“And get me a set.”
The second croissant was halfway to her mouth when she set it down. “Not going to happen.”
He held her stare. “Yes, it is. And you’ll change the enchantments so I can get access—”
She bit into the croissant. “Isn’t it exhausting to be an alphahole all the time? Do you guys have a handbook for it? Maybe secret support groups?”
“An alpha-what?”
“Alphahole. Possessive and aggressive.” She waved a hand at his bare torso. “You know—you males who rip your shirt off at the slightest provocation, who know how to kill people in twenty different ways, who have females falling over themselves to be with you; and when you finally bang one, you go full-on mating-frenzy with her, refusing to let another male look at or talk to her, deciding what and when she needs to eat, what she should wear, when she sees her friends—”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your favorite hobbies are brooding, fighting, and roaring; you’ve perfected about thirty different types of snarls and growls; you’ve got a cabal of hot friends, and the moment one of you mates, the others fall like dominoes, too, and gods help you when you all start having babies—”
He snatched the croissant out of her hand. That shut her up.
Bryce gaped at him, then at the pastry, and Hunt wondered if she’d bite him as he lifted it to his mouth. Damn, but it was good.
“One,” he told her, yanking over a chair and turning it backward for him to straddle. “The last thing I want to do is fuck you, so we can take the whole Sex, Mating, and Baby option off the table. Two, I don’t have friends, so there sure as fuck will be no couples-retreat lifestyle anytime soon. Three, if we’re complaining about people who are clothing-optional …” He finished the croissant and gave her a pointed look. “I’m not the one who parades around this apartment in a bra and underwear every morning while getting dressed.”
He’d worked hard to forget that particular detail. How after her morning run, she did her hair and makeup in a routine that took her more than an hour from start to finish. Wearing only what seemed to be an extensive, and rather spectacular, assortment of lingerie.
Hunt supposed if he looked the way she did, he’d wear that shit, too.
Bryce only glared at him—his mouth, his hand—and grumbled, “That was my croissant.”
The coffee machine beeped, but he kept his ass planted in the chair. “You’re going to get me a new set of keys. And add me to the enchantments. Because it’s part of my job, and being assertive isn’t the first sign of being an alphahole—it’s a sign of me wanting to make sure you don’t wind up dead.”
“Stop cursing so much. You’re upsetting Syrinx.”
He leaned close enough to note gold flecks in her amber eyes. “You have the dirtiest mouth I’ve ever heard, sweetheart. And from the way you act, I think you might be the alphahole here.”
She hissed.
“See?” he drawled. “What was it you said? An assortment of snarls and growls?” He waved a hand. “Well, there you go.”
She tapped her dusk-sky nails on the glass table. “Don’t ever eat my croissant again. And stop calling me sweetheart.”
Hunt threw her a smirk and rose. “I need to head to the Comitium for my clothes. Where are you going to be?”
Bryce scowled and said nothing.
“The answer,” Hunt went on, “is with me. Anywhere you or I go, we go together from now on. Got it?”
She flipped him off. But she didn’t argue further.
29
Micah Domitus might have been an asshole, but at least he gave his triarii the weekend off—or its equivalent if a particular duty required them to work through it.
Jesiba Roga, no surprise, didn’t seem to believe in weekends. And since Quinlan was expected at work, Hunt had decided they’d hit the barracks at the Comitium during lunch, while most people were distracted.
The thick veils of morning mist hadn’t burned off by the time Hunt trailed Bryce on her way to work. No new updates had been delivered to him on the bombing, and there was no mention of further attacks that matched the kristallos’s usual methods.
But Hunt still kept his focus sharp, assessing every person who passed the redhead below. Most people spotted Syrinx, prancing at the end of his leash, and gave her a healthy berth. Chimeras were volatile pets—prone to small magics and biting. No matter that Syrinx seemed more interested in whatever food he could swindle out of people.
Bryce wore a little black dress today, her makeup more subdued, heavier on the eyes, lighter on the lipstick … Armor, he realized as she and Syrinx wound through other commuters and tourists, dodging cars already honking with impatience at the usual Old Square traffic. The clothes, the hair, the makeup—they were like the leather and steel and guns he donned every morning.
