She dodges, feeling the whisper of his blade as it skims past her throat. Then she spins, bringing an elbow up into the back of his skull. Grunting, he swings his arm around in an arc, but she ducks beneath it and aims a fist at his kidney, and another, and another. She needs a weapon, she thinks, frantically scanning the room.
It costs her.
The movement registers a beat too late and she goes down hard as he tackles her in the side. She gasps as he falls on top of her, the little she can see of his face through the mask alight with malice, dagger raised above his head.
Bastet launches from beneath the bed, his claws slicing the man’s face, and the assassin screeches, letting her go. Bastet drops back to the floor. And Astrid doesn’t waste a second before shoving the assassin off her.
RUN,ASTRID, THE DOOR!But again her exit is blocked, the taller man already there, and she’d never in a thousand lifetimes leave Bastet here alone. She might live if he dies, but she wouldn’t want to. Couldn’t bear it.
She jumps onto the bed, the height giving her a small advantage, and whispers her shield spell once more. Releasing a breath, she forces herself to focus, to embrace the fact that she needs this magic, that it—thatshe—won’t hurt Bastet. Not like she hurt her dad.
The shorter assassin is distracted, grunting as Bastet darts between his legs. Her familiar crouches, readying to attack again, but the second assassin is behind him.
“Bastet, don’t!” The brute who’d been guarding the door kicks Bastet so hard he’s propelled across the room. There’s a sickeningcrunchas he hits the wall, crumpling in a heap. He does not stir. Terror unlike anything she has ever known surges up in her at the sight of him unmoving on the floor.
“Bastet!” she screams. Her voice doesn’t sound like her own. She scrambles over the bed, but a hand snaps out for her and she trips as she avoids it, a pop sounding as she falls to her knees. The shorter man leaps at her and she throws her arms above her head, bracing for the blow.
Nothing comes. No strike. No pain. Only a faint vibration. She drops her arms and realizes—the shield. It worked. The assassin is beating against it, his mouth twisted as he hammers his fist to no avail. There’s no time to marvel, not when her familiar is prone on the ground.
“Bastet, talk to me.” She’d know if he was dead, she reassures herself. She’d feel it. The loss of him. And right now, if anything, she can feel that tether stronger than ever. “Bastet, can you hear me?”
ASTRID,Bastet rasps. GO. The plea in his tone splinters something in her. He’s never sounded like that, so defeated or scared. And she can’t cope with it. She’s going to kill these pieces of shit. A howl of rage bursts out of her, and she throws the assassin off her, propelling herself across the bed and pulling the claw from the post. She spins, hurling it at the man who hurt Bastet. The blade lodges in his eye and he bellows, clutching at his face as blood gushes from the wound. She feels a grim sense of satisfaction before something smashes against her head.
She collapses with a scream, her shield failing her, head ringing with the impact.
Opening her eyes, she searches for Bastet, and his bleak azure gaze meets hers. The man she stabbed is holding a dagger over Bastet’s tiny body, hand still clamped over one side of his face, his remaining eye malevolent. The other assassin steps over her; she tries to rise, but he pins her with his knees and places the tip of his dagger underneath her jaw. This is it. They’re going to die.
A prickling sensation breaks out across her skin. Like electricity. The gathering of a storm. Petrichor saturates the room.
And then he appears.
Prince Zryan.
He materializes out of air and shadow, eyes molten silver, almost glowing, looking like some wrathful demigod. He steps through the balcony doors, his gaze taking in the scene before him; the chaos of the room, the two masked men, and the unmoving black cat, before it finally settles on her. There’s a flicker of something in his eyes as henotes her prone on the floor. Then he draws the wavy blade from the sheath at his side. Points it at the assassin.
“Take your fucking hands off her.”
He’s quicker than any mortal has a right to be. The assassin rolls off her, his fear palpable as he stumbles away from the prince and narrowly dodges the knife.
Astrid only has eyes for Bastet, for the blade bearing down on her beloved, and she cries his name, horror limning every cell of her body.
Zryan whips his head around. In a blink he disappears, reappearing in time to deflect the blow meant for her familiar. He scoops Bastet up with one of his broad hands and pulls him close to his body, cradling him with a gentleness at odds with the unadulterated violence pulsing from him. Her hairs stand on end at the sight of the prince holding Bastet. No other person has ever touched him.
The assassin raises his weapon, aims it at Bastet, but Astrid is running, jumping on his back, howling like a wolf as she bites him as hard as she can on his exposed neck. His knife lands with a clatter on the floor. His high-pitched screams fill her ears while his blood fills her mouth, the taste of him rancid against her tongue, but she bites down harder. For Bastet. She feels like she’s flying as he spins, trying to fling her off, tearing at her hair; her adrenaline spikes, power writhing, and then suddenly sheisflying as the two of them launch upward. Her back hits the ceiling with a smack, then they drop to the floor, Astrid groaning.
She’s vaguely aware of Zryan placing Bastet on the bed and stalking for the man who had her pinned, slipping inside his defenses in one fluid movement and slitting his throat so brutally the man’s neck falls open like the lid of a jewelry box, ruby-red blood spilling out. His accomplice takes one look at his dead partner and pelts for the balcony, launching himself clean over it. Astrid pushes to her feet, chasing him. She leans over the balustrade and sees him halt in midair, then fall, and halt again, until he lands and sprints across the grounds.
“A Levitator.” Astrid starts and looks around. Zryan is standing next to her, watching the assassin.
Where in Hel did he come from? If he hadn’t appeared when he did, she’d be dead. Bastet would be dead.
Oh Goddess. Bastet.
She runs back inside, straight for the bathroom and her Brewer’s Belt. She grabs a healing solution and races to him, lying stock-still on her pillow. Prying open his jaw, she pours the liquid into his mouth. Holds her breath.Please, please, please be alive.
One second.
Two seconds.
