House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) (53 page)

“I’m still taking birth control, yes.”

“Bryce Adelaide Quinlan, you know what I mean.”

“Hunt has my back.” Even if he’d thrown her under the bus by mentioning her leg to them.

Her mom was having none of it. “I have no doubt that sorceress would push you into harm’s way if it made her more money. Micah’s no better. Hunt might have your back, but don’t forget that these Vanir only look out for themselves. He’s Micah’s personal assassin, for fuck’s sake. And one of the Fallen. The Asteri
hate
him. He’s a slave because of it.”

“He’s a slave because we live in a fucked-up world.” Hazy wrath fogged her vision, but she blinked it away.

Her dad called out from the kitchen, asking where the microwave popcorn was. Ember hollered back that it was in the same exact place it always was, her eyes never leaving the phone’s camera. “I know you’ll bite my head off for it, but let me just say this.”

“Gods, Mom—”

“Hunt might be a good roommate, and he might be nice to look at, but remember that he’s a Vanir male. A very,
very
powerful Vanir male, even with those tattoos keeping him in line. He and every male like him is lethal.”

“Yeah, and you never let me forget it.” It was an effort not to look at the tiny scar on her mom’s cheekbone.

Old shadows banked the light in her mom’s eyes, and Bryce winced. “Seeing you with an older Vanir male—”

“I’m not
with
him, Mom—”

“It brings me back to that place, Bryce.” She ran a hand through her dark hair. “I’m sorry.”

Her mom might as well have punched her in the heart.

Bryce wished she could reach through the camera and wrap her arms around her, breathing in her honeysuckle-and-nutmeg scent.

Then Ember said, “I’ll make some calls and get that medwitch appointment for your leg.”

Bryce scowled. “No, thanks.”

“You’re going to that appointment, Bryce.”

Bryce turned the phone and stretched out her leg over the covers so her mother could see. She rotated her foot. “See? No problems.”

Her mother’s face hardened to steel that matched the wedding band on her finger. “Just because Danika died doesn’t mean you need to suffer, too.”

Bryce stared at her mother, who was always so good at cutting to the heart of everything, at rendering her into rubble with a few words. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

“
Bullshit
, Bryce.” Her mom’s eyes glazed with tears. “You think
Danika would want you limping in pain for the rest of your existence? You think she would’ve wanted you to stop dancing?”

“I don’t want to talk about Danika.” Her voice trembled.

Ember shook her head in disgust. “I’ll message the medwitch’s address and number when I get the appointment for you. Good night.”

She hung up without another word.

57

T
hirty minutes later, Bryce had changed into her sleep shorts and was brooding on her bed when a knock thumped on the door. “You’re a fucking traitor, Athalar,” she called.

Hunt opened the door and leaned against its frame. “No wonder you moved here, if you and your mom fight so much.”

The instinct to strangle him was overwhelming, but she said, “I’ve never seen my mom back down from a fight. It rubbed off, I guess.” She scowled at him. “What do you want?”

Hunt pushed off the door and approached. The room became too small with each step closer. Too airless. He stopped at the foot of her mattress. “I’ll go to the medwitch appointment with you.”

“I’m not going.”

“Why?”

She sucked in a breath. And then it all burst out. “Because once that wound is gone, once it stops hurting, then
Danika
is gone. The Pack of Devils is gone.” She shoved back the blankets, revealing her bare legs, and hitched up her silk sleep shorts so the full, twisting scar was visible. “It will all be some memory, some dream that happened for a flash and then was gone. But this scar and the pain …” Her eyes stung. “I can’t let it be erased. I can’t let
them
be erased.”

Hunt slowly sat beside her on the bed, as if giving her time to
object. His hair skimmed his brow, the tattoo, as he studied the scar. And ran a calloused finger over it.

The touch left her skin prickling in its wake.

“You’re not going to erase Danika and the pack if you help yourself.”

Bryce shook her head, looking toward the window, but his fingers closed around her chin. He gently turned her face back to his. His dark, depthless eyes were soft. Understanding.

How many people ever saw those eyes this way? Ever saw
him
this way?

“Your mother loves you. She cannot—literally, on a biological level, Bryce—bear the thought of you in pain.” He let go of her chin, but his eyes remained on hers. “Neither can I.”

“You barely know me.”

“You’re my friend.” The words hung between them. His head dipped again, as if he could hide the expression on his face as he amended, “If you would like me to be.”

For a moment, she stared at him. The offer thrown out there. The quiet vulnerability. It erased any annoyance still in her veins.

