House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) (28 page)

Ruhn looked at both of them as Hunt again sat on the couch. “My father said that since I have now involved you in something so dangerous, Bryce, you need a guard to … remain with you at all times. Live with you. I volunteered.”

Every part of her battered body ached. “Over my dead fucking corpse.”

Hunt crossed his arms. “Why does your king care if Quinlan lives or dies?”

Ruhn’s eyes grew cold. “I asked him the same. He said that she falls under his jurisdiction, as half-Fae, and he doesn’t want to have to clean up any messy situations.
The girl is a liability
, he said.” Bryce could hear the cruel tones in every word Ruhn mimicked. Could see her father’s face as he spoke them. She often imagined how it’d
feel to beat in that perfect face with her fists. To give him a scar like the one her mother bore along her cheekbone—small and slender, no longer than a fingernail, but a reminder of the blow he’d given her when his hideous rage drove him too far.

The blow that had sent Ember Quinlan running—pregnant with Bryce.

Creep. Old, hateful creep.

“So he’s just concerned about the PR nightmare of Quinlan’s death before the Summit,” Hunt said roughly, disgust tightening his face.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Ruhn said, then added to Bryce, “I’m only the messenger. Consider whether it’s wise to pick this as your big battle with him.”

No chance in Hel was she letting
Ruhn
into her apartment to order her around. Especially with those friends of his. It was bad enough she had to work with him on this case.

Gods, her head was pounding. “Fine,” she said, simmering. “He said I needed a guard—not you specifically, right?” At Ruhn’s tense silence, Bryce went on, “That’s what I thought. Athalar stays with me instead. Order fulfilled. Happy?”

“He won’t like that.”

Bryce smiled smugly, even as her blood simmered. “He didn’t say who the guard had to be. The bastard should have been more precise with his wording.”

Even Ruhn couldn’t argue against that.

If Athalar was shocked at Bryce’s choice of roommates, he didn’t let on.

Ruhn watched the angel glance between them—carefully.

Fuck. Had Athalar finally started putting it together—that they were more entwined than cousins should be, that Ruhn’s father
shouldn’t
be taking such an interest in her?

Bryce seethed at Ruhn, “Did you put your father up to this?”

“No,” Ruhn said. His father had cornered him about the temple visit right as he left the ruined club. Honestly, given how pissed the
male had been, it was a miracle Ruhn wasn’t dead in a gutter. “He’s got a network of spies that even I don’t know about.”

Bryce scowled, but it morphed into a wince as she got off the couch, Athalar keeping a hand within easy reach of her elbow, should she need it.

Ruhn’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket long enough to read the message on the screen. And the others that began flying in.

Declan had written in the group chain with Flynn,
What the fuck happened?

Flynn replied,
I’m at the club. Sabine sent Amelie Ravenscroft to head the Aux packs hauling away debris and helping the wounded. Amelie said she saw you leave, Ruhn. You all right?

Ruhn answered, just so they wouldn’t call.
I’m fine. I’ll meet you at the club soon.
He squeezed the phone in his fist as Bryce made her way toward the front door and the Helscape beyond. Blue and red sirens blared, casting their light on the oak floors of the foyer.

But his sister paused before reaching for the handle, twisting to ask him, “Why were you at the Raven earlier?”

And here it was. If he mentioned the call Riso had made to him, that Ruhn had been keeping tabs on her, he’d get his head bitten off. So Ruhn half lied, “I want to check out your boss’s library.”

Hunt paused, a step behind Bryce. It was impressive, really, to watch both of them plaster confused expressions on their faces.

“What library?” she asked, the portrait of innocence.

Ruhn could have sworn Athalar was trying not to smile. But he said tightly, “The one everyone says is beneath the gallery.”

“First I’ve heard of it,” Hunt said with a shrug.

“Fuck off, Athalar.” Ruhn’s jaw ached from clenching it so hard.

Bryce said, “Look, I get that you want in on our little cool kids’ club, but there’s a strict membership-vetting process.”

Yeah, Athalar was trying really hard not to smile.

Ruhn growled, “I want to look at the books there. See if anything about the Horn jumps out.” She paused at the tone in his voice, the bit of dominance Ruhn threw into it. He wasn’t above pulling rank. Not where this was concerned.

Though Athalar was glaring daggers at him, Ruhn said to his sister, “I’ve been through the Fae Archives twice, and …” He shook his head. “I just kept thinking about the gallery. So maybe there’s something there.”

“I searched it,” she said. “There’s nothing about the Horn beyond vague mentions.”

Ruhn gave her a half smile. “So you admit there’s a library.”

Bryce frowned at him. He knew that contemplative look. “What.”

Bryce flipped her hair over a dirty, torn shoulder. “I’ll make a bargain with you: you can come hunt for the Horn at the gallery, and I’ll help in whatever way I can. If—” Athalar whipped his head to her, the outrage on his face almost delightful. Bryce went on, nodding to the phone in Ruhn’s hand, “
If
you put Declan at my disposal.”

“I’ll have to tell him about this case, then. And what he knows, Flynn will learn two seconds later.”

