bryce … and Sigrid. The future of the Fendyr line. An alternative to Sabine.

On the ground, Sigrid lifted her head to look at him. Blood dribbled from her nose.

He’d done that to her. He’d never felt so dirty, so worthless as when he’d punched his claws through her stomach.

But Sigrid said with a mouth full of bloody teeth, “I never thanked you.”

The entire world stilled. The Viper Queen faded into nothing. “For what?” Ithan panted.

“For getting me out.” Her eyes were so trusting, so sad—

Make your brother proud.

If Connor were here …

Ithan lowered his claws. Slowly, he turned to the Viper Queen, whose face was tight with displeasure. “Fuck you, and fuck this bargain. If you don’t let—”

Sigrid struck.

A cheap, cruel lunge for his throat, designed to rip it out. Ithan barely blocked the blow, her claws sinking into his forearm with a blinding flash of pain.

“Fendyr through and through,” the Viper Queen said approvingly. It wasn’t a compliment. Ithan wrenched his arm away, flesh tearing with it, and he could hardly breathe around the pain—