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She doesn’t answer, but the defeat in her face tells me everything I need to know.

The Guardian has lost.

44

Damon

The truck swerves up the driveway, tires squealing as Hunter races back toward the House of Night. The headlights of Timothy’s car follow close behind us, cutting through the darkness in long, sweeping beams. The instant we heard they had found the girls, but Amber wasn’t with them, every alarm bell in my head went off at once. We wouldn’t find her in the tunnels because she was already above ground, back in the place she knows best where she was waiting for the one thing she needed: Arianette alone.

“Slade’s there,” Hunter reminds me, as though saying it aloud might make it true enough to calm either of us. “And Jace and everyone else. I’m sure it’s fine.”

But the way his hands clamp around the steering wheel and the way he skids to a stop at the top of the drive, the truck’s bed fishtailing slightly behind us, tells me everything I need to know. He’s scared.

I’m fucking terrified.

I’ve already got the door open before the truck fully stops. The scent of smoke blows by on the wind and my first thought is that the house is on fire. Then a sharp burst of barking comes from the opposite end of the building. The sound is deep and frantic, nothing like the lazy greeting Ares usually gives us.

“Ares?” Hunter says, stopping in his tracks as he listens.

A scream tears through the quiet.

“The sanctuary,” Timothy says, and then he’s sprinting across the yard.

We hit the stairs at full speed, our footsteps pounding against the stone as we climb. Hunter and I throw our shoulders against the heavy oak doors, and they slam inward with enough force to shatter the silence inside the chapel. I have my gun cocked before I’ve even crossed the threshold, my finger steady against the trigger as my eyes sweep the room.

Then I see her.

“Christ,” I breathe, emotion lodged in my throat.

It’s absolute chaos. The floor is covered in blood and debris, crushed herbs and scattered containers. Are those beetles? Holy shit.

Ares sits in the open space between the altar and the pews, his brindled hackles raised as a low, vibrating snarl rattles through his chest. His muzzle is slick and dripping with fresh, dark crimson, and his body is positioned like a living barricade, every muscle tense and ready to launch again if Amber makes the wrong move.

A few feet away, Amber leans against the front pew, her thick black robe torn at the shoulder. Her blood-soaked fingers are clamped around her forearm where Ares’s teeth sank in, and blood continues to seep between them, the dark fluid dripping on the floor. She’s bleeding heavily, but somehow she’s still upright, her green eyes dilated and wild as she stares across the space between herself and Arianette.

Then there’s Arianette.

She’s barefoot, her copper curls a wild, brilliant halo around her face as they catch the dull chandelier light. Her mouth is stained with something dark and her wrists are bound. She’s holding a jade-handled knife in both hands, the blade pointed directly at Amber. Her shoulders are curved inward, and she’s trembling so badly that I can see it from across the sanctuary, her chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked breaths.

“Doll Baby,” I call out. “Tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” she says, eyes focused on Amber. “DK. I promise.”

The use of our safeword tells me that underneath the absolute destruction, my girl is in there. But it’s obvious that this isn’t the fragile, broken girl pulled out of the river. I can tell by the way that the knife is perfectly steady. She has the upper hand, but there’s a tension rolling between them. One that keeps us from jumping straight between them.

“Timothy…” Amber rasps, when she sees us, her voice thick and syrupy. She doesn’t look at me or Hunter; her eyes flick toward her husband, as though the rest of us have ceased to exist. “Control your beast.”

“Control yourself,” he says, his gun aimed directly at her chest. “It’s over, Amber.”

She lets out a brittle, empty laugh, the sound carrying through the chapel as she tries to mask the tremor in her hands. “You’re wrong. This isn’t over until the ritual is finished. Until I right the wrongs you have inflicted on this sacred ground.”

He ignores the rambling, jaw tensing as he announces. “We found the girls.” His eyes flick briefly toward Arianette, giving her a small nod. “Stella and Augustine are safe. Whatever delusional game you’re playing has come to an end.”

A flicker of something crosses Amber’s face, surprise perhaps, but it disappears almost immediately beneath something darker and more volatile.

“Arianette led us right to them,” he says, taking a deliberate step closer. “Right to the Kayes crypt where you’ve been having all your fun.”

She presses her bleeding arm tighter against her body, and despite the pain, something like manic pride gleams in her eyes. “This is your fault,” she seethes. “If you would have let me stay here… if I could have spilled the blood of my own child to usher in the rebirth, I could have stopped all of this—stopped you men and your greed–but no. You forced me to make them all pay for your weakness. Taking one sacrifice from each house—one girl to represent each bloodline, each territory, each branch of the roots that had been allowed to wither. Four lives to restore the balance and remind the Barons what they were supposed to protect.” Her eyes flick toward Arianette. “And one to make you suffer.”