Run.

Clio stood on the shadowed stairs, staring blankly at the familiar row of booths as merchants made their final transactions and began packing up their merchandise. No one glanced her way, too busy with their own things.

Run straight to the metro station.

Her lungs burned and she couldn’t catch her breath. A painful tremor shuddered through her leg muscles. She braced a hand on the dusty wall.

Don’t stop.

She looked from the merchants and their booths, to the sitting areas set up on the platform’s other side, to the interconnected domes in the ceiling filled with stained glass and the illusion of soft sunlight.

Don’t come back.

Why was she here? Where was Lyre? Hadn’t she been outside with him, heading to their rented room? Why had she run back here without him? She rubbed her face, wet with rain, and started to turn away from the platform.

Don’t come back.

Her muscles seized, refusing to obey, and she stumbled into the wall.

Don’t come back.

That hypnotic command spun around and around in her head. The weight of the words pulled her toward the metro station and she gripped the handrail, fighting the need to continue down the stairs.

Run to the metro station.

What was wrong with her?

Don’t stop.

Why was she here alone?

Don’t come back.

Don’t go back where?

She pinched the bridge of her nose. She remembered walking down the street with Lyre when it had started to rain. She remembered standing in the alcove with him and admitting that she’d bought the sea-shine vine as a gift for him.

He’d seen something in the street that had made his face pale and his eyes go black. And then—

His glamour falling away, the released power spilling over her body in a wash of tingles.

His black eyes locking on hers, his hands on her face, his aphrodesia pouring over her in a tidal wave of heat and need.

His mesmerizing voice wrapping around her, power vibrating through each command: Run. Run to the metro station. Don’t stop. Don’t come back. Go!

She’d run away. She’d left him alone to face whatever he had seen in the street that had sent fear crawling across his face. And she knew which hunter he feared most.

Shoving away from the wall, she charged back up the stairs, slammed through the doors at the top, and careened into the pouring rain.

Lyre, that idiot. That stupid, self-sacrificing incubus. Why had he sent her away? She could have helped. Ash’s magic might be difficult to see, but she was a mimic. She could have—

But Lyre didn’t know she was a mimic. She hadn’t told him.

She ran back the way she’d come, feet pounding on the pavement, heedless of the wind and rain. Whipping around a corner, she spotted the alcove where she and Lyre had sheltered from the downpour.

The sea-shine vine lay flat in a puddle, its pot broken. Nearby, ten-foot-wide gouges marred the pavement. Building walls crumbled and windows that had been intact a few minutes ago were shattered. An arrowhead, the shaft snapped in two, glinted in the middle of the street.

Standing motionless and holding her breath despite her screaming lungs, she listened. With her asper in focus, she scanned the street for a glimpse of golden magic. Where was Lyre? Where had he gone?

He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be gone, murdered and dragged off by his killer.

A boom of unleashed magic erupted over the sound of the rain. The sheets of falling water shuddered and a shock wave of power rushed over her like an electrified breeze. She could taste dark, savage magic.

She launched into motion, racing toward the magic’s source.

* * *

Frigid water and pitch darkness closed over him. Lyre sank like a rock before kicking his feet. Fighting the pain in his bruised and broken body, he clawed his way to the surface and gasped in a frantic breath.

The current was sluggish and he was able to half float, half swim for the shore. His feet found the bottom and he crawled onto the gravel bank, his left arm useless. Halfway out of the water, his good arm buckled and he collapsed, his vision going white from the agony of his ribs hitting the ground. With icy water still tugging at his legs, he panted for air and tried desperately not to pass out.

Gravel crunched under heavy, uneven footsteps drawing closer. Lyre turned his head.

Ash stopped three long paces away. His face wrap hung around his neck, dripping water, and his mouth was pressed into a thin, furious line. His face was pale and blood streaked his limbs from arrow wounds. His wings were furled tight against his back and his long tail snapped from side to side.

He grasped the hilt strapped to his thigh and drew a katana-style short sword. “Get up.”

Lyre blinked. It was the first time either of them had spoken since Ash had revealed himself. “What?”

“Get up.” He pointed at Lyre with his sword. “Don’t make me kill you while you’re lying in the fucking mud.”

A wheezing breath slid from Lyre. He didn’t want to die on the ground. Gathering his strength, he got his good arm under him and pushed, but his trembling limbs weren’t cooperating.

