House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City)

by Sarah J. Maas

  Syrinx had finished his food and was staring expectantly at Hunt—silently pleading for more, that lion’s tail waggling. “No,” he hissed at the beast just as Bryce walked back into the main room.

  “Oh,” she said, as if she’d forgotten he was there. “I’m going to take a shower. Guest room is yours. Use whatever you need.”

  “I’ll swing by the Comitium tomorrow to get more clothes.” Bryce just nodded like her head weighed a thousand pounds. “Why’d you lie?” He’d let her decide which one she wanted to explain.

  She paused, Syrinx trotting ahead down the hall to her bedroom. “My mom would only worry and come visit. I don’t want her around if things are getting bad. And I didn’t tell her who you were because that would lead to questions, too. It’s easier this way.”

  Easier to not let herself enjoy life, easier to keep everyone at arm’s length.

  The mark on her cheek from Juniper’s slap had barely faded. Easier to throw herself on top of a friend as a bomb exploded, rather than risk losing them.

  She said quietly, “I need to find who did this, Hunt.”

  He met her raw, aching stare. “I know.”

  “No,” she said hoarsely. “You don’t. I don’t care what Micah’s motives are—if I don’t find this fucking person, it is going to eat me alive.” Not the murderer or the demon, but the pain and grief that he was only starting to realize dwelled inside her. “I need to find who did this.”

  “We will,” he promised.

  “How can you know that?” She shook her head.

  “Because we don’t have another choice. I don’t have another choice.” At her confused look, Hunt blew out a breath and said, “Micah offered me a deal.”

  Her eyes turned wary. “What sort of deal?”

  Hunt clenched his jaw. She’d offered up a piece of herself, so he could do the same. Especially if they were now gods-damned roommates. “When I first came here, Micah offered me a bargain: if I could make up for every life the 18th took that day on Mount Hermon, I’d get my freedom back. All two thousand two hundred and seventeen lives.” He steeled himself, willing her to hear what he couldn’t quite say.

  She chewed on her lip. “I’m assuming that make up means …”

  “Yes,” he ground out. “It means doing what I’m good at. A death for a death.”

  “Micah has more than two thousand people for you to assassinate?”

  Hunt let out a harsh laugh. “Micah is a Governor of an entire territory, and he will live for at least another two hundred years. He’ll probably have double that number of people on his shit list before he’s done.” Horror crept into her eyes, and he scrambled for a way to get rid of it, unsure why. “It comes with the job. His job, and mine.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, it’s awful, but he offered me a way out, at least. And when the killings started again, he offered me a different bargain: find the murderer before the Summit meeting, and he’d reduce the debts I owe to ten.”

  He waited for her judgment, her disgust with him and Micah. But she angled her head. “That’s why you’ve been a bullish pain the ass.”

  “Yes,” he said tightly. “Micah ordered me not to say anything, though. So if you breathe one word about it—”

  “His offer will be rescinded.”

  Hunt nodded, scanning her battered face. She said nothing more. After a heartbeat, he demanded, “Well?”

  “Well, what?” She again began walking toward her bedroom.

  “Well, aren’t you going to say that I’m a self-serving piece of shit?”

  She paused again, a faint ray of light entering her eyes. “Why bother, Athalar, when you just said it for me?”

  He couldn’t help it then. Even though she was bloodied and covered in debris, he looked her over. Every inch and curve. Tried not to think about the hot-pink underwear beneath that tight green dress. But he said, “I’m sorry I thought you were a suspect. And more than that, I’m sorry I judged you. I thought you were just a party girl, and I acted like an asshole.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being a party girl. I don’t get why the world thinks there is.” But she considered his words. “It’s easier for me—when people assume the worst about what I am. It lets me see who they really are.”

  “So you’re saying you think I’m really an asshole?” A corner of his mouth curled up.

  But her eyes were dead serious. “I’ve met and dealt with a lot of assholes, Hunt. You’re not one of them.”

  “You weren’t singing that tune earlier.”

  She just aimed for her room once more. So Hunt asked, “Want me to get food?”

