House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,101

the sunball game, decked out in CCU gear. In the background, Bryce could make out the players on the field—Ithan’s powerful form among them.

But her gaze drifted to Danika’s face. That broad smile she’d known as well as her own.

I love you, Bryce. The worn memory of that mid-May day during their senior year tugged at her, sucked her in.

The hot road bit into Bryce’s knees through her torn jeans, her scraped hands trembling as she kept them interlocked behind her head, where she’d been ordered to hold them. The pain in her arm sliced like a knife. Broken. The males had made her put her hands up anyway.

The stolen motorcycle was no more than scrap metal on the dusty highway, the unmarked semitruck pulled over twenty feet away left idle. The rifle had been thrown into the olive grove beyond the mountain road, wrenched from Bryce’s hands in the accident that had led them here. The accident Danika had shielded her from, wrapping her body around Bryce’s. Danika had taken the shredding of the asphalt for them both.

Ten feet away, hands also behind her head, Danika bled from so many places her clothes were soaked with it. How had it come to this? How had things gone so terribly wrong?

“Where are those fucking bullets?” the male from the truck shrieked to his cronies, his empty gun—that blessedly, unexpectedly empty gun—clenched in his hand.

Danika’s caramel eyes were wide, searching, as they remained on Bryce’s face. Sorrow and pain and fear and regret—all of it was written there.

“I love you, Bryce.” Tears rolled down Danika’s face. “And I’m sorry.”

She had never said those words before. Ever. Bryce had teased her for the past three years about it, but Danika had refused to say them.

Motion caught Bryce’s attention to their left. Bullets had been found in the truck’s cab. But her gaze remained on Danika. On that beautiful, fierce face.

She let go, like a key turning in a lock. The first rays of the sun over the horizon.

And Bryce whispered, as those bullets came closer to that awaiting gun and the monstrous male who wielded it, “Close your eyes, Danika.”

Bryce blinked, the shimmering memory replaced by the photo still glaring from her screen. Of Danika and the Pack of Devils years later—so happy and young and alive.

Mere hours from their true end.

The skies opened, and wings rustled above, reminding her of Athalar’s hovering presence. But she didn’t bother to look as she strode into the club.

25

Hunt knew he’d fucked up. And he was in deep shit with Micah—if Micah found out that he’d revealed the truth about that night.

He doubted Quinlan had made that call—either to the sorceress or to Micah’s office—and he’d make sure she didn’t. Maybe he’d bribe her with a new pair of shoes or some purse or whatever the fuck might be enticing enough to keep her mouth shut. One fuckup, one misstep, and he had few illusions about how Micah would react.

He let Quinlan run through the city, trailing her from the Old Square into the dark wasteland of Asphodel Meadows, then into the CBD, and back to the Old Square again.

Hunt flew above her, listening to the symphony of honking cars, thumping bass, and the brisk April wind whispering through the palms and cypresses. Witches on brooms soared down the streets, some close enough to touch the roofs of the cars they passed. So different from the angels, Hunt included, who always kept above the buildings when flying. As if the witches wanted to be a part of the bustle the angels defined themselves by avoiding.

While he’d trailed Quinlan, Justinian had called with the information on the kristallos, which amounted to a whole lot of nothing. A few myths that matched with what they already knew. Vik had called five minutes after that: the Viper Queen’s alibis checked out.

Then Isaiah had called, confirming that the victim in the alley was indeed a missing acolyte. He knew Danaan’s suspicions were right: it couldn’t be coincidence that they’d been at the temple yesterday, talking about the Horn and the demon that had slaughtered Danika and the Pack of Devils, and now one of its acolytes had died at the kristallos’s claws.

A Fae girl. Barely more than a child. Acid burned through his stomach at the thought.

He shouldn’t have brought Quinlan to the murder scene. Shouldn’t have pushed her into going, so blinded by his damn need to get this investigation solved quickly that he hadn’t thought twice about