House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City)

by Sarah J. Maas

  As a faun, meat and dairy were abhorrent. Milk was only for nursing babies.

  “Got it,” he said. “You mind if I do?” He’d fought alongside fauns over the centuries. Some hadn’t been able to stand the sight of meat. Some hadn’t cared. It was always worth asking.

  Juniper blinked, but shook her head.

  He offered the waitress a smile as he said, “I’ll have … a bone-in rib eye and roasted green beans.” What the Hel. He glanced at Bryce, who was guzzling her booze like it was a protein shake.

  She hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and even though he’d been distracted this morning when she’d emerged from her bedroom in nothing but a lacy hot-pink bra and matching underwear, he’d noted through the living room window that she’d also forgone breakfast, and since she hadn’t brought lunch with her or ordered in, he was willing to bet she hadn’t eaten that, either.

  So Hunt said, “She’ll have lamb kofta with rice, roasted chickpeas, and pickles on the side. Thanks.” He’d watched her go for lunch a few times now, and had scented precisely what was inside her takeaway bags. Bryce opened her mouth, but the waitress was already gone. Juniper surveyed them nervously. Like she knew precisely what Bryce was about to—

  “Are you going to cut my food, too?”

  “What?”

  “Just because you’re some big, tough asshole doesn’t mean you get the right to decide when I should eat—or when I’m not taking care of my body. I’m the one who lives in it, I know when I fucking want to eat. So keep your possessive and aggressive bullshit to yourself.”

  Juniper’s swallow was audible over the music. “Long day at work, Bryce?”

  Bryce reached for her drink again. But Hunt moved faster, his hand wrapping around her wrist and pinning it to the table before she could guzzle down more booze.

  “Get your fucking hand off me,” she snarled.

  Hunt threw her a half smile. “Don’t be such a cliché.” Her eyes simmered. “You have a rough day and you come to drown yourself in vodka?” He snorted, letting go of her wrist and grabbing her glass. He lifted it to his lips, holding her stare over the rim as he said, “At least tell me you have good taste in—” He sniffed the liquor. Tasted it. “This is water.”

  Her fingers curled into fists on the table. “I don’t drink.”

  Juniper said, “I invited Bryce tonight. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, and I have to meet some of the company members here later, so—”

  “Why don’t you drink?” Hunt asked Bryce.

  “You’re the Umbra Mortis. I’m sure you can figure it out.” Bryce scooted out of the booth, forcing Juniper to get up. “Though considering you thought I killed my best friend, maybe you can’t.” Hunt bristled, but Bryce just declared, “I’m going to the bathroom.” Then she walked right into the throng on the ancient dance floor, the crowd swallowing her as she wove her way toward a distant door between two pillars at the back of the space.

  Juniper’s face was tight. “I’ll go with her.”

  Then she was gone, moving swift and light, two males gaping as she passed. Juniper ignored them. She caught up to Bryce midway across the dance floor, halting her with a hand on her arm. Juniper smiled—bright as the lights around them—and began speaking, gesturing to the booth, the club. Bryce’s face remained cold as stone. Colder.

  Males approached, saw that expression, and didn’t venture closer.

  “Well, if she’s pissed at you, it’ll make me look better,” drawled a male voice beside him.

  Hunt didn’t bother to look pleasant. “Tell me you’ve found something.”

  The Crown Prince of the Valbaran Fae leaned against the edge of the booth, his strikingly blue eyes lingering on his cousin. He’d no doubt used those shadows of his to creep up without Hunt’s notice. “Negative. I got a call from the Raven’s owner that she was here. She was in bad enough shape when she left the crime scene that I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

  Hunt couldn’t argue with that. So he said nothing.

  Ruhn nodded toward where the females stood motionless in the middle of a sea of dancers. “She used to dance, you know. If she’d been able, she would have gone into the ballet like Juniper.”

  He hadn’t known—not really. Those facts had been blips on her file. “Why’d she drop it?”

  “You’ll have to ask her. But she stopped dancing completely after Danika died.”

  “And drinking, it seems.” Hunt glanced toward her discarded glass of water.

