Descendant by Lesley Livingston Page B

I—”
    Fennrys just grinned and followed Rafe up the shallow stairs. The wide stone terrace at the top was flanked majestically by twin marble lions, which led up toward the grand edifice of the main branch of the New York Public Library. For a moment, it seemed as though a shadow passed over the terrace—a cloud scudding over the moon maybe—and for that moment, the stone lions had resembled something else entirely.
    Sphinxes . . .
    From the way Maddox glanced between the statues, Fennrys knew he’d seen it, too. But Rafe just stalked on past them toward the main entrance. Fenn followed, noting warily that the massive lion statues on either side of him turned their regal stone heads to watch as the Egyptian god passed, the carved contours of their manes rippling and flowing in the exact way that chiseled rock . . . didn’t. The one on the left was growling.
    Maybe it’s just purring.
    The woman who’d transformed into a wolf whined uneasily.
    Maybe not.
    Fennrys turned and put a hand on Maddox’s shoulder. “Look,” he said. “Madd . . . I have to do this. You don’t. I think maybe it would be best if you turned back. I don’t want Chloe coming after me if something bad happens to you.”
    Maddox laughed. “No, you really don’t!” He reached up and plucked Fennrys’s hand from his shoulder. “On the other hand, I’m not about to go back and tell her that I abandoned my noble friend on his epic quest to rescue his one true love from the clutches of darkness. She’d never forgive me.”
    Fennrys snorted. “Don’t tell me Chloe’s turned into some kind of romantic. Jeezus, Madd. What have you done to the girl?”
    “I know, right?” Maddox rolled his eyes, but Fennrys could see he was nothing short of blissfully happy in his relationship with the previously occasionally homicidal Siren. “She’s gone all hearts ’n’ flowers these days. And so she’d just tear the hide right off me and send me limping back here to help you anyway if I turned back now. True love an’ all, yeah?”
    True love.
    Was that what this was? Did he really feel that way about Mason? He remembered what Rafe had said about the bind she was in; that if Mase somehow got her hands on the Odin spear, she would transform and become an agent of destruction, a harbinger of the End of Days, Ragnarok-style. That was the thing they were on their way to try and prevent. Rescuing Mason was, as far as Rafe was concerned, a fringe benefit. The unspoken agreement between Fennrys and the Egyptiangod—Fennrys knew—was that their first priority was to make sure that Gunnar Starling’s daughter never got the opportunity to get close enough to the spear to take it up. No matter how they had to go about it.
    But . . .
    Well, for one thing, what if that had already happened? What if they got to Asgard only to discover that she’d already turned Valkyrie? What if Fennrys had to leave her there . . . or worse? Would he do that? Could he?
    Not even if the fate of the world depended on it.
    Valkyrie or no—Fennrys wasn’t going to leave Mase behind in the place where he himself had suffered so terribly. He was going to get her out of there.
    And if bringing Mason Starling back into the mortal realm meant that the mortal realm burned, then the Fennrys Wolf would happily go down in flames with it. With her . So maybe it was true love. Or maybe it was just the fatalistic Viking in him. He was okay with that, either way.
    The night was silent—eerily so, especially for midtown Manhattan—but Fennrys suddenly heard the gentle cooing of a bird. He looked around and saw a lone mourning dove, sitting at the base of one of the massive stone urns that stood between the lions and the library’s arched portico. The bird stared at him with its obsidian-bead eye and cocked its head. Fennrys stepped past Maddox and approached the creature. He’d always had an affinity for birds, ever since he used to care for the Faerie King Auberon’s hunting