“That’s none of your business.” The words were flat as Briggs’s eyes.
They tightened something in Hunt’s chest, her words. The vacancy in her voice.
Hunt asked him, “You never mentioned any of this when you were initially arrested?”
Briggs spat, “Why the fuck would I ever rat out a potentially sympathetic, incredibly powerful Vanir like Danika Fendyr? I might have been headed for this”—he gestured to the cell around them—“but the cause would live on. It had to live on, and I knew that someone like Danika could be a mighty ally to have on our side.”
Hunt cut in, “But why not mention any of this during your murder trial?”
“My trial? You mean that two-day sham they televised? With that lawyer the Governor assigned me?” Briggs laughed and laughed. Hunt had to remind himself that this was an imprisoned man, enduring unspeakable torture. And not someone he could punch in the face. Not even for the way his laugh made Quinlan shift in her seat. “I knew they’d pin it on me no matter what. Knew that even if I told the truth, I’d wind up here. So on the chance that Danika might have friends still living who shared her sentiments, I kept her secrets to myself.”
“You’re ratting her out now,” Bryce said.
But Briggs didn’t reply to that, and instead studied the dented metal table. “I said it two years ago, and I’ll say it again now: Keres didn’t kill Danika or the Pack of Devils. The White Raven bombing, though—they might have managed that. Good for them if they did.”
Hunt ground his teeth. Had he been this out of touch with reality when he’d followed Shahar? Had it been this level of fanaticism that prompted him to lead the angels of the 18th to Mount Hermon? In those last days, would he have even listened to anyone if they’d advised against it?
A hazy memory surfaced, of Isaiah doing just that, screaming in Hunt’s war tent. Fuck.
Briggs asked, “Did a lot of Vanir die in the bombing?”
Disgust curdled Bryce’s face. “No,” she said, standing from her chair. “Not a single one.” She spoke with the imperiousness of a queen. Hunt could only rise with her.
Briggs tsked. “Too bad.”
Hunt’s fingers balled into fists. He’d been so wildly in love with Shahar, with the cause—had he been no better than this man?
Bryce said tightly, “Thank you for answering our questions.” Without waiting for Briggs to reply, she hurried for the door. Hunt kept a step behind her, even with Briggs anchored to the table.
That she’d ended the meeting so quickly showed Hunt that Bryce shared his opinion: Briggs truly hadn’t killed Danika.
He’d nearly reached the open doorway when Briggs said to him, “You’re one of the Fallen, huh?” Hunt paused. Briggs smiled. “Tons of respect for you, man.” He surveyed Hunt from head to toe. “What part of the 18th did you serve in?”
Hunt said nothing. But Briggs’s blue eyes shone. “We’ll bring the bastards down someday, brother.”
Hunt glanced toward Bryce, already halfway down the hallway, her steps swift. Like she couldn’t stand to breathe the same air as the man chained to the table, like she had to get out of this awful place. Hunt himself had been here, interrogated people, more often than he cared to remember.
And the kill he’d made last night … It had lingered. Ticked off another life-debt, but it had lingered.
Briggs was still staring at him, waiting for Hunt to speak. The agreement that Hunt would have voiced weeks ago now dissolved on his tongue.
No, he’d been no better than this man.
He didn’t know where that put him.
“So Briggs and his followers are off the list,” Bryce said, folding her feet beneath her on her living room couch. Syrinx was already snoring beside her. “Unless you think he was lying?”
Hunt, seated at the other end of the sectional, frowned at the sunball game just starting on TV. “He was telling the truth. I’ve dealt with enough … prisoners to sense when someone’s lying.”
The words were clipped. He’d been on edge since they’d left the Comitium through the same unmarked street door they’d used to enter. No chance of running into Sandriel that way.
Hunt pointed to the papers Bryce had brought from the gallery, noting some of Danika’s movements and the list of names she’d compiled. “Remind me who’s the next suspect on your list?”