Except he didn’t wear lingerie beneath it.
For whatever reason, he found himself dropping onto the cobblestones behind her. She didn’t so much as flinch, her sky-high black heels unfaltering. Impressive as Hel, for her to walk on the ancient streets without snapping an ankle. Syrinx huffed his greeting and kept trotting, proud as an imperial parade horse. “Your boss ever give you a day off?”
She sipped from the coffee she balanced in her free hand. She drank a surely illegal amount of the stuff throughout the day. Starting with no less than three cups before they’d left the apartment. “I get Sundays off,” she said. Palm fronds hissed in the chill breeze above them. The tan skin of her legs pebbled with the cold. “Many of our clients are busy enough that they can’t come in during the workweek. Saturday is their day of leisure.”
“Do you get holidays off at least?”
“The store is closed on the major ones.” She idly jangled the tri-knot amulet around her neck.
An Archesian charm like that had to cost … Burning Solas, it had to cost a fuck-ton. Hunt thought about the heavy iron door to the archives. Perhaps it hadn’t been put there to keep thieves out … but to keep things in.
He had a feeling she wouldn’t tell him any details about why the art required her to wear such an amulet, so he instead asked, “What’s the deal with you and your cousin?” Who would be arriving at the gallery at some point this morning.
Bryce gently pulled on Syrinx’s leash when he lunged for a squirrel scampering up a palm tree. “Ruhn and I were close for a few years when I was a teenager, and then we had a big fight. I stopped speaking to him after that. And things have been … well, you see how things are now.”
“What’d you fight about?”
The morning mist swirled past as she fell quiet, as if debating what to reveal. She said, “It started off as a fight about his father. What a piece of shit the Autumn King is, and how Ruhn was wrapped around his finger. It devolved into a screaming match about each other’s flaws. I walked out when Ruhn said that I was flirting with his friends like a shameless hussy and to stay away from them.”
Ruhn had said far worse than that, Hunt recalled. At Luna’s Temple, he’d heard Bryce refer to him calling her a half-breed slut. “I’ve always known Danaan was an asshole, but even for him, that’s low.”
“It was,” she admitted softly, “But … honestly, I think he was being protective of me. That’s what the argument was about, really. He was acting like every other domineering Fae asshole out there. And just like my father.”
Hunt asked, “You ever have contact with him?” There were a few dozen Fae nobles that might be monstrous enough to have prompted Ember Quinlan to bail all those years ago.
“Only when I can’t avoid it. I think I hate him more than anyone else in Midgard. Except for Sabine.” She sighed skyward, watching angels and witches zoom past above the buildings around them. “Who’s number one on your shit list?”
Hunt waited until they’d passed a reptilian-looking Vanir typing on their phone before he replied, mindful of every camera mounted on the buildings or hidden in trees or garbage cans. “Sandriel.”<
br />
“Ah.” Only Sandriel’s first name was necessary for anyone on Midgard. “From what I’ve seen on TV, she seems …” Bryce grimaced.
“Whatever you’ve seen is the pleasant version. The reality is ten times worse. She’s a sadistic monster.” To say the least. He added, “I was forced to … work for her for more than half a century. Until Micah.” He couldn’t say the word—owned. He’d never let Sandriel have that kind of power over him. “She and the commander of her triarii, Pollux, take cruelty and punishment to new levels.” He clenched his jaw, shaking off the blood-soaked memories. “They’re not stories to tell on a busy street.” Or at all.
But she eyed him. “You ever want to talk about it, Athalar, I’m here.”
She said it casually, but he could read the sincerity in her face. He nodded. “Likewise.”
They passed the Old Square Gate, tourists already queued to take photos or touch the disk on the dial pad, gleefully handing over a drop of their power as they did so. None seemed aware of the body that had been found a few blocks away. In the drifting mist, the quartz Gate was almost ethereal, like it had been carved from ancient ice. Not one rainbow graced the buildings around it—not in the fog.