“Didn’t you know, Athalar?” The tentative hope in his face nearly destroyed her. “We’ve been friends from the moment you thought Jelly Jubilee was a dildo.”

He tipped back his head and laughed, and Bryce scooted back on the bed. Propped up the pillows and turned on the TV. She patted the space beside her.

Grinning, eyes full of light in a way she’d never seen before, he sat beside her. Then he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of her.

Bryce blew out a breath, her smile fading as she surveyed him. “My mom went through a lot. I know she’s not easy to deal with, but thanks for being so cool with her.”

“I like your mom,” Hunt said, and she believed him. “How’d she and your dad meet?”

Bryce knew he meant Randall. “My mom ran from my biological father before he found out she was pregnant. She wound up at a temple to Cthona in Korinth, and knew the priestesses there
would take her in—shield her—since she was a holy pregnant vessel or whatever.” Bryce snorted. “She gave birth to me there, and I spent the first three years of my life cloistered behind the temple walls. My mom did their laundry to earn our keep. Long story short, my biological father heard a rumor that she had a child and sent goons to hunt her down.” She ground her teeth. “He told them that if there was a child that was undoubtedly his, they were to bring me to him. At any cost.”

Hunt’s mouth thinned. “Shit.”

“They had eyes at every depot, but the priestesses got us out of the city—with the hope of getting us all the way to the House of Earth and Blood headquarters in Hilene, where my mom could beg for asylum. Even my father wouldn’t dare infringe on their territory. But it’s a three days’ drive, and none of the Korinth priestesses had the ability to defend us against Fae warriors. So we drove the five hours to Solas’s Temple in Oia, partially to rest, but also to pick up our holy guard.”

“Randall.” Hunt smiled. But he arched a brow. “Wait—Randall was a sun-priest?”

“Not quite. He’d gotten back from the front a year before, but the stuff he did and saw while he was serving … It messed with him. Really badly. He didn’t want to go home, couldn’t face his family. So he’d offered himself as an acolyte to Solas, hoping that it’d somehow atone for his past. He was two weeks away from swearing his vows when the High Priest asked him to escort us to Hilene. Many of the priests are trained warriors, but Randall was the only human, and the High Priest guessed my mother wouldn’t trust a Vanir male. Right before we reached Hilene, my father’s people caught up with us. They expected to find a helpless, hysterical female.” Bryce smiled again. “What they found was a legendary sharpshooter and a mother who would move the earth itself to keep her daughter.”

Hunt straightened. “What happened?”

“What you might expect. My parents dealt with the mess afterward.” She glanced at him. “Please don’t tell that to anyone. It … There were never any questions about the Fae that didn’t return to Crescent City. I don’t want any to come up now.”

“I won’t say a word.”

Bryce smiled grimly. “After that, the House of Earth and Blood literally deemed my mother a vessel for Cthona and Randall a vessel for Solas, and blah blah religious crap, but it basically amounted to an official order of protection that my father didn’t dare fuck with. And Randall finally went home, bringing us with him, and obviously didn’t swear his vows to Solas.” Her smile warmed. “He proposed by the end of the year. They’ve been disgustingly in love ever since.”

Hunt smiled back. “It’s nice to hear that sometimes things work out for good people.”

“Yeah. Sometimes.” A taut silence stretched between them. In her bed—they were in her bed, and just this morning, she’d fantasized about him going down on her atop the kitchen counter—

Bryce swallowed hard. “
Fangs and Bangs
is on in five minutes. You want to watch?”

Hunt smiled slowly, as if he knew precisely why she’d swallowed, but lay back on the pillows, his wings sprawled beneath him. A predator content to wait for his prey to come to him.

Fucking Hel. But Hunt winked at her, tucking an arm behind his head. The motion made the muscles down his biceps ripple. His eyes glittered, as if he was well aware of that, too. “Hel yes.”

Hunt hadn’t realized how badly he needed to ask it. How badly he’d needed her answer.

Friends
. It didn’t remotely cover whatever was between them, but it was true.

He leaned against the towering headboard, the two of them watching the raunchy show. But by the time they reached the halfway point of the episode, she’d begun to make comments about the inane plot. And he’d begun to join her.

Another show came on, a reality competition with different Vanir performing feats of strength and agility, and it felt only natural to watch that, too. All of it felt only natural. He let himself settle into the feeling.

And wasn’t that the most dangerous thing he’d ever done.