Bryce didn’t answer as she observed his profile, the light of the screen bouncing off his cheekbones, deepening the shadow beneath his strong jaw.
He truly was pretty. And really seemed to be in a piss-poor mood. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Says the guy who’s grinding his teeth so hard I can hear them.”
Hunt cut her a glare and spread a muscled arm along the back of the couch. He’d changed when they’d returned thirty minutes ago, having grabbed a quick bite at a noodles-and-dumplings food cart just down the block, and now wore a soft gray T-shirt, black sweats, and a white sunball cap turned backward.
It was the hat that had proven the most confusing—so ordinary and … guy-ish, for lack of a better word, that she’d been stealing glances at him for the past fifteen minutes. Stray locks of his dark hair curled around the edges, the adjustable band nearly covered the tattoo over his brow, and she had no idea why, but it was all just … Disgustingly distracting.
“What?” he asked, noting her gaze.
Bryce reached forward, her long braid slipping over a shoulder, and grabbed his phone from the coffee table. She snapped a photo of him and sent a copy to herself, mostly because she doubted anyone would believe her that Hunt fucking Athalar was sitting on her couch in casual clothes, sunball hat on backward, watching TV and drinking a beer.
The Shadow of Death, everyone.
“That’s annoying,” he said through his teeth.
“So is your face,” she said sweetly, tossing the phone to him. Hunt picked it up, snapped a photo of her, and then set it down, eyes on the game again.
She let him watch for another minute before she said, “You’ve been broody since Briggs.”
His mouth twisted toward the side. “Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
His fingers traced a circle along the couch cushion. “It brought up some bad shit. About—about the way I helped lead Shahar’s rebellion.”
She considered, retracing every horrid word and exchange in that cell beneath the Comitium.
Oh. Oh. She said carefully, “You’re nothing like Briggs, Hunt.”
His dark eyes slid toward her. “You don’t know me well enough to say that.”
“Did you willingly and gleefully risk innocent lives to further your rebellion?”
His mouth thinned. “No.”
“Well, there you have it.”
Again, his jaw worked. Then he said, “But I was blind. About a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Just a lot,” he hedged. “Looking at Briggs, what they’re doing to him … I don’t know why it bothered me this time. I’ve been down there often enough with other prisoners that—I mean …” His knee bounced. He said without looking at her, “You know what kinda shit I have to do.”
She said gently, “Yeah.”
“But for whatever reason, seeing Briggs like that today, it just made me remember my own …” He trailed off again and swigged from his beer.
Icy, oily dread filled her stomach, twisting with the fried noodles she’d inhaled thirty minutes ago. “How long did they do that to you—after Mount Hermon?”
“Seven years.”
She closed her eyes as the weight of those words rippled through her.
Hunt said, “I lost track of time, too. The Asteri dungeons are so far beneath the earth, so lightless, that days are years and years are days and … When they let me out, I went right to the Archangel Ramuel. My first … handler. He continued the pattern for two years, got bored with it, and realized that I’d be more useful dispatching demons and doing his bidding
than rotting away in his torture chambers.”
“Burning Solas, Hunt,” she whispered.
He still didn’t look at her. “By the time Ramuel decided to let me serve as his assassin, it had been nine years since I’d seen sunlight. Since I’d heard the wind or smelled the rain. Since I’d seen grass, or a river, or a mountain. Since I’d flown.”
Her hands shook enough that she crossed her arms, tucking her fingers tight to her body. “I—I am so sorry.”
His eyes turned distant, glazed. “Hatred was the only thing that fueled me through it. Briggs’s kind of hatred. Not hope, not love. Only unrelenting, raging hatred. For the Archangels. For the Asteri. For all of it.” He finally looked at her, his eyes as hollow as Briggs’s had been. “So, yeah. I might not have ever been willing to kill innocents to help Shahar’s rebellion, but that’s the only difference between me and Briggs. Still is.”
She didn’t let herself reconsider before she took his hand.
She hadn’t realized how much bigger Hunt’s hand was until hers coiled around it. Hadn’t realized how many calluses lay on his palms and fingers until they rasped against her skin.
