Page 25

J onah gestures to my whip, keeping his head bowed.

I arch my eyebrows at him, conscious of the way Striker, like Vanguard, also quietly finds a seat, neither of them interfering.

To Jonah, I say, “I’m not going to flog you.”

His surprise is so strong that it startles me.

“Why so shocked?” I ask. “Did the Furies you knew before have no mercy?”

“They did not,” he replies, suddenly stony. “They could not afford to.”

“Well,” I whisper, “luckily for you, I’ve decided on a different kind of punishment.”

He finally raises his eyes to mine, a wary light in them. “What is that?”

“You will answer my questions.”

His wariness increases. “About what?”

I shrug, a wry smile settling on my lips at the fact that he would rather be whipped than answer questions. “Whatever I like.”

Uncertainty . It is a different kind of torture.

I begin to circle him but murmur to myself… “ What are you ?”

What is it about him that makes identifying his species so hard?

When I discovered the true power of the students at the Academy, their powers came to me from all of the sensory input around me.

Like identifying that Lachlan was an enenra—a monster of smoke and darkness—from the scent of ash and smoke around him and the haziness at the edges of his form.

But perhaps Lachlan’s power, and for that matter, the other students’ powers, was easier to identify since it was emerging and new, giving off more significant indicators.

Jonah, on the other hand… I sense he has been hiding his power for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and?—

Oh.

It hits me. I couldn’t figure out what he was because I was trying to put him in a supernatural category, but he is far more fundamental than that.

“You are a volcano,” I say. “Or, you were, until your soul formed within the lava, and you emerged from within it.”

The tension leaves his shoulders, and he gives me a smile that I wasn’t expecting, especially so soon after he asked me if I would punish him.

“I was born from the very earth itself.” His smile fades just as suddenly as it appeared. “My family came from the same volcano as I did—stepped out from it before me—but they’re gone now.”

“You miss them.”

“Eternally.”

“And Vanguard?” I ask. “What is he?”

Jonah’s expression closes off. “I will not speak for him.”

I arch an eyebrow. “But you owe me answers.”

“About myself, yes, but not about him.”

I tilt my head. “Well, I suppose that’s fair.” I think for a moment. “Tell me about the first Fury you knew.”

Jonah stiffens again. He takes a moment before he finally replies, “Her name was Rebella. She had broken off from her two sisters and gone rogue.”

I’m startled by this. Once a hive mind is formed, it would be incredibly painful to break it. My sisters’ fright when they thought I was in trouble drove that home to me. “Why would she abandon her sisters?”

“No,” Jonah says, a deep rumbling sound. “ They abandoned her .”

“How?”

“They refused to fight beside her,” he says with a snarl. “But she used the pain to make herself stronger for the battle she knew was right.”

His voice is deeply hurt, his features drawn. There are shadows in his eyes and in his memories that I suddenly feel I need to back away from. Oh, I could invade his emotions right now, but the anger he feels is too raw.

I’m suddenly assailed by Vanguard’s emotions, too.

Jonah’s words evoked a similar rage in him.

Despite my instinct to leave this knowledge alone, I ask, “What battle?”

It’s Vanguard who snarls the answer. “The battle against Typhon.” He rises to his feet. “A battle that cost Rebella everything.”

He saunters toward me. “I believe you’ve seen the damage a single one of Typhon’s bones can do,” he says. “Now imagine the destruction the deity himself could wreak.”

I don’t have to imagine it.

A wash of memories rushes at me from the minds of both men, their recollections depicting a single moment in time.

The air reeks of blood and clashing steel. A crimson pall hangs over a battlefield strewn with bodies. At its center is a giant beast with leathery wings, the torso of a man, the eyes of a dragon, and seething serpents for legs.

Swarms of supernaturals fight around him, on the ground, and in the air. With a single swipe of his long claws, he cuts through a group of silver-winged women flying toward him, sending their bodies falling to the blood-soaked earth.

Monsters of all kinds, all with vacant eyes, fight beside him, while the attacking army can barely get close.

Then, another group of Valkyries flies forward, although this one is combined with a group of Keres, their silver and copper wings discolored in the crimson haze.

