House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,141

there.” Quinlan’s eyes flickered, but Hunt didn’t take his focus off her as he walked closer. He sensed Danaan, Flynn, and Emmet leaving the gallery, but didn’t look to confirm as he halted before her.

The cold emptiness of the sniper range yawned around them.

Again, Quinlan’s hands curled, fingers wiggling at her sides. Like she could shake the dread and pain away. Hunt said calmly, “You want me to handle it?”

Color crept over her freckled cheeks. She pointed to the door with a shaking finger. “Someone died while we were dicking around tonight.”

Hunt wrapped his hand around her finger. Lowered it to the space between them. “This guilt isn’t on you. It’s on whoever is doing this.”

People like him, butchering in the night.

She tried to yank her finger back, and he let go, remembering her wariness of male Vanir. Of alphaholes.

Bryce’s throat bobbed, and she peered around his wing. “I want to go to the scene of the crime.” He waited for the rest of it. She blew out an uneven breath. “I need to go,” she said, more to herself. Her foot tapped on the concrete floor, in time to the beat of the still-thumping music. She winced. “But I don’t want Ruhn or his friends seeing me like this.”

“Like what?” It was normal, expected, to be screwed up by what she’d endured.

“Like a fucking mess.” Her eyes glowed.

“Why?”

“Because it’s none of their business, but they’ll make it their business if they see. They’re Fae males—sticking their noses into places they don’t belong is an art form for them.”

Hunt huffed a laugh. “True.”

She exhaled again. “Okay,” she murmured. “Okay.” Her hands still shook, as if her bloody memories swarmed her.

It was instinct to take her hands in his own.

They trembled like glasses rattling on a shelf. Felt as delicate, even with the slick, clammy sweat coating them.

“Take a breath,” Hunt said, squeezing her fingers gently.

Bryce closed her eyes, head bowing as she obeyed.

“Another,” he commanded.

She did.

“Another.”

So Quinlan breathed, Hunt not letting go of her hands until the sweat dried. Until she lifted her head. “Okay,” she said again, and this time, the word was solid.

“You good?”

“As good as I’ll ever be,” she said, but her gaze had cleared.

Unable to help himself, he brushed back a loose tendril of her hair. It slid like cool silk against his fingers as he hooked it behind her arched ear. “You and me both, Quinlan.”

Bryce let Hunt fly her to the crime scene. The alley in the Asphodel Meadows was about as seedy as they came: overflowing dumpster, suspect puddles of liquid gleaming, rail-thin animals rooting through the trash, broken glass sparkling in the firstlight from the rusting lamppost.

Glowing blue magi-screens already blocked off the alley entrance. A few technicians and legionaries were on the scene, Isaiah Tiberian, Ruhn, and his friends among them.

The alley lay just off Main Street, in the shadow of the North Gate—the Mortal Gate, most people called it. Apartment buildings loomed, most of them public, all in dire need of repairs. The noises from the cramped avenue beyond the alley echoed off the crumbling brick walls, the cloying reek of trash stuffing itself up her nose. Bryce tried not to inhale too much.

Hunt surveyed the alley and murmured, a strong hand on the small of her back, “You don’t need to look, Bryce.”

What he’d done for her just now in that shooting range … She’d never let anyone, even her parents, see her like that before. Those moments when she couldn’t breathe. She usually went into a bathroom or bailed for a few hours or went for a run.

The instinct to flee had been nearly as overwhelming as the panic and dread searing her chest, but … she’d seen Hunt come in from his mission the other night. Knew he of all people might get it.

He had. And hadn’t balked for one second.

Just as he hadn’t balked from seeing her shoot that target, and instead answered it with a shot of his own. Like they were two of a kind, like she could throw anything at him and he’d catch it. Would meet every challenge with that wicked, feral grin.

She could have sworn the warmth from his hands still lingered on her own.

Whatever conversation they’d been having with Isaiah over, Flynn and Declan strode for the magi-screen. Ruhn stood ten feet beyond them, talking to a beautiful, dark-haired medwitch. No doubt asking about what she’d assessed.

Peering around the glowing blue edge to the body hidden beyond, Flynn and Declan