  Ruhn followed his line of sight. If he was surprised, the prince didn’t let on.

  Hunt took a sip of Bryce’s water and shook his head. Not a party girl at all—just content to let the world believe the worst of her.

  Including him. Hunt rolled his shoulders, wings moving with him, as he watched her on the dance floor. Yeah, he’d fucked up. Royally.

  Bryce looked toward the booth and when she saw her cousin there … There were trenches of Hel warmer than the look she gave Ruhn.

  Juniper tracked her gaze.

  Bryce took all of one step toward the booth before the club exploded.

  26

  One minute, Athalar and Ruhn were talking. One minute, Bryce was about to go rip into both of them for their alphahole protectiveness, smothering her even from afar. One minute, she was just trying not to drown in the weight that had yanked her under that too-familiar black surface. No amount of running could free her from it, buy her a sip of air.

  The next, her ears hollowed out, the ground ripped from beneath her, the ceiling rained down, people screamed, blood sprayed, fear scented the air, and she was twisting, lunging for Juniper—

  Shrill, incessant ringing filled her head.

  The world had been tipped on its side.

  Or maybe that was because she lay sprawled on the wrecked floor, debris and shrapnel and body parts around her.

  But Bryce kept down, stayed arched over Juniper, who might have been screaming—

  That shrill ringing wouldn’t stop. It drowned out every other sound. Coppery slickness in her mouth—blood. Plaster coated her skin.

  “Get up.” Hunt’s voice cut through the ringing, the screaming, the shrieking, and his strong hands wrapped around her shoulders. She thrashed against him, reaching for Juniper—

  But Ruhn was already there, blood running from his temple as he helped her friend stand—

  Bryce looked over every inch of Juniper: plaster and dust and someone else’s green blood, but not a scratch, not a scratch, not a scratch—

  Bryce swayed back into Hunt, who gripped her shoulders. “We need to get out—now,” the angel was saying to Ruhn, ordering her brother like a foot soldier. “There could be more.”

  Juniper pushed out of Ruhn’s grip and screamed at Bryce, “Are you out of your mind?”

  Her ears—her ears wouldn’t stop ringing, and maybe her brain was leaking because she couldn’t talk, couldn’t seem to remember how to use her limbs—

  Juniper swung. Bryce didn’t feel the impact on her cheek. Juniper sobbed as if her body would break apart. “I made the Drop, Bryce! Two years ago! You haven’t! Have you completely lost it?”

  A warm, strong arm slid across her abdomen, holding her upright. Hunt said, his mouth near her ear, “Juniper, she’s shell-shocked. Give it a rest.”

  Juniper snapped at him, “Stay out of this!” But people were wailing, screaming, and debris was still raining down. Pillars lay like fallen trees around them. June seemed to notice, to realize—

  Her body, gods, her body wouldn’t work—

  Hunt didn’t object when Ruhn gave them an address nearby and told them to go wait for him there. It was closer than her apartment, but frankly, Hunt wasn’t entirely sure Bryce would let him in—and if she went into shock and he couldn’t get past those enchantments … Well, Micah would spike his head to the front gates of the Comitium if she died on his watch.

  He might very well do that just for not sensing that the attack was about to happe
n.

  Quinlan didn’t seem to notice he was carrying her. She was heavier than she looked—her tan skin covered more muscle than he’d thought.

  Hunt found the familiar white-columned house a few blocks away; the key Ruhn had given him opened a green-painted door. The cavernous foyer was laced with two male scents other than the prince’s. A flick of the light switch revealed a grand staircase that looked like it’d been through a war zone, scuffed oak floors, and a crystal chandelier hanging precariously.

  Beneath it: a beer pong table painted with remarkable skill—portraying a gigantic Fae male swallowing an angel whole.

  Ignoring that particular fuck you to his kind, Hunt aimed for the living room to the left of the entry. A stained sectional lay against the far wall of the long room, and Hunt set Bryce down there as he hurried for the equally worn wet bar midway down the far wall. Water—she needed some water.