Hunt glanced down at their hands, her dusk-painted nails contrasting with the deep gold of his skin. She found herself holding her breath, waiting for him to snatch his hand back, and asked, “Do you still feel like hatred is all that gets you through the day?”
“No,” he said, eyes lifting from their hands to scan her face. “Sometimes, for some things, yes, but … No, Quinlan.”
She nodded, but he was still watching her, so she reached for the spreadsheets.
“You have nothing else to say?” Hunt’s mouth twisted to the side. “You, the person who has an opinion on everything and everyone, have nothing else to say about what I just told you?”
She pushed her braid over her shoulder. “You’re not like Briggs,” she said simply.
He frowned. And began to withdraw his hand from hers.
Bryce clamped her fingers around his. “You might see yourself that way, but I see you, too, Athalar. I see your kindness and your … whatever.” She squeezed his hand for emphasis. “I see all the shit you conveniently forget. Briggs is a bad person. He might have once gotten into the human rebellion for the right reasons, but he is a bad person. You aren’t. You will never be. End of story.”
“This bargain I’ve got with Micah suggests otherwise—”
“You’re not like him.”
The weight of his stare pressed on her skin, warmed her face.
She withdrew her hand as casually as she could, trying not to note how his own fingers seemed hesitant to let go. But she leaned forward, stretching out her arm, and flicked his hat. “What’s up with this, by the way?”
He batted her away. “It’s a hat.”
“It doesn’t fit with your whole predator-in-the-night image.”
For a heartbeat, he was utterly silent. Then he laughed, tipping back his head. The strong tan column of his throat worked with the movement, and Bryce crossed her arms again.
“Ah, Quinlan,” he said, shaking his head. He swept the hat off his head and plunked it down atop her own. “You’re merciless.”
She grinned, twisting the cap backward the way he’d worn it, and primly shuffled the papers. “Let’s look this over again. Since Briggs was a bust, and the Viper Queen’s out … maybe there’s something with Danika at Luna’s Temple the night the Horn was stolen that we’re missing.”
He drifted closer, his thigh grazing her bent knee, and peered at the papers in her lap. She watched his eyes slide over them as he studied the list of locations. And tried not to think about the warmth of that thigh against her leg. The solid muscle of it.
Then he lifted his head.
He was close enough that she realized his eyes weren’t black after all, but rather a shade of darkest brown. “We’re idiots.”
“At least you said we.”
He snickered, but didn’t pull back. Didn’t move that powerful leg of his. “The temple has exterior cameras. They would have been recording the night the Horn was stolen.”
“You make it sound as if the 33rd didn’t check that two years ago. They said the blackout rendered any footage essentially useless.”
“Maybe we didn’t run the right tests on the footage. Look at the right fields. Ask the right people to examine it. If Danika was there that night, why didn’t anyone know that? Why didn’t she come forward about being at the temple when the Horn was stolen? Why didn’t the acolyte say anything about her presence?”
Bryce chewed on her lip. Hunt’s eyes dipped to it. She could have sworn they darkened. That his thigh pressed harder into hers. As if in challenge—a dare to see if she’d back down.
She didn’t, but her voice turned hoarse as she said, “You think Danika might have known who took the Horn—and she tried to hide it?” She shook her head. “Danika wouldn’t have done that. She barely seemed to care that the Horn had been stolen at all.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But let’s start by looking at the footage, even if it’s a whole lot of nothing. And send it to someone who can give us a more comprehensive analysis.” He swiped his hat off her head, and put it back on his own—still backward, still with those little curling pieces of hair peeking around the edges. As if for good measure, he tugged the end of her braid, then folded his hands behind his head as he went back to watching the game.
The absence of his leg against hers was like a cold slap. “Who do you have in mind?”
His mouth just curved upward.
36
The three-level shooting range in Moonwood catered to a lethal, creative clientele. Occupying a converted warehouse that stretched four city blocks along the Istros, it boasted the only sniper-length gallery in the city.