  Again, she paused. She looked like she was about to say no, but then rasped, “Cheeseburger—with cheese fries. And a chocolate milkshake.”

  Hunt smiled. “You got it.”

  The elegant guest room on the other side of the kitchen was spacious, decorated in shades of gray and cream accented with pale rose and cornflower blue. The bed was big enough for Hunt’s wings, thankfully—definitely bought with Vanir in mind—and a few photos in expensive-looking frames were propped next to a lopsided, chipped ceramic blue bowl, all adorning a chest of drawers to the right of the door.

  He’d gotten them both burgers and fries, and Bryce had torn into hers with a ferocity that Hunt had seen only among lions gathered around a fresh kill. He’d tossed the whining Syrinx a few fries under the white glass table, since she sure as shit wasn’t sharing anything.

  Exhaustion had set in so thoroughly that neither of them spoke, and once she’d finished slurping down the milkshake, she’d merely gathered up the trash, dumped it into the bin, and headed to her room. Leaving Hunt to enter his.

  A mortal scent lingered that he assumed was courtesy of her parents, and as Hunt opened the drawers, he found some of them full of clothes—light sweaters, socks, pants, athletic-looking gear … He was snooping. Granted, it was part of the job description, but it was still snooping.

  He shut the drawers and studied the framed photos.

  Ember Quinlan had been a knockout. No wonder that Fae asshole had pursued her to the point where she’d bailed. Long black hair framed a face that could have been on a billboard: freckled skin, full lips, and high cheekbones that made the dark, depthless eyes above them striking.

  It was Bryce’s face—the coloring was just different. An equally attractive brown-skinned, dark-haired human male stood beside her, arm slung around her slim shoulders, grinning like a fiend at whoever was behind the camera. Hunt could just barely make out the writing on the silver dog tags dipping over the man’s gray button-up.

  Well, holy shit.

  Randall Silago was Bryce’s adoptive father? The legendary war hero and sharpshooter? He had no idea how he’d missed that fact in her file, though he supposed he had been skimming when he’d read it years ago.

  No wonder his daughter was so fearless. And there, to the right of Ember, stood Bryce.

  She was barely past three, that red hair pulled high into two floppy pigtails. Ember was looking at her daughter—the expression a bit exasperated—as if Bryce was supposed to be in the nice clothes that the two adults were wearing. But there she was, giving her mother an equally sassy look, hands on her chubby hips, legs set apart in an unmistakable fighting stance. Covered head to toe in mud.

  Hunt snickered and turned to the other photo on the dresser.

  It was a beautiful shot of two women—girls, really—sitting on some red rocks atop a desert mountain, their backs to the camera, shoulder-to-shoulder as they faced the scrub and sand far below. One was Bryce—he could tell from her sheet of red hair. The other was in a familiar leather jacket, the back painted with those words in the Republic’s most ancient language. Through love, all is possible.

  It had to be Bryce and Danika. And—that was Danika’s jacket that Bryce now wore.

  She had no other photos of Danika in the apartment.

  Through love, all is possible. It was an ancient saying, dating back to some god he c
ouldn’t remember. Cthona, probably—what with all the mother-goddess stuff she presided over. Hunt had long since stopped visiting temples, or paying much attention to the overzealous priestesses who popped up on the morning talk shows every now and then. None of the five gods had ever helped him—or anyone he cared about. Urd, especially, had fucked him over often enough.

  Danika’s blond ponytail draped down Bryce’s back as she leaned her head against her friend’s shoulder. Bryce wore a loose white T-shirt, showing a bandaged arm braced on her knee. Bruises peppered her body. And gods—that was a sword lying to Danika’s left. Sheathed and clean, but—he knew that sword.

  Sabine had gone ballistic searching for it when it was discovered to be missing from the apartment where her daughter had been murdered. Apparently it was some wolf heirloom. But there it lay, beside Bryce and Danika in the desert.

  Sitting there on those rocks, perched over the world, they seemed like two soldiers who had just walked through the darkest halls of Hel and were taking a well-earned break.