The women swarm, their group tightly knit, and once again, Typhon cuts them down, laughing and gloating at their death screams, but this time, another figure shoots forward from within the falling women.

A single, golden-haired woman dressed in black with three snakes writhing around her form flies at Typhon’s face.

His arms rise to bat her away. There is no fear in his expression, only gleeful anticipation of her death.

As his fist collides with her side and the sound of her crunching bones is drowned out by the screams of battle, two of her snakes leap out. Instead of darting forward and back, they detach from her, shooting straight and true at each of Typhon’s eyes, their fangs tearing deep.

While the golden-haired woman falls to the ground, so does Typhon, but not before ripping the snakes away from his face. It doesn’t seem to do him any good. Their black poison has flooded his eyeballs, leaving him floundering.

That’s all I see before the memories halt.

“She gave everything to stop him,” Vanguard says, his voice bitter.

My hands have instinctively risen to my hair, where my snakes hide. They are a part of my body and my power. To separate from them is to cut off a limb that can never be reattached.

“What happened after that?” I ask.

“When Rebella’s snakes poisoned Typhon’s eyes, he could no longer see,” Vanguard replies. “He was stunned for long enough to be imprisoned.”

“My people gave their lives to create the cage that held him,” Jonah replies.

“They returned to their original molten forms to become lava that surrounded him before others of my species—those of rock and ice—added their power to form an impenetrable prison of icy rock. I was too young to join the fight, but I followed after them to the battlefield, determined to join them. I watched my family die from a distance.”

“And Rebella?” I ask. “What happened to her?”

Both men are silent.

I consider pushing into their thoughts, but it would only be to satisfy my own curiosity. Not a good reason. I can read the pain from their silence. Whoever she was to them, they lost her.

“Well, that is punishment enough for now,” I whisper before I walk away from them.

After that, we wait in silence.

I gravitate toward Striker, reading the remnant hints of fury in his eyes before his rage is gone.

He’s taking deep breaths, and then he’s calm again.

I find his presence soothing, so I stay nearer to him while we wait.

An hour later, the edge of the realm shimmers, and Slade appears, the echo of dance music with a heavy beat following him inside.

So do two women I recognize.

First is the powerful witch, Tanzanina Grey, who is close friends with Hunter and Slade. She’s a tall woman with honey-blonde hair and bright, green eyes, dressed in a black pantsuit, and black boots.

The aura around her is immense and powerful.

She is one of the few witches who can access instinctive magic.

That is, she doesn’t need a wand or spells, but only when she acts on heightened emotion and instinct.

At all other times, she needs to recite spells.

The problem is that her power was damaged when she was a child—she can’t remember spells and needs to write them down to recite them.

I sense a deep sadness about her, but can’t place my finger on the reason.

I’m surprised to see Archer Ryan—Cain Carter’s wife—step into the realm behind Tanzanina. Archer is a curvy woman with long, blonde hair, paler than Tanzanina’s, and stunning violet eyes that she’s currently concealing with blue contact lenses.

She wears a copper-colored assassin’s ring on the forefinger of her left hand and carries a satchel.

The first time I saw her, she and Cain had just given Hunter and Slade the happy news that they were pregnant.

That was over eight months ago, but she is clearly not still pregnant now.

The hint of milky baby spit up on the shoulder of her assassin’s suit, and the thread of connection that keeps drawing her mind away from this place tells me she won’t want to be away from her baby for long.

I don’t know why Archer is here, but still, I murmur, “I’m sorry for the separation you’re experiencing.”

She looks a little startled and then relaxes, stepping past Tanzanina to reach for my hand. “Hunter told me you could read my emotions.” Then, in the next beat, “Slade spoke with your sisters. They want you to know they’re concerned for you, but they understand you need to do this.”

“Are they still in the city?” I ask, unable to sense them for myself.

Archer shakes her head. “They said there isn’t any peace in the city, so they would return home.”

“Good.”

She pauses, holding tightly to the satchel, which I anticipate is for me, but she isn’t ready to hand it over yet.