Hunt stopped by every few weeks to keep his skills sharp, usually in the dead of night when no one could gawk at the Umbra Mortis donning a pair of earmuffs and military-grade glasses as he walked through the concrete hallways to one of the private galleries.
It had been late when he’d gotten the idea for this meeting, and then Jesiba had slammed Quinlan with work the next day, so they’d decided to wait until nightfall to see where their quarry wound up. Hunt had bet Bryce a gold mark it’d be a tattoo parlor, and she’d raised him to two gold marks that it’d be a fake-grungy rock bar. But when she’d gotten the reply to her message, it had led them here.
The sniper gallery lay on the northern end of the building, accessible through a heavy metal door that sealed off any sound. They grabbed electronic earmuffs that would stifle the boom of the guns—but still allow them to hear each other’s voices—on the way in. Before he entered the gallery, Hunt glanced over a shoulder at Bryce, checking that her earmuffs were in place.
She noted his assessing look and chuckled. “Mother hen.”
“I wouldn’t want your pretty little ears to get blown out, Quinlan.” He didn’t give her the chance to reply as he opened the door, thumping music blasting to greet them, and beheld the three males lined up along a waist-high glass barrier.
Lord Tristan Flynn had a sniper rifle aimed toward a person-shaped paper target at the far, far end of the space, so distant a mortal could barely make it out. He’d opted out of using the scope, instead relying on his keen Fae eyesight as Danaan and Declan Emmet stood near him, their own rifles hanging off their shoulders.
Ruhn nodded their way, and motioned to wait a moment.
“He’s gonna miss,” Emmet observed over the bumping bass of the music, barely sparing Hunt and Bryce a glance. “Off by a half inch.”
“Screw you, Dec,” Flynn muttered, and fired. The gunshot erupted through the space, the sound absorbed by the padding along the ceiling and walls, and at the far end of the gallery, the piece of paper swayed, the torso rippling.
Flynn lowered the rifle. “Straight shot to the balls, dickbags.” He held out his palm toward Ruhn. “Pay up.”
Ruhn rolled his eyes and slammed a gol
d coin into it as he turned to Hunt and Bryce.
Hunt glanced at the prince’s two friends, who were now sizing him up as they pulled off their earmuffs and eye gear. He and Bryce followed suit.
He didn’t expect the tinge of envy curdling in his gut at the sight of the friends together. A glance at Quinlan’s stiff shoulders had him wondering if she felt the same—if she was remembering nights with Danika and the Pack of Devils when they’d had nothing better to do than give each other grief over nonsense.
Bryce shook it off faster than Hunt did as she drawled, “Sorry to interrupt you boys playing commando, but we have some adult things to discuss.”
Ruhn set his rifle on the metal table to his left and leaned against the glass barrier. “You could have called.”
Bryce strode to the table to examine the gun her cousin had set down. Her nails glimmered against the matte black. Stealth weapons, designed to blend into shadows and not give away their bearer with a gleam. “I didn’t want this intel out there in the networks.”
Flynn flashed a grin. “Cloak-and-dagger shit. Nice.” He sidled up to her at the table, close enough that Hunt found himself tensing. “Color me intrigued.”
Quinlan’s gift of looking down her nose at males who towered above her usually grated on Hunt to no end. But seeing it used on someone else was a true delight.
Yet that imperious look only seemed to make Flynn’s grin grow wider, especially as Bryce said, “I’m not here to talk to you.”
“You wound me, Bryce,” Flynn drawled.
Declan Emmet snickered. “You up to do some more hacking shit?” Quinlan asked him.
“Call it shit again, Bryce, and see if I help you,” Declan said coolly.
“Sorry, sorry. Your technology … stuff.” She waved a hand. “We need analysis of some footage from Luna’s Temple the night the Horn was stolen.”
Ruhn went still, his blue eyes flaring as he said to Hunt, “You’ve got a lead on the Horn?”
House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) Page 35