“Get up!”

Lyre snarled in answer as he struggled to make his limbs obey. Agony ripped through his chest and he feared he might puncture a lung. Not that it mattered. Ash was going to put an even bigger hole through him in the next sixty seconds.

Ash grabbed the strap of his quiver and hauled him off the ground. Lyre had barely caught his balance before Ash skittered backward, wary of getting too close, but Lyre knew better than to use aphrodesia again. Without the element of surprise, Ash would kill Lyre before he could take control. He had nothing left. He was done.

Bracing his feet on the uneven gravel, arms hanging at his sides, he lifted his heavy head.

Ash’s jaw flexed. “It was a good fight.”

Lyre smiled faintly as his vision shifted in and out of focus. Losing sucked. Dying would suck even more. “It was.”

Ash brought his sword up. A shimmer of black flames ran down it as he prepared it to pierce shields and flesh with equal ease. Lyre kept his eyes on Ash’s, unwilling to look away in this final moment.

The draconian’s weight shifted as he prepared to lunge in for the killing strike.

A ripple of cold, unfamiliar power sizzled in the air. Ash’s gaze snapped to a point directly behind Lyre and his dark eyes widened.

Something hit Lyre in the back, a punch to the ribs that sent agony flaring through his body. He stumbled from the blow—and felt the razor edges of a blade sliding out of his flesh.

He staggered forward, the blade in his back tearing free, then dropped to his knees. Ash stood before him, sword in hand, the steel shining in the rain. Lyre stared at the draconian, his thoughts too slow.

He’d been stabbed in the back. Someone had stabbed him in the damn back.

What a stupid way to die.

With no strength left, not even enough to spit a curse at whatever coward had snuck up behind him, he crumpled to the ground and his vision went dark.

* * *

Clio sprinted onto the bridge. Halfway across, the twisted, broken metal railing told the tale of a battle and she raced toward it, scanning for any sign of Lyre or his magic.

Her foot caught on something and she crashed to the concrete, skinning her hands and knees. Gasping, she twisted around to see her feet tangled in Lyre’s bow, the broken string hanging from one end. Her stomach turned to stone and she lurched up again.

Light caught on something half submerged in a puddle—a long, wickedly curved sword. Another weapon, but where were the warriors? She was alone on the bridge.

“Get up!”

The barked words rang out, carried on the wind, distant but audible over the rain. Clio threw herself at the railing and scanned the dark water and shorelines.

Shimmering gold, Lyre’s aura, a hundred feet away on the riverbank. She thought he was alone, then she saw the glimmer of light sliding down a steel blade. Unnatural terror slammed through her.

Ash was little more than a dark silhouette against the shore, the sword in his hand reflecting light as he backed up a few steps. Directly across from him, Lyre stood with no weapons. His arms hung limply at his sides and he made no move to defend himself.

Clio clutched the railing, her heart in her throat. Too far. She was too far to do anything.

Ash said something, the quiet words inaudible over the rain. He raised his sword, preparing to strike. Lyre didn’t move.

No. No, this wasn’t happening. This couldn’t happen.

“Don’t do it, Ash,” she choked. “Don’t!”

The last word came out in a shriek and was immediately whipped away by the wind.

Ash froze, but not because of her cry.

Time slowed as red light flashed directly behind Lyre. He jerked forward, stumbled, then fell to his knees. Behind him, a man—a reaper—held a long dagger.

A dagger he had used to stab Lyre.

Lyre collapsed onto his side, motionless.

Clio didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t even exist as every fiber of her being screamed in denial.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ash snarled, the wind carrying his voice across the water.

The reaper tucked his dagger back into a hidden sheath. “It’s not like you to play with your food for so long.”

Ash lowered his sword. “It was my contract. My kill.”

Buzzing filled Clio’s head, the same words repeating a thousand times per second. He’s not dead he’s not dead he’s not dead. Lyre couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible.

Grief constricted her heart, crushing it until her body threatened to implode from the torment. First Kassia, now Lyre. She couldn’t lose him too. She couldn’t bear it. The anguish howled through her, growing louder and more violent until she heard nothing else.

Then it stopped.

And she no longer felt grief or anguish or torment.

She felt rage.