Syrinx sniffed at a trash can overflowing with food waste from the stands around the square. “You ever touch the disk and make a wish?” Bryce asked.
He shook his head. “I thought it was something only kids and tourists did.”
“It is. But it’s fun.” She tossed her hair over a shoulder, smiling to herself. “I made a wish here when I was thirteen—when I visited the city for the first time. Ruhn took me.”
Hunt lifted a brow. “What’d you wish for?”
“For my boobs to get bigger.”
A laugh burst out of him, chasing away any lingering shadows that talk of Sandriel dragged up. But Hunt avoided looking at Bryce’s chest as he said, “Seems your wish paid off, Quinlan.” Understatement. Big, fucking, lace-covered understatement.
She chuckled. “Crescent City: Where dreams come true.”
Hunt elbowed her ribs, unable to stop himself from making physical contact.
She batted him away. “What would you wish for, if you knew it’d come true?”
For his mother to be alive and safe and happy. For Sandriel and Micah and all the Archangels and Asteri to be dead. For his bargain with Micah to be over and the halo and slave tattoos removed. For the rigid hierarchies of the malakim to come crashing down.
But he couldn’t say any of that. Wasn’t ready to say those things aloud to her.
So Hunt said, “Since I’m perfectly happy with the size of my assets, I’d wish for you to stop being such a pain in my ass.”
“Jerk.” But Bryce grinned, and damn if the morning sun didn’t finally make an appearance at the sight of it.
The library beneath Griffin Antiquities would have made even the Autumn King jealous.
Ruhn Danaan sat at the giant worktable in its heart, still needing a moment to take in the space—and the fire sprite who’d batted her eyelashes and asked if all his piercings had hurt.
Bryce and Athalar sat on the other side of the table, the former typing at a laptop, the latter leafing through a pile of old tomes. Lehabah lay on what seemed to be a doll’s fainting couch, a digital tablet propped up before her, watching one of the more popular Vanir dramas.
“So,” Bryce said without glancing up from the computer, “are you going to look around or sit there and gawk?”
Athalar snickered, but said nothing, his finger tracing over a line of text.
Ruhn glared at him. “What are you doing?”
“Researching the kristallos,” Hunt said, his dark eyes lifting from the book. “I’ve killed about a dozen Type-Six demons over the centuries, and I want to see if there are any similarities.”
“Is the kristallos a Type-Six?” Ruhn asked.
“I’m assuming it is,” Hunt replied, studying the book again. “Type-Seven is only for the princes themselves, and given what this thing can do, I’d bet it’d be deemed a Six.” He drummed his fingers on the ancient page. “I haven’t seen any similarities, though.”
Bryce hummed. “Maybe you’re looking in the wrong spot. Maybe …” She angled her laptop toward Athalar, fingers flying. “We’re looking for info on something that hasn’t entered this world in fifteen thousand years. The fact that no one could ID it suggests it might not have made it into many of the history books, and only a handful of those books survived this long. But …” More typing, and Ruhn craned his neck to see the database she pulled up. “Where are we right now?” she asked Athalar.
“A library.”
“An antiquities gallery, dumbass.” A page loaded, full of images of ancient vases and amphorae, mosaics, and statues. She’d typed demon + Fae into the search bar. Bryce slid the laptop to Hunt. “Maybe we can find the kristallos in ancient art.”
Hunt grumbled, but Ruhn noted the impressed gleam in his eyes before he began scanning through the pages of results.
“I’ve never met a prince before,” Lehabah sighed from the couch.
“They’re overrated,” Ruhn said over a shoulder.
Athalar grunted his agreement.
“What is it like,” the sprite asked, propping her fiery head on a burning fist, “to be the Chosen One?”
“Boring,” Ruhn admitted. “Beyond the sword and some party tricks, there’s not much to it.”
“Can I see the Starsword?”
“I left it at home. I didn’t feel like having to deal with tourists stopping me on every block, wanting to take pictures.”
“Poor little prince,” Bryce cooed.