  There hadn’t been an attack in the city for years now—since Briggs. He’d felt the bomb’s power as it rippled through the club, shredding the former temple and its inhabitants apart. He’d leave it to the investigators to see what exactly it was, but—

  Even his lightning hadn’t been fast enough to stop it, not that it would have been any protection against a bomb, not in an ambush like that. He’d destroyed enough on battlefields to know how to intercept them with his power, how to match death with death, but this hadn’t been some long-range missile fired from a tank.

  It had been planted somewhere in the club, and detonated at a predetermined moment. There were a handful of people who might be capable of such a thing, and at the top of Hunt’s list … there was Philip Briggs again. Or his followers, at least—Briggs himself was still imprisoned at the Adrestia Prison. He’d think on it later, when his head wasn’t still spinning, and his lightning wasn’t still a crackle in his blood, hungry for an enemy to obliterate.

  Hunt turned his attention to the woman who sat on the couch, staring at nothing.

  Bryce’s green dress was wrecked, her skin was covered in plaster and someone else’s blood, her face pale—save for the red mark on her cheek.

  Hunt grabbed an ice pack from the freezer under the bar counter and a dish towel to wrap it in. He set the glass of water on the stained wood coffee table, then handed her the ice. “She slugged you pretty damn good.”

  Those amber eyes lifted slowly to him. Dried blood crusted inside her ears.

  A moment’s searching in the sorry-looking kitchen and bathroom cabinet revealed more towels and a first aid kit.

  He knelt on the worn gray carpet before her, tucking his wings in tight to keep them from tangling with the beer cans that littered the coffee table.

  She kept staring at nothing as he cleaned out her bloody ears.

  He didn’t have med-magic like a witch, but he knew enough battlefield healing to assess her arched ears. The Fae hearing would have made that explosion horrific—the human bloodline then slowing down the healing process. Mercifully, he found no signs of continued bleeding or damage.

  He started on the left ear. And when he’d finished, he noticed her knees were scraped raw, with shards of stone embedded in them.

  “Juniper stands a shot of being promoted to principal,” Bryce rasped at last. “The first faun ever. The summer season starts soon—she’s an understudy for the main roles in two of the ballets. A soloist in all five of them. This season is crucial. If she got injured, it could interfere.”

  “She made the Drop. She would have bounced back quickly.” He pulled a pair of tweezers from the kit.

  “Still.”

  She hissed as he carefully pried out some shards of metal and stone from her knee. She’d hit the ground hard. Even with the club exploding, he’d seen her move.

  She’d thrown herself right over Juniper, shielding her from the blast.

  “This will sting,” he told her, frowning at the bottle of healing solution. Fancy, high-priced stuff. Surprising that it was even here, given that the prince and his roommates had all made the Drop. “But it’ll keep it from scarring.”

  She shrugged, studying the massive, dark television screen over his shoulder.

  Hunt doused her leg with the solution, and she jerked. He gripped her calf hard enough to keep her down, even as she cursed. “I warned you.”

  She pushed a breath out between clenched teeth. The hem of her already short dress had ridden up with her movements, and Hunt told himself he looked only to assess if there were other injuries, but—

  The thick, angry scar cut across an otherwise sleek, unnervingly perfect thigh.

  Hunt stilled. She’d never gotten it healed.

  And every limp he’d sometimes caught her making from the corner of his eye … Not from her dumb fucking shoes. But from this. From him. From his clumsy battlefield instincts to staple her up like a soldier.

  “When males are kneeling between my legs, Athalar,” she said, “they’re not usually grimacing.”

  “What?” But her words registered, just at the moment he realized his hand still gripped her calf, the silky skin beneath brushing against the calluses on his palms. Just as he realized that he was indeed kneeling between her thighs, and had leaned closer to her lap to see that scar.

  Hunt reeled back, unable to help the heat rising to his face. He removed his hand from her leg. “Sorry,” he ground out.

  Any amusement faded from her eyes as she said, “Who do you think did it—the club?”

  The heat of her soft skin still stained his palm. “No idea.”