She hadn’t decided to drop her glamour, but when she released the railing and turned, it was already gone. Strength flooded her body as rain washed over her bare skin, her simple chest wrap and shorts offering no protection. She leaned down and wrapped both hands around the hilt of the sword abandoned beside the broken rail.

As she heaved the sword up and turned back to the figures on the riverbank below, her aura was already changing. The flood of alien power fueled her fury as red light hazed her vision. Baring her teeth, she stepped forward.

The world disappeared. Black nothingness sucked the air from her lungs and crushed her eardrums with all-consuming silence.

The world popped back in with a blaze of sound and sensation: the cold rain pounding down on her head, the splash of the river, the sharp gravel under her bare feet, the cold hilt of the sword in her hands. And in front of her, the broad back of the reaper whose aura she had mimicked.

She thrust the sword with all her weight behind it.

The blade plunged into his body up to the hilt, sliding through flesh with no resistance. The force shoved the reaper forward onto his knees and he gaped at the sword protruding from his chest. Leaving the weapon embedded in his body, she stepped into his field of vision.

“How does it feel?” she hissed.

His eyes bulged. Blood bubbled from his mouth and he toppled over with the sword impaled in his back.

A few feet away, Lyre was curled on his side, unmoving, his skin ghostly pale and his hair white against the dark gravel. Rage pounded through her, consuming her grief. She raised her gaze to Ash.

Shock and disbelief brushed across his features. Disbelief at what he’d seen. Disbelief that she had teleported like a reaper.

Fear scraped at her, but her deadly focus was enough to keep it at bay. If not for that, the sight of him out of glamour would have had her cowering. With his wings and tail, horns and black scales, and eerie, menacing designs that coiled wherever scales met skin, he was a nightmare come to life. A dark wraith escaped from the realm of night.

“You’re next,” she whispered, her voice unfamiliar to her ears—ice dipped in sweet poison.

His eyes widened.

She snapped her hand out and her first cast shot toward him. He shielded, his reflexes faster than she’d expected, and her cast exploded against the barrier—but her second cast, formed in her other hand, was already flashing for him. The whip of power slammed into his ankles, below the edge of his shield.

He fell.

She flung a third cast, but he rolled, wings snapping outward. He lurched to his feet and whipped a band of black fire at her. She cast a master-weaver shield just long enough to deflect the attack, then hurled the spell in her other hand.

He shielded again but her attack tore through it, throwing him back. He barely kept on his feet. She advanced, casting so fast he had no time to unleash his more powerful magic against her.

If he’d been fresh, it would have been a different fight. She could see his injuries. She could see his weakness.

It made her want to kill him even more.

He cast a different shield—a type she’d never encountered before—but she could see the shape of it, see its flaws. With a flick of magic, she shattered the barrier and whipped a spinning disk of power at his injured leg. Her spell struck the arrow wound in a splatter of blood and his leg buckled.

He caught himself, somehow staying upright. Stepping over Lyre, she advanced on the draconian, hurling another spell and forcing him to defend instead of attack. He staggered back, heavily favoring one leg, and she lifted her hands, two lethal casts spinning across her fingers.

Something touched her leg.

She leaped back and looked down, deadly spells ready to fly.

On the ground at her feet, Lyre’s hand was stretched toward her. Amber eyes, hazed and out of focus, squinted up at her and blood trickled from his mouth as his lips formed a soundless word: Clio.

He was alive. He was still alive.

Her casts dispersed in an instant and she dropped to her knees, both hands going to his chest as she spun a thread of healing magic into him. Alive. Still alive. Broken bones, blood loss, a collapsed lung.

She could save him. There was enough time. Just enough.

She grabbed the chain hanging around his neck and pinched a familiar gemstone. A dome-shaped shield burst into existence around her and Lyre, enclosing them safely within it.

With uneven footsteps, Ash approached the barrier, its light casting eerie shadows over his face. Wings tucked tight to his back, he studied her for a long moment, his expression indiscernible. Cold. Empty. Then he turned, limped to the fallen reaper, and wrenched his sword out of the daemon’s body.

Weapon in hand, wings tightly furled, he walked away with lurching steps. A dozen yards down the riverbank, his form blurred. With the rain, the darkness, and his cloaking spell, he’d vanished between one step and the next.

Clio clutched Lyre’s shoulder and focused on his healing. Everything else could wait.