Hunt grunted his agreement again, and Ruhn bit out, “You got something to say, Athalar?”
The angel’s eyes lifted from the laptop. “She said it all.”
Ruhn snarled, but Bryce asked, surveying them, “What’s the deal with you two?”
“Oh, do tell,” Lehabah pleaded, pausing her show to perk up on the couch.
Hunt went back to perusing the results. “We beat the shit out of each other at a party. Danaan’s still sore about it.”
Bryce’s grin was the definition of shit-eating. “Why’d you fight?”
Ruhn snapped, “Because he’s an arrogant asshole.”
“Likewise,” Hunt said, mouth curling in a half smile.
Bryce threw Lehabah a knowing look. “Boys and their pissing contests.”
Lehabah made a prim little sound. “Not nearly as advanced as us ladies.”
Ruhn rolled his eyes, surprised to find Athalar doing the same.
Bryce gestured to the endless shelves that filled the library. “Well, cousin,” she said, “have at it. Let your Starborn powers guide you to enlightenment.”
“Funny,” he said, but began walking toward the shelves, scanning the titles. He paused at the various tanks and terrariums built into the bookcases, the small animals within wholly uninterested in his presence. He didn’t dare ask if the rumors about them were true, especially not when Lehabah called over from her couch, “The tortoise is named Marlene.”
Ruhn gave his sister an alarmed look, but Bryce was doing something on her phone.
Music began playing a moment later, trickling in from speakers hidden in the wood panels. Ruhn listened to the first strains of the song—just a guitar and two soaring, haunting female voices. “You’re still into this band?” As a kid, she’d been obsessed with the sister folk duo.
“Josie and Laurel keep making good music, so I keep listening.” She swiped at her phone.
Ruhn continued his idle browsing. “You always had really good taste.” He tossed it out there—a rope into the stormy sea that was their relationship.
She didn’t look up, but she said a shade quietly, “Thanks.”
Athalar, wisely, didn’t say a word.
Ruhn scanned the shelves, waiting to feel a tug toward anything beyond the sister who’d spoken more to him in the past few days than she had in nine years. T
he titles were in the common language, the Old Language of the Fae, the mer, and a few other alphabets he didn’t recognize. “This collection is amazing.”
Ruhn reached for a blue tome whose spine glittered with gold foil. Words of the Gods.
“Don’t touch it,” Lehabah warned. “It might bite.”
Ruhn snatched back his hand as the book stirred, rumbling on the shelf. His shadows murmured inside him, readying to strike. He willed them to settle. “Why does the book move?”
“Because they’re special—” Lehabah began.
“Enough, Lele,” Bryce warned. “Ruhn, don’t touch anything without permission.”
“From you or the book?”
“Both,” she said. As if in answer, a book high up on the shelf rustled. Ruhn craned his head to look, and saw a green tome … shining. Beckoning. His shadows murmured, as if in urging. All right, then.
It was a matter of moments to drag over the brass ladder and scale it. Bryce said, seemingly to the library itself, “Don’t bother him,” before Ruhn pulled the book from its resting place. He rolled his eyes at the title. Great Romances of the Fae.
Starborn power indeed. Tucking the book into the crook of his arm, he descended the ladder and returned to the table.
Bryce choked on a laugh at the title. “You sure that Starborn power isn’t for finding smut?” She called to Lehabah, “This one’s right up your alley.”
Lehabah burned to a raspberry pink. “BB, you’re horrible.”
Athalar winked at him. “Enjoy.”
“I will,” Ruhn shot back, flipping open the book. His phone buzzed before he could begin. He fished it from his back pocket and glanced at the screen. “Dec’s got the intel you wanted.”
Bryce and Athalar went still. Ruhn opened the email, then his fingers hovered over the forwarding screen. “I, uh … is your email still the same?” he asked her. “And I don’t have yours, Athalar.”
Hunt rattled his off, but Bryce frowned at Ruhn for a long moment, as if weighing whether she wanted to open yet another door into her life. She then sighed and answered, “Yes, it’s the same.”
House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) Page 30