“If you go into the maze, you’ll walk a treacherous path between the past and the present, all the while faced with monsters you won’t expect to encounter.”

I shrug. “It’s a good thing I’m a monster, too, then.”

Archer’s expression softens. “There’s one more thing I need to warn you about before you go in. Time doesn’t pass the same in there.”

“What do you mean?”

“One day in there is a month out here.”

This gives me pause.

Archer grimaces. “The way Slade described the situation with the bones and Vanguard, it sounds like you don’t really have a choice anyway.”

“You’re right.”

I have to make sure the bones are destroyed.

Focusing on the satchel she’s holding, I extend my hand toward it.

She passes it to me. “These clothes are for you.”

I consider the jeans, T-shirt, and fresh underwear inside the bag, uncertain how I’m going to change into them without causing a scene. I don’t care too much about modesty, but I’m certain the others may take issue with me stripping off right here and now, and there’s nowhere private to change.

Slade gives me a brief smile and a wave of his hand as he heads toward Striker.

A little hut appears behind me with a door but no windows, and I quickly step inside it, listening to the conversations outside while I change.

Slade speaks quietly to Striker for a few moments, telling him that he spoke with Striker’s sister, and she promised to look after Draven Industries until Striker gets back.

Then, in a lower voice, he adds, “The maze will test you. Given what you’ve already been through, I’m not concerned about your ability to survive the physical challenges.

But it isn’t strength that will get you through.

Everyone’s path through the maze is different, even if they’re walking on the same ground.

You need to follow your heart. Remember to breathe.

Stay true to your heart, and you won’t be lost.”

Striker is quiet for a moment before he says, “I understand.”

Slade clears his throat. “I also contacted Alexei. He’s given us permission to travel into his territory, but he warns that the activity of dark witches in the deep forest has increased in recent months, so we’ll need to be on our guard.”

“Will Alexei be there?” Striker asks.

Slade lowers his voice even further. “He wanted to be.” There’s another pause, and I focus on the heightened emotions coming from Tanzanina—the increasing depth of her sadness—before Slade continues.

“But he’s on a mission he can’t interrupt.

Something about an emerging war between powerful wolf shifter packs. ”

Slade’s pause tells me he’s said all that he can about whatever that emergency might be, so I step from the little hut, my whip hooked through one of the belt loops at the top of my jeans.

Striding across to Jonah, I hold my damaged assassin’s suit out to him. “Dispose of this.”

He gives me a wry smile. “I thought my punishment was over.”

I shake my head. “Not until I say so.”

He doesn’t argue with me. Flames immediately burst around his fingers, and the material turns instantly to ash, the fine dust floating to the ground.

My purpose was not to punish him further.

Rather, I wanted to show Tanzanina and Archer what he could do.

I need them to be careful. Tanzanina is not a creature of old magic, so Jonah could kill her.

Archer could be hurt badly. I intend to remain between them and Jonah at all times, but I don’t want them to risk their safety.

The two women barely flinch, but they both give me quiet, acknowledging nods. The first time I met them, we were enemies, but we aren’t any longer.

Slade turns to Vanguard and Jonah. “Tanzanina Grey will transport us directly from within this realm to the maze’s entrance,” he says.

“Once we arrive, Vanguard, you will immediately retrieve the bones. I will create another realm in which you will stay until the entrance to the maze is opened. How the maze is opened will not be revealed to you.”

Vanguard nods. “As long as you get me in, I don’t care how it’s done.”

Slade’s narrowed eyes reveal his skepticism, but I quietly verify Vanguard’s intentions. “He means it.”

“Okay, then.” Slade exhales heavily before giving Tanzanina a nod. “Over to you, Tansy. May blessings be upon your power.”

Tanzanina pulls a slip of paper from her pants pocket, her expression serene as she centers herself and focuses on the curvy script visible on the parchment.

The power gathering around her makes the hairs on my arms stand on end as she takes a quiet breath and then whispers, “ Transport tranquilly to the terrible timber thicket .”

Just like that, a rush of power whooshes around me, pressing in so hard against my chest that everything goes dark.