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

“Done,” Tharion said.

Bryce stepped into the hall, Hunt on her heels, and heard Ithan sigh behind her. “This was not how I expected my day to go,” the wolf muttered to Tharion before ratcheting up the volume on the TV.

Same, Bryce thought, and shut the door.

Hunt’s head spun as he and Bryce rode the elevator down to the apartment lobby. He’d been free for a few glorious months, only to wind up right back on the cusp of another rebellion.

The same war, Aidas had claimed. Just by a different name, with a different army. Hunt’s hands slicked with sweat. He’d seen how this war turned out. Felt its cost for centuries.

He said to Bryce, unable to stop the trembling that now overtook him, the sense that the elevator walls were pushing in, “I don’t know what to do.”

She leaned against the rail. “Me neither.”

They waited until they were out on the street, keeping their voices down, before Hunt continued, words falling out of his mouth, “This isn’t something we can jump into for the Hel of it.” He couldn’t get a breath down. “I’ve seen wrecked mech-suits with their human pilots hanging out of the cockpit, organs dangling. I’ve seen wolves as strong as Ithan ripped in two. I’ve seen angels decimate battlefields without setting foot on the ground.” He shuddered, picturing Bryce among all that. “I … Fuck.”

She looped her arm through his, and he leaned into her warmth, finding himself frozen despite the hot day. “This sounds more like … spying than battle-fighting or whatever.”

“I’d rather die on the battlefield than in one of the Hind’s interrogation rooms.” I’d rather you die on a battlefield than in her hands. Hunt swallowed. “Sofie was lucky that the Hind dumped her and was done with it.” He halted at an alley, tugging Bryce into its shadows with him.

He let himself look at her face: pale enough that her freckles stood out, eyes wide. Scared. The scent hit him a moment later.

“We were never going to be allowed to live like normal people,” Bryce breathed, and Hunt ran a hand through her hair, savoring the silken strands. “Trouble was always going to come find us.”

He knew she was right. They weren’t the sort of people who could live ordinary lives. Hunt fought past the shaking in his bones, the roaring in his mind.

She lifted a hand, and her warm palm cupped his cheek. He leaned into her touch, reining in a purr as her thumb brushed over his cheekbone. “You really don’t think Cormac is luring us into a trap with this claim that Sofie knew some vital intel—the bait being that Danika was involved in some way?”

“It’s possible,” Hunt admitted. “But there was clearly a connection between Danika and Sofie—the emails prove it. And Cormac seemed pretty damned shocked to learn that Sofie was potentially alive. I think he believed the intel on the Asteri had died with Sofie. I wouldn’t blame him for wondering if it could be in play once more.”

“You think there’s any chance Sofie told Emile before they were separated?”

Hunt shrugged. “They were in Kavalla together—she might have found an opportunity to tell him. And if he doesn’t have the intel, and Sofie is alive, he might know where Sofie is headed right now. That makes Emile a pretty valuable asset. For everyone.”

Bryce began counting on her fingers. “So we’ve got Ophion, Tharion, and Cormac all wanting to find him.”

“If you want to find him, too, Bryce, then we need to navigate carefully. Consider if we really want to get involved at all.”

Her mouth twisted to the side. “If there’s a chance that we could discover what Sofie knew, what Danika guessed—separate from Cormac, from this shit with that Pippa woman and whatever the River Queen wants—I think that intel is worth the risk.”

“But why? So we can keep the Asteri from fucking with us about Micah and Sandriel?”

“Yeah. When I met up with Fury this morning, she mentioned that Danika knew something dangerous about her, so Fury learned something big about Danika in return.” Hunt didn’t get the chance to ask what exactly that was before Bryce said, “Why not apply the same thinking to this? The Asteri know something dangerous about me. About you.” That they’d killed two Archangels. “I want to even the playing field a bit.” Hunt could have sworn her expression was one he’d glimpsed on the Autumn King’s face as she went on, “So we’ll learn something vital about them. We’ll take steps to ensure that if they fuck with us, the information will leak to the broader world.”

“This is a deadly game. I’m not convinced the Asteri will want to play.”

“I know. But beyond that, Danika thought this intel might be important enough to send Sofie after it—to risk her life for it. If Sofie is dead, then someone else needs to secure that information.”

“It’s not your responsibility, Bryce.”

“It is.”

He wasn’t going to touch that one. Not yet. “And what about the kid?”

“We find him, too. I don’t give a shit if he’s powerful—he’s a kid and he’s caught up in this giant mess.” Her eyes softened, and his heart with them. Would Shahar have cared about the boy? Only in the way Ophion and the River Queen seemed to: as a weapon. Bryce asked, head tilting to the side, “And what about Cormac’s talk of freeing the world from the Asteri? That doesn’t hold any weight with you?”

“Of course it does.” He slid a hand over her waist, tugging her closer. “A world without them, without the Archangels and the hierarchies … I’d like to see that world one day. But …” His throat dried up. “But I don’t want to live in that world if the risk of creating it means …” Get it out. “If it means that we might not make it to that world.”

Her eyes softened once more, and her thumb stroked over his cheek again. “Same, Athalar.”

He huffed a laugh, bowing his head, but she lifted his chin with her other hand. His fingers tightened on her waist.

Bryce’s whiskey-colored eyes glowed in the muted light of the alley. “Well, since we’re dabbling in some seriously dangerous shit, now’s probably as good a time as any to admit I don’t want to wait until Winter Solstice.”

“For what?” Fuck, his voice had dropped an octave.

“This,” she murmured, and rose onto her toes to kiss him.

Hunt met her halfway, unable to contain his groan as he hauled her against him, lips finding hers at the same moment their bodies touched. He could have sworn the fucking world spun out from under him at the taste of her—

His head filled with fire and lightning and storms, and all he could think of was her mouth, her warm, luscious body, the aching of his cock pressing against his pants—pressing against her as her arms twined around his neck.

He was going to kick that wolf out of the apartment immediately.