  Hunt turned from the picture and rubbed at the tattoo on his brow. A flick of his power had the heavy gray curtains sliding shut over the floor-to-ceiling windows on a chill wind. He peeled off his clothes one by one, and found the bathroom was just as spacious as the bedroom.

  Hunt showered quickly and fell into bed with his skin still drying. The last thing he saw before sleep overtook him was the photo of Bryce and Danika, frozen forever in a moment of peace.

  28

  Hunt woke the moment he scented a male in his room, his fingers wrapping around the knife under his pillow. He opened an eye, grip tightening on the hilt, remembering every window and doorway, every possible would-be weapon that he could wield to his advantage—

  He found Syrinx sitting on the pillow beside his, the chimera’s smooshed-up face peering into his own.

  Hunt groaned, a breath exploding out of him. Syrinx just swatted at his face.

  Hunt rolled out of reach. “Good morning to you, too,” he mumbled, scanning the room. He’d definitely shut the door last night. It now gaped wide open. He glanced at the clock.

  Seven. He hadn’t noticed Bryce get up for work—hadn’t heard her buzzing about the apartment or the music he knew she liked to play.

  Granted, he hadn’t heard his own door open, either. He’d slept like the dead. Syrinx rested his head on Hunt’s shoulder, and huffed a mournful sigh.

  Solas spare him. “Why do I get the feeling that if I give you breakfast, it’ll actually be your second or third meal of the day?”

  An innocent blink of those round eyes.

  Unable to help himself, Hunt scratched the little beast behind his silly ears.

  The sunny apartment beyond his room was silent, the light warming the pale wood floors. He eased from the bed, hauling on his pants. His shirt was a wreck from last night’s events, so he left it on the floor, and— Shit. His phone. He grabbed it from the bedside table and flicked through the messages. Nothing new, no missions from Micah, thank the gods.

  He left the phone on the dresser beside the door and padded into the great room.

  No sign or sound. If Quinlan had just left—

  He stormed across the space, to the hall on the other side. Her bedroom door was cracked, as if Syrinx had seen himself out, and—

  Sound asleep. The heap of blankets had been twisted and tossed around, and Quinlan lay belly-down on the bed, wrapped around a pillow. The position was almost identical to the one she’d been in last night in the club, flung over Juniper.

  Hunt was pretty sure most people would consider the low-backed gray nightgown, edged with pale pink lace, to be a shirt. Syrinx trotted past, leaping on the bed and nosing her bare shoulder.

  The tattoo down her back—scrolling, beautiful lines in some alphabet he didn’t recognize—rose and fell with each deep breath. Bruises he hadn’t noted last night peppered her golden skin, already greenish thanks to the Fae blood in her.

  And he was staring at her. Like a fucking creep.

  Hunt twisted for the hall, his wings suddenly too big, his skin too tight, when the front door swung open. A smooth movement had his knife angled behind him—

  Juniper breezed in, a brown bag of what smelled like chocolate pastries in one hand, a spare set of keys in another. She stopped dead as she spied him in the bedroom hallway.

  Her mouth popped open in a silent Oh.

  She looked him over—not in the way some females did until they noted the tattoos, but in the way that told him she realized a half-naked male stood in Bryce’s apartment at seven in the morning.

  He opened his mouth to say it wasn’t how it looked, but Juniper just strutted past, her delicate hooves clipping on the wood floors. She shoved into the bedroom, jostling the bag, and Syrinx went wild, curly tail wagging as Juniper trilled, “I brought chocolate croissants, so get that bare ass out of bed and into some pants.”

  Bryce lifted her head to see Juniper, then Hunt in the hall. She didn’t bother to tug the hem of her nightgown over her teal lace underwear as she squinted. “What?”

  Juniper strode to the bed and looked like she was about to plop onto it, but glanced at him.

  Hunt stiffened. “It’s not what it seems.”

  Juniper gave him a sweet smile. “Then some privacy would be nice.”

  He backed down the hall, into the kitchen. Coffee. That sounded like a good plan.

  He opened a cabinet, fishing out some mugs. Their voices flitted out to him anyway.

