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

Hunt ground his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. Toward the bottom, he found Holstrom’s sound bite.

“The wolves only went to Asphodel Meadows because of Bryce. She got the call for help out, and held the line until we could provide backup. She saved this city. She’s a hero, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Especially people who weren’t even in this city during the attack.”

Well, Hunt didn’t blame Sabine for being pissed. The truth hurt.

Hunt sighed and was about to set his phone back onto the nightstand when it buzzed with a message from Isaiah. Thoughts???

He knew Isaiah was asking about Celestina’s appointment. Too early to tell, he wrote back. Too early for hope, too.

Isaiah answered immediately. She’ll be here tomorrow evening at five. Try to play nice, Hunt. She’s not Micah.

Hunt sent back a thumbs-up. But sleep was a long time coming.

Bryce gazed at her bedroom ceiling, listening to the wet, labored breathing of the male beside her.

Her mom and dad had bought her lies—hook, line, and sinker. Of course, it meant she’d be getting up in four hours, but it was a price worth paying. No news about her engagement had been leaked yet. She could only pray it wouldn’t until their train was out of the city.

Ithan shifted slightly, the sound of the blankets loud in the silence. It was strange to have him here, his scent filling her nose. So similar to Connor’s scent—

“I could have slept on the couch,” Ithan said into the darkness.

“I don’t trust Athalar not to smother you with a pillow.”

Ithan huffed a laugh. “He holds a grudge, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

Silence fell again, thick and heavy. She’d wanted Ithan right where she could see him. It was as simple as that. Wards on this place or not, she wasn’t about to leave him unguarded when Sabine and Amelie might change their minds about the paperwork being too much trouble. She’d lost one Holstrom already.

“Danika had me keyed to the locks,” Ithan said. “Right before … everything. She showed me this place—wanted me in on the surprise. That’s how I got in.”

Bryce’s throat clogged. “Oh.”

“Is it true that Danika helped you make the Drop?”

Since her voice had been broadcast through the Gates into every part of the city, it was common knowledge that Danika Fendyr had something to do with Bryce’s Drop, but rumors about exactly what ranged widely.

“Yeah,” Bryce said. “She, ah … She was my Anchor.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Me neither.”

His breathing thinned. Bryce said, “I … Ithan, when I saw Danika during the Search, she told me that the others—Connor and Nathalie and the whole Pack of Devils—held off the Reapers to buy her time to be there with me. They saved me, too. Connor saved me.”

Ithan said nothing for a long moment. When was the last time they’d spoken like this? Calm, quiet. Without hate spewing like acid, burning everything it touched? Then Ithan said, “He loved you more than anyone.”

Her heart strained. “He loved you more than anyone.”

“He thought you were his mate.”

Bryce shut her eyes against the punch that slammed into her gut. “In the wolf sense of the word?”

“What other sense is there? Yeah, the wolf sense.”

There were several definitions of the term mate—though Bryce supposed that to Ithan, to a shifter, only one mattered: one’s true lover, predestined by Urd.

The Fae had a similar concept—a mate was a bond deeper than marriage, and beyond an individual’s control. The angels, she knew, used the term far more lightly: for the malakim, it was akin to a marriage, and matings could be arranged. Like breeding animals in a zoo.

But for Connor, if he’d thought Bryce was his mate … Her stomach twisted again.

“Did you love him?” Ithan whispered.

“You know I did,” Bryce said, voice thick.

“We waste so much time. Maybe it’s our curse as immortals. To see time as a luxury, a never-ending ocean.” He loosed a long breath. “I wasted a lot of it.”

Bryce couldn’t tell what he was referring to. “Real poetic of you.” Ithan let out a soft laugh. In the air-conditioned dark, Bryce asked, “Why did you quit sunball?”

She felt Ithan tense, the mattress shifting. “Because it’s a stupid game,” he said, voice empty, and turned onto his side with a groan.

Bryce had no idea how to respond. So she closed her eyes, rubbing idly at the scar on her chest, and prayed for Luna to send her into a dreamless, heavy sleep.





7

“This is bullshit.” Ruhn paced the ornate rugs of his father’s study as the grandfather clock in the corner chimed two in the morning. “You know it’s total fucking bullshit.”

Lounging in a crimson leather armchair by the darkened fireplace, the Autumn King said nothing. The experiments and nonsense he worked on day and night boiled and bubbled away, the sound a steady hum in the background.

“What’s the matter, cousin? Feeling possessive of your sister?” Cormac smirked from where he leaned against the black marble mantel, white sweater stretched tight over his muscled chest. Not one golden hair on his head out of place.

Fucker.

Ruhn ignored Cormac’s taunt and said to his father, “We live in a modern city. In modern times. There are lawyers by the dozen who have endless resources to challenge this—and courts that might be amenable to setting a new precedent that protects the rights of Fae females.”

“Bryce will arrive willingly at the marriage altar,” his father said. “As will you.”

Cormac’s mouth curled upward. “I hear you’re engaged to Hypaxia Enador. Congratulations.” Ruhn scowled at him. Cormac went on, sizing up Ruhn, “Of course, the marriage is unorthodox, considering your bride’s family and bloodline.”

Ruhn stiffened. “You’ve got some shit to spew about Hypaxia, then let’s hear it.”

But Cormac said to the Autumn King, “He doesn’t know?”

His father, damn him, seemed bored as he said, “It didn’t seem necessary. My order is law.”

Ruhn glanced between them. “What is this?”

His father, features tightening with distaste—as if disappointed that Ruhn hadn’t learned it himself—said, “The late Queen Hecuba had two daughters, from different sires. Hypaxia’s sire, Hecuba’s coven learned afterward, was a powerful necromancer from the House of Flame and Shadow. Hypaxia seems to have inherited his gifts alongside her mother’s.”

Ruhn blinked. Slowly. Hypaxia could raise and speak to the dead. All right. He could live with that. “Cool.”

Flames danced along his father’s hair, dancing over his shoulders. “Her older sister, however, was sired by a shape-shifting male. A stag.”

“So?”