“Fine. Go ahead and fill them in. But tell Dec I need intel about Danika’s last movements.”

“I don’t know where he can get that,” Ruhn admitted.

“The Den would have it,” Hunt said, eyeing Bryce with something like admiration. “Tell Emmet to hack the Den archives.”

So Ruhn nodded. “Fine. I’ll ask him later.”

Bryce gave him that smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “Then come by the gallery tomorrow.”

Ruhn had to give himself a moment to master his shock at how easy it had been to get access. Then he said, “Be careful out there.”

If she and Athalar were right and it
was
some Keres rebels acting on Briggs’s request or in his honor … the political mess would be a nightmare. And if he hadn’t been wrong about that
C
actually being an image of the Horn, if this bombing and the acolyte’s murder were targeted warnings to them regarding their search for it … then the threat to all of them had just become a Hel of a lot deadlier.

Bryce said sweetly before continuing on, “Tell your daddy we say hello—and that he can go fuck himself.”

Ruhn gritted his teeth again, earning another grin from Athalar. Winged asshole.

The two of them strode through the door, and Ruhn’s phone rang a heartbeat after that.

“Yeah,” he said.

Ruhn could have sworn he could hear his father tense before the male drawled, “Is that how you speak to your king?”

Ruhn didn’t bother replying. His father said, “Since you couldn’t stop yourself from revealing my business, I wish to make one thing clear regarding the Horn.” Ruhn braced himself. “I don’t want the angels getting it.”

“Fine.” If Ruhn had anything to say about it,
no one
would get the Horn. It would go straight back to the temple, with a permanent Fae guard.

“Keep an eye on that girl.”

“Both eyes.”

“I mean it, boy.”

“So do I.” He let his father hear the growl of sincerity in his voice.

His father went on, “You, as Crown Prince, revealed the secrets of your king to the girl and Athalar. I have every right to punish you for this, you know.”

Go ahead
, he wanted to say.
Go ahead and do it. Do me a favor and take my title while you’re at it. The royal bloodline ends with me anyway.

Ruhn had puked after hearing it the first time when he was thirteen, sent to the Oracle for a glimpse of his future, like all Fae. The ritual had once been to foretell marriages and alliances. Today, it was more to get a feel for a child’s career and whether they’d amount to anything. For Ruhn—and for Bryce, years later—it had been a disaster.

Ruhn had begged the Oracle to tell him whether she meant he’d die before he could sire a child, or if she meant he was infertile. She only repeated her words.
The royal bloodline shall end with you, Prince
.

He’d been too much of a coward to tell his king what he’d learned. So he’d fed his father a lie, unable to bear the male’s disappointment and rage.
The Oracle said I would be a fair and just king.

His father had been disappointed, but only that the fake prophecy hadn’t been mightier.

So, yeah. If his father wanted to strip him of his title, he’d be doing him a favor. Or even unwittingly fulfilling that prophecy at last.

Ruhn had truly worried about its meaning once—the day he’d learned he had a little sister. He’d thought it might foretell an untimely death for her. But his fears had been assuaged by the fact that she was not and would never be formally recognized as part of the royal bloodline. To his relief, she’d never questioned why, in those early years when they were still close, Ruhn hadn’t lobbied their father to publicly accept her.

The Autumn King continued, “Unfortunately, the punishment you deserve would render you unable to look for the Horn.”

Ruhn’s shadows drifted around him. “I’ll take a rain check, then.”

His father snarled, but Ruhn hung up.

27

T
he streets were packed with Vanir streaming from the still-chaotic White Raven, all looking for answers about what the Hel had happened. Various legionaries, Fae, and Aux pack members had erected a barricade around the site, a thrumming, opaque magic wall, but the crowds still converged.

Hunt glanced to where Bryce walked beside him, silent, glassy-eyed. Barefoot, he realized.

How long had she been barefoot? She must have lost her shoes in the explosion.

He debated offering to carry her again, or suggesting that he fly them to her apartment, but she held her arms so tightly around herself that he had a feeling one word would send her into a rage-spiral with no bottom.

The look she gave Ruhn before walking out … It made Hunt glad she wasn’t an acid-spitting viper. The male’s face would have
melted
.

Gods help them when the prince arrived at the gallery tomorrow.

Bryce’s doorman leapt out of his seat as they walked into the pristine lobby, asking if she was all right, if she’d been in the club. She mumbled that she was fine, and the ursine shifter surveyed Hunt with a predator’s focus. Noticing that look, she waved a hand at him, punching the elevator button, and introduced them.
Hunt,
this is Marrin; Marrin, this is Hunt; he’s staying with me for the foreseeable future, unfortunately.
Then she was padding into the elevator, where she had to lean against the chrome rail along the back, as if she were about to collapse—

Hunt squeezed in as the doors were closing. The box was too small, too tight with his wings, and he kept them close as they shot up to the penthouse—

Bryce’s head sagged, her shoulders curving inward—

Hunt blurted, “Why won’t you make the Drop?”

The elevator doors opened and she slumped against them before she entered the elegant cream-and-cobalt hallway. But she halted at her apartment door. Then turned to him.

