House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2)

He was a stupid fucking animal. But he’d always been a stupid fucking animal around her.

He’d barely been able to focus on the ballet earlier—on June’s dancing—because Bryce had looked so … delicious in that blue dress. Only her parents sitting a few feet in front of him had kept him from thinking too much about sliding his hand up her thigh and underneath that gauzy material.

But that wasn’t part of the plan. Earlier this spring, he’d been fine with it. Aching for her, but fine with the concept of getting to know each other better before sex entered the equation. Yet that ache had only gotten worse these past months. Living together in their apartment was a slow kind of torture for both of them.

Bryce’s whiskey-colored eyes shifted toward him. She opened her mouth, then shut it at whatever she beheld in his expression.

The memory of those days following Micah’s and Sandriel’s demises cooled his rising lust.

Let’s take things slow, she’d requested. I feel like we tumbled into all of this, and now that things are getting back to normal, I want to do this right with you. Get to know you in real time, not while we’re running around the city trying to solve murders.

He’d agreed, because what else could he do? Never mind that he’d come home from the Comitium that night planning to seduce Quinlan within an inch of her life. He hadn’t even gotten to the kissing part when she’d announced she wanted to hit the brakes.

He knew more lay behind it. Knew it likely had something to do with the guilt she harbored for the thousands of people who hadn’t been saved that day. Allowing herself to be with him, to be happy … She needed time to sort it out. And Hunt would give it to her. Anything Bryce wanted, anything she needed, he’d gladly give it to her. He had the freedom to do so now, thanks to the branded-out tattoo on his wrist.

But on nights like these, with her in those shorts … it was really gods-damned hard.

Bryce hopped up from the couch and padded over to him, leaving Juniper and Fury to chat, Fury busy reloading the arts page of the Crescent City Times for the review of Juniper’s performance. “What’s up?” Hunt said to Bryce as she took up a place beside him.

“Do you actually like coming to these parties?” Bryce asked, gesturing to the throng, firstlight glow stick around her wrist gleaming bright. “This doesn’t disgust you?”

He tucked in his wings. “Why would it disgust me?”

“Because you’ve seen all the shit that’s happening in the world, and been treated like dirt, and these people …” She tossed her sheet of hair over a shoulder. “A lot of them have no idea about it. Or just don’t care.”

Hunt studied her tight face. “Why do we come to these parties if it bothers you?”

“Well, tonight we’re here to avoid my mom.” Hunt chuckled, but she went on, “And because I want to celebrate June being a genius.” She smiled at her friend on the couch. “And we’re here because Ruhn asked me to come. But … I don’t know. I want to feel normal, but then I feel guilty about that, and then I get mad at all these people who don’t care enough to feel guilty, and I think the poison-testing pill you no doubt put in my whiskey had some sort of sad-sack potion in it because I don’t know why I’m thinking about this right now.”

Hunt huffed a laugh. “Sad-sack potion?”

“You know what I mean!” She glared. “This really doesn’t bug you?”

“No.” He assessed the party raging around them. “I prefer to see people enjoying their lives. And you can’t assume that because they’re here, it means they don’t care. For all you know, a lot of them lost family and friends this spring. Sometimes people need stuff like this to feel alive again. To find a kind of release.”

Wrong word. He sure as fuck hadn’t found release recently, other than by his own hand. He tried not to think about whether Bryce had opened the drawer in her left nightstand, where she kept her toys, as often as he’d jacked off in the shower.

Four months left until Winter Solstice. Only four.

Bryce nodded, her mind clearly still on the conversation at hand. “I guess I just … Sometimes I catch myself enjoying a moment, and worry I’m enjoying it too much, you know? Like something could come along and ruin all of this if I let myself have too much fun or get too accustomed to feeling happy.”

“I know the feeling.” He couldn’t stop himself from letting his fingers curl in the ends of her hair. “It’s going to take time to adjust.”

He was still adjusting, too. He couldn’t get used to walking around without a pit in his stomach as he wondered what horrors the day would bring. Being in charge of himself, his future … The Asteri could take it all away again, if they wished. Had only let him live because he and Bryce were too public to kill—the Asteri wanted them to lie low forever. And if they didn’t … Well, Rigelus had been very clear on his call to Bryce months ago: the Bright Hand of the Asteri would kill everyone Bryce and Hunt cared about if they stepped out of line. So lying low it would be.

Hunt was happy to do precisely that. To go to the ballet and these parties and pretend that he’d never known anything different. That Bryce didn’t have the Horn tattooed into her back.

But each morning, when he donned his usual black armor for the 33rd, he remembered. Isaiah had asked him for backup right after Micah’s death, and Hunt had gladly given it. He’d stayed on as Isaiah’s unofficial commander—unofficial only because Hunt didn’t want the paperwork that came with the real title.

The city had been quiet, though. Focused on healing. Hunt wasn’t going to complain.

His phone buzzed in the back pocket of his black jeans, and he fished it out to find an email from Isaiah waiting for him. Hunt read it and went still. His heart dropped to his feet and back up again.

“What’s wrong?” Bryce peered over his shoulder.

Hunt passed her the phone with a surprisingly steady hand. “New Archangels have been chosen for Micah’s and Sandriel’s territories.”

Her eyes widened. “Who? How bad are they?”

He motioned for her to read Isaiah’s email, and Bryce, that firstlight glow stick still coiled around her wrist, obeyed.

Roll out the welcome mat, Isaiah had written as his only comment on the forwarded email from the Asteri’s imperial secretary announcing the new positions.

“They’re not bad,” Hunt said, staring blankly at the revelers now gathering around a Fae male doing a keg stand in the corner. “That’s the problem.”

Bryce’s brows bunched as she scanned the email. “Ephraim—he currently shares Rodinia with Jakob. Yeah, he seems decent enough. But he’s going to northern Pangera. Who … Oh. Who the Hel is Celestina?”

Hunt frowned. “She’s stayed out of the spotlight. She oversees Nena—population, like, fifty. She has one legion under her command. One. She doesn’t even have a triarii. The legion is literally controlled by the Asteri—all watchdogs for the Northern Rift. She’s a figurehead.”

“Big promotion, then.”

Hunt grunted. “Everything I’ve heard about her sounds unusually nice.”