House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,138

them as he studied the list of locations. And tried not to think about the warmth of that thigh against her leg. The solid muscle of it.

Then he lifted his head.

He was close enough that she realized his eyes weren’t black after all, but rather a shade of darkest brown. “We’re idiots.”

“At least you said we.”

He snickered, but didn’t pull back. Didn’t move that powerful leg of his. “The temple has exterior cameras. They would have been recording the night the Horn was stolen.”

“You make it sound as if the 33rd didn’t check that two years ago. They said the blackout rendered any footage essentially useless.”

“Maybe we didn’t run the right tests on the footage. Look at the right fields. Ask the right people to examine it. If Danika was there that night, why didn’t anyone know that? Why didn’t she come forward about being at the temple when the Horn was stolen? Why didn’t the acolyte say anything about her presence?”

Bryce chewed on her lip. Hunt’s eyes dipped to it. She could have sworn they darkened. That his thigh pressed harder into hers. As if in challenge—a dare to see if she’d back down.

She didn’t, but her voice turned hoarse as she said, “You think Danika might have known who took the Horn—and she tried to hide it?” She shook her head. “Danika wouldn’t have done that. She barely seemed to care that the Horn had been stolen at all.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But let’s start by looking at the footage, even if it’s a whole lot of nothing. And send it to someone who can give us a more comprehensive analysis.” He swiped his hat off her head, and put it back on his own—still backward, still with those little curling pieces of hair peeking around the edges. As if for good measure, he tugged the end of her braid, then folded his hands behind his head as he went back to watching the game.

The absence of his leg against hers was like a cold slap. “Who do you have in mind?”

His mouth just curved upward.

36

The three-level shooting range in Moonwood catered to a lethal, creative clientele. Occupying a converted warehouse that stretched four city blocks along the Istros, it boasted the only sniper-length gallery in the city.

Hunt stopped by every few weeks to keep his skills sharp, usually in the dead of night when no one could gawk at the Umbra Mortis donning a pair of earmuffs and military-grade glasses as he walked through the concrete hallways to one of the private galleries.

It had been late when he’d gotten the idea for this meeting, and then Jesiba had slammed Quinlan with work the next day, so they’d decided to wait until nightfall to see where their quarry wound up. Hunt had bet Bryce a gold mark it’d be a tattoo parlor, and she’d raised him to two gold marks that it’d be a fake-grungy rock bar. But when she’d gotten the reply to her message, it had led them here.

The sniper gallery lay on the northern end of the building, accessible through a heavy metal door that sealed off any sound. They grabbed electronic earmuffs that would stifle the boom of the guns—but still allow them to hear each other’s voices—on the way in. Before he entered the gallery, Hunt glanced over a shoulder at Bryce, checking that her earmuffs were in place.

She noted his assessing look and chuckled. “Mother hen.”

“I wouldn’t want your pretty little ears to get blown out, Quinlan.” He didn’t give her the chance to reply as he opened the door, thumping music blasting to greet them, and beheld the three males lined up along a waist-high glass barrier.

Lord Tristan Flynn had a sniper rifle aimed toward a person-shaped paper target at the far, far end of the space, so distant a mortal could barely make it out. He’d opted out of using the scope, instead relying on his keen Fae eyesight as Danaan and Declan Emmet stood near him, their own rifles hanging off their shoulders.

Ruhn nodded their way, and motioned to wait a moment.

“He’s gonna miss,” Emmet observed over the bumping bass of the music, barely sparing Hunt and Bryce a glance. “Off by a half inch.”

“Screw you, Dec,” Flynn muttered, and fired. The gunshot erupted through the space, the sound absorbed by the padding along the ceiling and walls, and at the far end of the gallery, the piece of paper swayed, the torso rippling.

Flynn lowered the rifle. “Straight