  “Could it have anything to do with us looking into this case?” Guilt already dampened her eyes, and he knew the body of the acolyte flashed through her mind.

  He shook his head. “Probably not. If someone wanted to stop us, a bullet in the head’s a lot more precise than blowing up a club. It could easily have been some rival of the club’s owner. Or the remaining Keres members looking to start more shit in this city.”

  Bryce asked, “You think we’ll have war here?”

  “Some humans want us to. Some Vanir want us to. To get rid of the humans, they say.”

  “They’ve destroyed parts of Pangera with the war there,” she mumbled. “I’ve seen the footage.” She looked at him, letting her unspoken question hang. How bad was it?

  Hunt just said, “Magic and machines. Never a good mix.”

  The words rippled between them. “I want to go home,” she breathed. He peeled off his jacket and settled it around her shoulders. It nearly devoured her. “I want to shower all this off.” She gestured at the blood on her bare skin.

  “Okay.” But the front door in the foyer opened. One set of booted feet.

  Hunt had his gun out, hidden against his thigh as he turned, when Ruhn walked in, shadows in his wake. “You’re not going to like this,” the prince said.

  She wanted to go home. Wanted to call Juniper. Wanted to call her mom and Randall just to hear their voices. Wanted to call Fury and learn what she knew, even if Fury wouldn’t pick up or answer her messages. Wanted to call Jesiba and make her find out what had happened. But she mostly just wanted to go home and shower.

  Ruhn, stone-faced and blood-splattered, halted in the archway.

  Hunt slid the handgun back into its holster at his thigh before sitting on the couch beside her.

  Ruhn went to the wet bar and filled a glass of water from the sink. Every movement was stiff, shadows whispering around him. But the prince exhaled and the shadows, the tension, vanished.

  Hunt spared her from demanding that Ruhn elaborate. “I’m assuming this has to do with whoever bombed the club?”

  Ruhn nodded and tossed back a gulp of water. “All signs point to the human rebels.” Bryce’s blood chilled. She and Hunt swapped glances. Their discussion moments ago hadn’t been far from the mark. “The bomb was smuggled into the club through some new exploding liquid hidden in a delivery of wine. They left the calling card on the crate—their own logo.”

  Hunt cut in. “Any potential connection
to Philip Briggs?”

  Ruhn said, “Briggs is still behind bars.” A polite way of describing the punishment the rebel leader now endured at Vanir hands in Adrestia Prison.

  “The rest of his Keres group isn’t,” Bryce croaked. “Danika was the one who made the raid on Briggs in the first place. Even if he didn’t kill her, he’s still doing time for his rebel crimes. He could have instructed his followers to carry out this bombing.”

  Ruhn frowned. “I thought they’d disbanded—joined other factions or returned to Pangera. But here’s the part you’re not going to like. Next to the logo on the crate was a branded image. My team and your team thought it was a warped C for Crescent City, but I looked at the footage of the storage area before the bomb went off. It’s hard to make out, but it could also be depicting a curved horn.”

  “What does the Horn have to do with the human rebellion?” Bryce asked. Then her mouth dried out. “Wait. Do you think that Horn image was a message to us? To warn us away from looking for the Horn? As if that acolyte wasn’t enough?”

  Hunt mused, “It can’t just be coincidence that the club was bombed when we were there. Or that one of the images on the crate seems like it could be the Horn, when we’re knee-deep in a search for it. Before Danika busted him, Briggs planned to blow up the Raven. The Keres sect has been inactive since he went to prison, but …”

  “They could be coming back,” Bryce insisted. “Looking to pick up where Briggs left off, or somehow getting directions from him even now.”

  Hunt looked somber. “Or it was one of Briggs’s followers all along—the planned bombing, Danika’s murder, this bombing … Briggs might not be guilty, but maybe he knows who is. He could be protecting someone.” He pulled out his phone. “We need to talk to him.”

  Ruhn said, “Are you fucking nuts?”

  Hunt ignored him and dialed a number, rising to his feet. “He’s in Adrestia Prison, so the request might take a few days,” he said to Bryce.