58

H
er mother messaged while she was dressing for work the next morning, with the time and location of a medwitch appointment.
Eleven today. It’s five blocks from the gallery. Please go
.

Bryce didn’t write back. She certainly wouldn’t be going to the appointment.

Not when she had another one scheduled with the Meat Market.

Hunt had wanted to wait until night, but Bryce knew that the vendors would be much more likely to chat during the quieter daytime hours, when they wouldn’t be trying to entice the usual evening buyers.

“You’re quiet again today,” Bryce murmured as they wove through the cramped pathways of the warehouse. This was the third they’d visited so far—the other two had quickly proven fruitless.

No, the vendors didn’t know anything about drugs. No, that was a stereotype of the Meat Market that they did not appreciate. No, they did not know anyone who might help them. No, they were not interested in marks for information, because they really did not know anything useful at all.

Hunt had stayed a few stalls away during every discussion, because no one would talk with a legionary and Fallen slave.

Hunt held his wings tucked in tight. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that we’re missing that medwitch appointment right now.”

She never should have mentioned it.

“I don’t remember giving you permission to shove your nose into my business.”

“We’re back to that?” He huffed a laugh. “I’d think cuddling in front of the TV allowed me to at least be able to
voice
my opinions without getting my head bitten off.”

She rolled her eyes. “We didn’t cuddle.”

“What is it you want, exactly?” Hunt asked, surveying a stall full of ancient knives. “A boyfriend or mate or husband who will just sit there, with no opinions, and agree to everything you say, and never dare to ask you for anything?”

“Of course not.”

“Just because I’m male and have an opinion doesn’t make me into some psychotic, domineering prick.”

She shoved her hands into the pockets of Danika’s leather jacket. “Look, my mom went through a lot thanks to some psychotic, domineering pricks.”

“I know.” His eyes softened. “But even so, look at her and your dad. He voices his opinions. And he seems pretty damn psychotic when it comes to protecting both of you.”

“You have no idea,” Bryce grumbled. “I didn’t go on a single date until I got to CCU.”

Hunt’s brows rose. “Really? I would have thought …” He shook his head.

“Thought what?”

He shrugged. “That the human boys would have been crawling around after you.”

It was an effort not to glance at him, with the way he said
human boys
, as if they were some other breed than him—a full-grown malakh male.

She supposed they were, technically, but that hint of masculine arrogance … “Well, if they wanted to, they didn’t dare show it. Randall was practically a god to them, and though he never said anything, they all got it into their heads that I was firmly off-limits.”

“That wouldn’t have been a good enough reason for me to stay away.”

Her cheeks heated at the way his voice lowered. “Well, idolizing Randall aside, I was also different.” She gestured to her pointed ears. Her tall body. “Too Fae for humans. Woe is me, right?”

“It builds character,” he said, examining a stall full of opals of every color: white, black, red, blue, green. Iridescent veins ran through them, like preserved arteries from the earth itself.

“What are these for?” he asked the black-feathered, humanoid female at the stall. A magpie.

“They’re luck charms,” the magpie said, waving a feathery hand over the trays of gems. “White is for joy; green for wealth; red for love and fertility; blue for wisdom … Take your pick.”

Hunt asked, “What’s the black for?”

The magpie’s onyx-colored mouth curved upward. “For the opposite of luck.” She tapped one of the black opals, kept contained within a glass dome. “Slip it under the pillow of your enemy and see what happens to them.”

Bryce cleared her throat. “Interesting as that may be—”

Hunt held out a silver mark. “For the white.”

Bryce’s brows rose, but the magpie swept up the mark, and plunked the white opal into Hunt’s awaiting palm. They left, ignoring her gratitude for their business.

“I didn’t peg you for superstitious,” Bryce said.

But Hunt paused at the end of the row of stalls and took her hand. He pressed the opal into it, the stone warm from his touch. The size of a crow’s egg, it shimmered in the firstlights high above.

“You could use some joy,” Hunt said quietly.

Something bright sparked in her chest. “So could you,” she said, attempting to press the opal back into his palm.

But Hunt stepped away. “It’s a gift.”

Bryce’s face warmed again, and she looked anywhere but at him as she smiled. Even though she could feel his gaze lingering on her face while she slid the opal into the pocket of her jacket.

The opal had been stupid. Impulsive.

Likely bullshit, but Bryce had pocketed it, at least. She hadn’t commented on how rusty his skills were, since it had been two hundred years since he’d last thought to buy something for a female.

