Brennan lifts his hands in surrender, his eyes pleading. “What? Henry, no! If she’s one of yours, I didn’t know.”
There’s not a hint of deception on his face. He just looks baffled.
“Did she say where she was going?” I ask.
Brennan shakes his head violently. “No. She was curious after the stories, so I told her about the—” He cuts himself off and glances down the hall toward the bar.
“You told her about what?” I grit out.
“I was trying to sound brave,” Brennan says. “I told her about the Breeder we’re holding, and she was rattled. She ran off before anything happened. I swear. It was only a few minutes ago. Please don’t demote me.”
I slam my fist into the wall beside his head. “Telling fort secrets to bed someone is a huge security risk.”
But I don’t have time for that now. Dread turns my chest cold. Harlow is too smart to investigate on her own—and yet I know that’s exactly where she went. Fresh fear hits me, pumping adrenaline through my body.
Bryce and Carter are already moving toward the back door, Gaven falling into step behind them.
I slam Brennan into the wall one more time. “We’ll talk later.”
Then I turn and charge off behind my friends.
By the time we get outside, I’m fully sprinting. I don’t care if it looks like I can’t wrangle my new wife. If Harlow is in danger, the entire future of Mountain Haven is at risk.
My breath saws in and out of me, the cold air scraping up my throat. Iwelcome the shock of it. The night is so dark, but I have moved through these streets so many times, I know them blind. Bryce, Carter, and Gaven’s footsteps pound along behind me.
I pick up speed as we pass through the gate to the sixth level and turn toward the holding cells. Laughter erupts from behind the gray stone building, and as I round the corner, I find the hunters who are supposed to be standing guard bent over a card game.
They all go rigid when they see me, but I don’t bother to lay into them. I charge up the stairs to the second floor, jam my hand against the blood lock. I wait one agonizing moment until the lock clicks and then throw the door open, faintly aware of Carter yelling orders to the men behind me and Gaven and Bryce’s footsteps on the stairs.
I’m not sure what I expected to find, but it’s not Stefan Laurence and Roland Hazrah leaning over the observation railing, reaching for someone on the first floor.
It’s not the Breeder loose from its cage.
And it’s definitely not my wife in a shredded silk dress, facing down a monster with only a small blade in her hand.
Our abrupt entrance startles Roland. His grip slips, and Stefan with it. Roland struggles to grab him and fails—both men tumble over the railing to the first floor.
A disorienting cocktail of fear and fury explodes inside me. I want to jump down to the lower level, but I have no idea how the Breeder got out of its cage or how it will react to four pieces of bait down there with it.
Gaven and I run to look over the railing in time to see Stefan and Roland struggling to their feet. This is a disaster. If Stefan dies, his family will easily be able to usurp mine. They can say we have no control of the fort, and they will be right. Their hold will be temporary, since he’s their last living child, but it will be enough to ensure that the Havenwood family loses power—and in the long term, whoever steps in to fill the power vacuum could be worse.
Harlow stands between the creature and the three men, her gaze fixed on the barred first-floor door.
The Breeder watches her with studied patience, but Harlow ignores it. She gives the beast her back and turns to face the men.
She’s laboring, her hand bracing her left ribs. There’s a bright red slash across her forearm and she’s shaking badly. Her fear is so potent, Ican smell it. Her hand is trembling so much, I’m afraid she’ll drop her dagger.
“They’re Polm-blessed.” Her voice is tremulous, and though she doesn’t look at me, I instantly know what she means.
Both Joe and Stefan have blessings from the Divine of Malice, and they’re hitting her with fear manipulation at once. I don’t know how she’s still standing. The strongest men I know would be curled in a ball on the ground, but Harlow is ready for a fight.
Killing any of these men would be bad—they all come from powerful Mountain Haven families—but killing Stefan would threaten everything my family has built, though it would be within my rights since using his magic against my wife warrants retribution.
Gaven, rigid beside me, tries to size up the Breeder. “Why doesn’t it attack? She’s bleeding. It should be on her already,” he whispers.
“We’d love to know,” I say. “We’re keeping it for observation, but this isn’t exactly the kind of testing we had in mind.”
The beast looks up at Gaven and cocks its head to the side, the only movement it’s made since we came in.