  “I tried calling you, but your phone wasn’t on—I figured you probably lost it,” Juniper said.

  Blankets rustled. “Are you all right?”

  “Totally fine. News reports are still speculating, but they think human rebels from Pangera did it, wanting to start trouble here. There’s video footage from the loading dock that shows their insignia on a case of wine. They think that’s how the bomb got in.”

  So the theory had held overnight. Whether it was truly connected to the Horn remained to be seen. Hunt made a note to check with Isaiah about the request to meet with Briggs as soon as Juniper left.

  “Is the Raven totally wrecked?”

  A sigh. “Yeah—really bad. No idea when it’ll be open again. I finally got a hold of Fury last night, and she said Riso’s mad enough that he put a bounty on the head of whoever was responsible.”

  No surprise there. Hunt had heard that despite his laughing nature, when the butterfly shifter got pissed, he went all in. Juniper went on, “Fury’s probably coming home because of it. You know she can’t resist a challenge.”

  Burning Solas. Throwing Fury Axtar into this mess was a bad fucking idea. Hunt spooned coffee beans into the gleaming chrome machine built into the kitchen wall.

  Quinlan asked tightly, “So she’ll come back home for a bounty, but not to see us?”

  A silence. Then, “You weren’t the only one who lost Danika that night, B. We all dealt with it in different ways. Fury’s answer to her pain was to bail.”

  “Your therapist tell you that?”

  “I’m not fighting with you about this again.”

  More silence. Juniper cleared her throat. “B, I’m sorry for what I did. You’ve got a bruise—”

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not—”

  “It is. I get it, I—”

  Hunt turned on the machine’s coffee grinder to give them some privacy. He might have ground the beans into a fine powder instead of rough shards, but when he finished, Juniper was saying, “So, the gorgeous angel who’s making you coffee right now—”

  Hunt grinned at the coffee machine. It had been a long, long while since anyone had bothered describing him as anything but Umbra Mortis, the Knife of the Archangels.

  “No, no, and no,” Bryce cut her off. “Jesiba is having me do a classified job, and Hunt was assigned to protect me.”

  “Is being shirtless in your house part of that assignment?”

  “You know how these Vanir males are. Th
ey live to show off their muscles.”

  Hunt rolled his eyes as Juniper laughed. “I’m shocked you’re even letting him stay here, B.”

  “I didn’t really have a choice.”

  “Hmmm.”

  A thump of bare feet on the ground. “You know he’s listening, right? His feathers are probably so puffed up he won’t be able to fit through the door.”

  Hunt leaned against the counter, the coffee machine doing the growling for him as Bryce stalked into the hallway. “Puffed up?”

  She certainly hadn’t bothered to fulfill her friend’s pants request. Each step had the pale pink lace of the nightgown’s hem brushing against her upper thighs, tugging up slightly to reveal that thick, brutal scar on the left leg. His stomach twisted at the sight of what he’d done to her.

  “Eyes up here, Athalar,” she drawled. Hunt scowled.

  But Juniper was following closely on Bryce’s heels, her hooves clopping lightly on the wood floors as she held up the pastry bag. “I just wanted to drop these off. I’ve got rehearsal in …” She fished her phone from the pocket of her tight black leggings. “Oh shit. Now. Bye, B.” She rushed to the door, chucking the pastry bag on the table with impressive aim.

  “Good luck—call me later,” Bryce said, already going to inspect her friend’s peace offering.

  Juniper lingered in the doorway long enough to say to him, “Do your job, Umbra.”

  Then she was gone.

  Bryce slid into one of the white leather chairs at the glass table and sighed as she pulled out a chocolate croissant. She bit in and moaned. “Do legionaries eat croissants?”

  He remained leaning against the counter. “Is that an actual question?”

  Crunch-munch-swallow. “Why are you up so early?”

  “It’s nearly seven thirty. Hardly early by anyone’s count. But your chimera nearly sat on my face, so how could I not be up? And how many people, exactly, have keys to this place?”

  She finished off her croissant. “My parents, Juniper, and the doorman. Speaking of which … I need to give those keys back—and get another copy made.”