“My keys were in my purse.”

Her purse was now in the ruin of the club.

“Does the doorman have a spare?”

She grunted her confirmation, eyeing the elevator as if it were a mountain to climb.

Marrin busted Hunt’s balls for a good minute, checking that Bryce was alive in the hallway, asking into the hall vidcom if she approved—to which he got a thumbs-up.

When Hunt returned, he found her sitting against her door, legs up and spread enough to show a pair of hot-pink underwear. Thankfully, the hall cameras couldn’t see at that angle, but he had no doubt the shifter monitored them as Hunt helped her to her feet and handed her the spare keys.

She slowly slid in the key, then put her palm to the bespelled finger pad beside the door.

“I was waiting,” she murmured as the locks clicked open and the dim apartment lights flickered on. “We were supposed to make the Drop together. We picked two years from now.”

He knew who she meant. The reason why she no longer drank, or danced, or really seemed to live her life. The reason why she must keep that scar on her pretty, sleek thigh. Ogenas and all her sacred Mysteries knew that Hunt had punished himself for a damn long while after the colossal failure that had been the Battle of Mount Hermon. Even while he’d been tortured in the Asteri’s
dungeons, he’d punished himself, flaying his own soul in a way no imperial interrogator ever could.

So maybe it was a stupid question, but he asked as they entered the apartment, “Why bother waiting now?”

Hunt stepped inside and got a good look at the place Quinlan called home. The open-concept apartment had looked nice from outside the windows, but inside …

Either she or Danika had decorated it without sparing any expense: a white deep-cushioned couch lay in the right third of the great room, set before a reclaimed wood coffee table and the massive television atop a carved oak console. A fogged-glass dining table with white leather chairs took up the left third of the space, and the center third of it went to the kitchen—white cabinets, chrome appliances, and white marble counters. All of it impeccably clean, soft, and welcoming.

Hunt took it in, standing like a piece of baggage by the kitchen island while Bryce padded down a pale oak hallway to release Syrinx from where he yowled from his crate.

She was halfway down the hallway when she said without looking back, “Without Danika … We were supposed to make the Drop together,” she said again. “Connor and Thorne were going to Anchor us.”

The choice of Anchor during the Drop was pivotal—and a deeply personal choice. But Hunt shoved aside the thoughts of the sour-faced government employee he’d been appointed, since he sure as fuck hadn’t had any family or friends left to Anchor him. Not when his mother had died only days before.

Syrinx flung himself through the apartment, claws clicking on the light wood floors, yipping as he leapt upon Hunt, licking his hands. Each one of Bryce’s returning steps dragged on her way to the kitchen counter.

The silence pressed on him enough that he asked, “Were you and Danika lovers?”

He’d been told two years ago that they weren’t, but friends didn’t mourn each other the way Bryce seemed to have so thoroughly shut down every part of herself. The way he had for Shahar.

The patter of kibble hitting tin filled the apartment before Bryce plunked down the bowl, and Syrinx, abandoning Hunt, half threw himself inside it as he gobbled it down.

Hunt turned in place as Bryce padded around the other end of the kitchen island, flinging open the enormous metal fridge to examine its meager contents. “No,” she said, her voice flat and cold. “Danika and I weren’t like that.” Her grip on the fridge’s handle tightened, her knuckles going white. “Connor and I—Connor Holstrom, I mean. He and I …” She trailed off. “It was complicated. When Danika died, when they all died … a light went out in me.”

He remembered the details about her and the elder of the Holstrom brothers. Ithan hadn’t been there that night, either—and was now Second in Amelie Ravenscroft’s pack. A sorry replacement for what the Pack of Devils had once been. This city had also lost something that night.

Hunt opened his mouth to tell Quinlan he understood. Not just the complicated relationship thing, but the loss. To wake up one morning surrounded by friends and his lover—and then to end the day with all of them dead. He understood how it gnawed on bones and blood and the very soul of a person. How nothing could ever make it right.

How cutting out the alcohol and the drugs, how refusing to do the thing she loved most—the dancing—still couldn’t make it right. But the words stalled in his throat. He hadn’t felt like talking about it two hundred years ago, and sure as Hel didn’t feel like talking about it now.

A landline phone somewhere in the house began ringing, and a pleasant female voice trilled,
Call from … Home.

Bryce closed her eyes, as if rallying herself, then padded down the darkened hallway that led to her bedroom. A moment later, she said with a cheerfulness that should have earned her an award for Best Fucking Actor in Midgard, “Hey, Mom.” A mattress groaned. “No, I wasn’t there. My phone fell in the toilet at work—yep, totally dead. I’ll get a new one tomorrow. Yeah, I’m fine. June wasn’t there, either. We’re all good.” A pause. “I know—it was just a long day at work.” Another pause. “Look, I’ve got company.” A rough laugh.
“Not that kind. Don’t get your hopes up. I’m serious. Yes, I let him into my house willingly. Please don’t call the front desk. His name? I’m not telling you.” Just the slightest hesitation. “
Mom
. I will call you tomorrow. I’m not telling him hello. Bye—
bye
, Mom. Love you.”

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.