The satyr rushed to the back, hooves thumping on the worn floors, and procured a wrapped bundle a moment later. It reeked of mold and dirt. Bryce lifted a brow. “Put it in a bag.”

“I don’t have a—” Bryce gave him a look. The satyr found one. A stained, reusable grocery bag, but better than holding the slab in public.

Bryce weighed the salt in her hands. “It’s two ounces over.”

“It’s seven and seven! Just what you asked for! It’s all cut to sevens.”

Seven—the holy number. Or unholy, depending on who was worshipping. Seven Asteri, seven hills in their Eternal City, seven neighborhoods and seven Gates in Crescent City; seven planets, and seven circles in Hel, with seven princes who ruled them, each darker than the last.

Bryce inclined her head. “If I measure it and it’s not—”

“It is!” the satyr cried. “Dark Hel, it is!”

Bryce tapped some buttons on her phone. “Ten grand, transferred right to you.”

Hunt kept at her back as she strode out, the satyr half-seething, half-trembling behind them.

She opened the door, grinning to herself, and Hunt was about to start demanding answers when she halted. When he also beheld who stood outside.

The tall, moon-skinned woman was dressed in a gold jumpsuit, emerald hoop earrings hanging lower than her chin-length black bob. Her full lips were painted in purple so dark it was nearly black, and her remarkable green eyes … Hunt knew her by the eyes alone.

Humanoid in every aspect, but for them. Green entirely, marbled with veins of jade and gold. Interrupted only by a slitted pupil now razor-thin in the warehouse lights. A snake’s eyes.

Or a Viper Queen’s.

Chapter Nineteen

19

Bryce shouldered the canvas bag, surveying the Viper Queen. “Nice outfit.”

The serpentine shifter smiled, revealing bright white teeth—and canines that were slightly too elongated. And slightly too thin. “Nice bodyguard.”

Bryce shrugged as those snake’s eyes dragged over every inch of Hunt. “Nothing going on upstairs, but everything happening where it counts.”

Hunt stiffened. But the female’s purple lips curved upward. “I’ve never heard Hunt Athalar described that way, but I’m sure the general appreciates it.”

At the near-forgotten title, Hunt’s jaw tightened. Yes, the Viper Queen had likely been alive during the Fall. Would have known Hunt not as one of the 33rd’s triarii or the Shadow of Death, but as General Hunt Athalar, High Commander of all the Archangel Shahar’s legions.

And Bryce had strung him along for two days. She glanced over a shoulder, finding Hunt assessing the Viper Queen and the four Fae males flanking her. Defectors from her father’s court—trained assassins in not just weapons, but the queen’s specialty: venoms and poisons.

None of them deigned to acknowledge her.