Shahar would have smiled at the opal—and forgotten about it soon after. She’d had troves of jewels in her alabaster palace: diamonds the size of sunballs; solid blocks of emerald stacked like bricks; veritable bathtubs filled with rubies. A small white opal, even for joy, would have been like a grain of sand on a miles-long beach. She’d have appreciated the gift but, ultimately, let it disappear into a drawer somewhere. And he, so dedicated to their cause, would probably have forgotten about it, too.

Hunt clenched his jaw as Bryce strode for a hide stall. The teenager—a feline shifter from her scent—was in her lanky humanoid form and watched them approach from where she perched on a stool. Her brown braid draped over a shoulder, nearly grazing the phone idly held in her hands.

“Hey,” Bryce said, pointing toward a pile of shaggy rugs. “How much for one of them?”

“Twenty silvers,” the shifter said, sounding as bored as she looked.

Bryce smirked, running a hand over the white pelt. Hunt’s skin tightened over his bones. He’d felt that touch the other night, stroking him to sleep. And could feel it now as she petted the sheepskin. “Twenty silvers for a snowsheep hide? Isn’t that a little low?”

“My mom makes me work weekends. It’d piss her off to sell it for what it’s actually worth.”

“Loyal of you,” Bryce said, chuckling. She leaned in, her voice dropping. “This is going to sound
so
random, but I have a question for you.”

Hunt kept back, watching her work. The irreverent, down-to-earth party girl, merely looking to score some new drugs.

The shifter barely looked up. “Yeah?”

Bryce said, “You know where I can get anything … fun around here?”

The girl rolled her chestnut-colored eyes. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?” Bryce asked innocently.

The shifter lifted her phone, typing away with rainbow-painted nails. “That fake-ass act you gave everyone else here, and in the two other warehouses.” She held up her phone. “We’re all on a group chat.” She gestured to everyone in the market around them. “I got, like, ten warnings you two would be coming through here, asking cheesy questions about drugs or whatever.”

It was, perhaps, the first time Hunt had seen Bryce at a loss for words. So he stepped up to her side. “All right,” he said to the teenager. “But
do
you know anything?”

The girl looked him over. “You think the Vipe would allow shit like that synth in here?”

“She allows every other depravity and crime,” Hunt said through his teeth.

“Yeah, but she’s not dumb,” the shifter said, tossing her braid over a shoulder.

“So you’ve heard of it,” Bryce said.

“The Vipe told me to tell you that it’s nasty, and she doesn’t deal in it, and never will.”

“But someone does?” Bryce said tightly.

This was bad. This would not end well at all—

“The Vipe also told me to say you should check the river.” She went back to her phone, presumably to tell
the Vipe
that she’d conveyed the message. “That’s the place for that kinda shit.”

“What do you mean?” Bryce asked.

A shrug. “Ask the mer.”

“We should lay out the facts,” Hunt said as Bryce stormed for the Meat Market’s docks. “Before we run to the mer, accusing them of being drug dealers.”

“Too late,” Bryce said.

He hadn’t been able to stop her from sending a message via otter
to Tharion twenty minutes ago, and sure as Hel hadn’t been able to stop her from heading for the river’s edge to wait.

Hunt gripped her arm, the dock mere steps away. “Bryce, the mer do
not
take kindly to being falsely accused—”

“Who said it’s false?”

“Tharion isn’t a drug dealer, and he sure as shit isn’t selling something as bad as synth seems to be.”

“He might know someone who is.” She shrugged out of his grasp. “We’ve been dicking around for long enough. I want answers. Now.” She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you want to get this over with? So you can have your
sentence
reduced?”

He did, but he said, “The synth probably has
nothing
to do with this. We shouldn’t—”

But she’d already reached the wood slats of the dock, not daring to look into the eddying water beneath. The Meat Market’s docks were notorious dumping grounds. And feeding troughs for aquatic scavengers.

Water splashed, and then a powerful male body was sitting on the end of the dock. “This part of the river is gross,” Tharion said by way of greeting.

Bryce didn’t smile. Didn’t say anything other than, “Who’s selling synth in the river?”

The grin vanished from Tharion’s face. Hunt began to object, but the mer said, “Not in, Legs.” He shook his head. “
On
the river.”

“So it’s true, then. It’s—it’s what? A healing drug that leaked from a lab? Who’s behind it?”

Hunt stepped up to her side. “Tharion—”

“Danika Fendyr,” Tharion said, his eyes soft. Like he knew who Danika had been to her. “The intel came in a day before her death. She was spotted doing a deal on a boat just past here.”