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

Hunt didn’t know why Ruhn’s apparent satisfaction surprised him. He’d expected wounded male pride, perhaps, at Bryce showing him up in his own home. Yet pride did shine from Ruhn’s face—for Bryce. Like the prince had been waiting for his sister to step into her power for a while now and he was honored to have her at his side.

Hunt’s attention shot back to Cormac as the Avallen Prince held up his hands and slowly smiled at Bryce. The expression was as dead as his eyes. “I’ve seen all I needed to.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ruhn demanded. Shadows rippled from his shoulders, a dark contrast to the light emanating from Bryce.

But shadows also swirled behind Cormac—darker, wilder than Ruhn’s, like a stampede of stallions waiting to gallop over all of them. “I wanted to confirm that she has the gift. Thank you for demonstrating.” He set one foot into those untamed shadows. Bowed his head to Bryce. “I’ll see you at the altar.”

Bryce’s star winked out the moment he vanished, leaving only drifting embers behind.

Bryce was dimly aware of the party ending: people filtering out through the front door, the countless eyes on her as she stood in the foyer, typing into her phone.

“There’s a train at seven tomorrow morning,” Bryce announced to Hunt, who lingered at her side. As if afraid the Avallen male would reappear to snatch her away.

Not just any Avallen male: Prince Cormac. Her … fiancé.

“There’s no way your mom will go,” Hunt said. “If by some miracle she isn’t suspicious that you’re bumping them onto a train five hours earlier, then Randall will be.”

Juniper scrolled on her phone at Bryce’s other side. “Social channels are empty right now, but …”

“All it takes is one person,” Fury finished from where she monitored the front of the house with the same vigilance as Hunt. “I think I made my point clear about the consequences of that, though.”

Gods bless her, Fury really had. If any of you post, talk, or so much as think about what went down here tonight, she’d declared with quiet authority to the awed partygoers, I’ll hunt you down and make you regret it.

No one had said anything, but Bryce had noticed more than a few people deleting pictures from their phones as they hurried out.

Hunt said, “Getting your parents out of the city without them being suspicious or finding out will be tricky, to say the least.” He angled his head. “You sure it’s not easier to tell them?”

“And risk my mom going ballistic? Doing something reckless?” And that was to say nothing about what Randall might do if he thought the Autumn King was threatening Bryce’s happiness and control over her own life. Whatever her mom left of the Autumn King, Randall would be sure to put a bullet in it. “I’m not risking them like that.”

“They’re adults,” Fury said. “You can trust them to make rational choices.”

“Have you met my mom?” Bryce burst out. “Does rational ever spring to mind when you think about her? She makes sculptures of babies in beds of lettuce, for fuck’s sake.”

“I just think,” June jumped in, “that they’re going to find out anyway, so maybe it’s better if it comes from you. Before they hear it from someone else.”

Bryce shook her head. “Nope. I want to be far, far away when they find out. And get a few hundred miles between them and the Autumn King, too.”

Hunt grunted his agreement, and she threw him a grateful nod.

The sound of Declan shutting the front door pulled her attention from the angel as the Fae male leaned back against it. “Well, my buzz is officially ruined.”

Flynn slumped onto the lowest steps of the staircase, a bottle of whiskey in his hand. “Then we better start getting it back.” He swigged deeply before passing it up to Ruhn, who leaned against the banister with crossed arms, his blue eyes blazing into a near-violet. He’d been quiet these last few minutes.

Bryce had no idea where to start with him. About Cormac, about the power she’d shown in Ruhn’s own house, about the star glowing for the Avallen Prince … any of it. So she said, “I take it that’s the cousin from your Ordeal.”

Ruhn, Dec, and Flynn nodded gravely. Her brother drank from the bottle of whiskey.

“How close did Cormac get to killing you during your Ordeal?” Hunt asked. Ruhn must have told him about it at some point this summer.

“Close,” Flynn said, earning a glare from Ruhn.

But Ruhn admitted, “It was bad.” Bryce could have sworn he didn’t look at her as he added, “Cormac spent his whole life thinking he’d get the Starsword one day. That he’d go into the Cave of Princes and be proven worthy. He studied all the lore, learned all the lineage, pored over every account detailing the variations in the power. It, ah … didn’t go down well when I got it instead.”

“And now his fiancée has a claim to it, also,” Flynn said, and it was Bryce’s turn to glare at the lord. She could have lived without anyone bringing that up again.

Ruhn seemed to force himself to look at Bryce as he said, “It’s true.” So he’d seen her glare, then. “The sword’s as much yours as it is mine.”

Bryce waved a hand. “I’ll take it on weekends and holidays, don’t worry.”

Hunt tossed in, “And it’ll get two Winter Solstices, so … double the presents.”

Ruhn and the others gawked at them like they had ten heads, but Bryce grinned at Hunt. He returned it with one of his own.

He got her—her humor, her fears, her hedging. Whatever it was, Athalar got her.

“Is it true?” Juniper looped her elbow through Bryce’s and pressed close. “About the legality of an engagement against Bryce’s will?”

That wiped the smile from Hunt’s face. And Bryce’s. Her mind raced, each thought as swift and dizzying as a shooting star.

“Tell me there’s a way out of this, Ruhn.” She walked to her brother and snatched the whiskey bottle from him. A faint light flared at his back—the Starsword. It hummed, a whining sound like a finger tracing the rim of a glass.

Ruhn’s stare met hers, questioning and wary, but Bryce stepped back. The sword stopped singing.

It’s not going to bite, you know.

Bryce nearly flinched as her brother’s voice filled her mind. He used the mind-speaking rarely enough that she often entirely forgot he had the gift.

It’s your sword. Not mine. You’re as much a Starborn Prince as I am a princess.

He shot back, eyes glinting with stars, I’m not the kind of male whose sense of pride is so brittle that I need to cling to a shiny weapon. If you want to use it, it’s yours.

She shook her head. You retrieved the blade—and apparently had to deal with Cormac while doing it. That fact alone entitles you to keep it.

Ruhn’s laughter filled her mind, full of amusement and relief. But his face remained serious as he said to the group, now staring at them, “I didn’t pay attention in class when we covered Fae law. Sorry.”

“Well, I did,” Marc said. “And I’ve already put some of my firm’s associates on researching it. Any legal case or precedent that’s been uploaded into a database, short of whatever’s hidden in the Asteri Archives, we’ll be able to comb through.”