House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,152

congested, rain-battered streets as Vanir and humans ducked into doorways and under awnings to escape the weather. The only ones on the streets were those with umbrellas or magical shields up. Bryce buried her face against his chest, as if it’d shield her from the rain—and the terrible drop. What it amounted to was a face full of his scent and the warmth of his body against her cheek.

“Slow down,” she ordered, fingers digging into his shoulders and neck.

“Don’t be a baby,” he crooned in her ear, the richness of his voice skittering over every bone of her body. “Look around, Quinlan. Enjoy the view.” He added, “I like the city in the rain.”

When she kept her head ducked against his chest, he gave her a squeeze. “Come on,” he teased over the honking horns and splash of tires through puddles. He added, voice nearly a purr, “I’ll buy you a milkshake if you do.”

Her toes curled in her shoes at the low, coaxing voice.

“Only for ice cream,” she muttered, earning a chuckle from him, and cracked open an eye. She forced the other one open, too. Clutching his shoulders nearly hard enough to pierce through to his skin, working against every instinct that screamed for her body to lock up, she squinted through the water lashing her face at the passing city.

In the rain, the marble buildings gleamed like they were made from moonstone, the gray cobblestone streets appeared polished a silvery blue splashed with the gold of the firstlight lamps. To her right, the Gates in the Old Square, Moonwood, and FiRo rose through the sprawl, like the humped spine of some twining beast breaking the surface of a lake, their crystal gleaming like melting ice. From this high, the avenues that linked them all—the ley lines beneath them—shot like spears through the city.

The wind rattled the palms, tossing the fronds to and fro, their hissing almost drowning out the cranky honking of drivers now in a traffic standstill. The whole city, in fact, seemed to have stopped for a moment—except for them, swiftly passing above it all.

“Not so bad, huh?”

She pinched Athalar’s neck, and his answering laugh brushed over her ear. She might have pressed her body a little harder against the solid wall of his. He might have tightened his grip, too. Just a bit.

In silence, they watched the buildings shift from ancient stone and brick to sleek metal and glass. The cars turned fancier, too—worn taxis exchanged for black sedans with tinted windows, uniformed drivers idling in the front seats while they waited in lines outside the towering high-rises. Fewer people occupied the much-cleaner streets—certainly there was no music or restaurants overflowing with food and drink and laughter. This was a sanitized, orderly pocket of the city, where the point was not to look around, but to look up. High in the rain-veiled gloom that wreathed the upper portions of the buildings, lights and shimmering whorls of color stained the mists. A splotch of red gleamed to her left, and she didn’t need to look to know it came from Redner Industries’ headquarters. She hadn’t seen or heard from Reid in the two years since Danika’s murder—he’d never even sent his condolences afterward. Even though Danika herself had worked part-time at the company. Prick.

Hunt steered for a solid concrete building that Bryce had tried to block from her memory, landing smoothly on a second-story balcony. Hunt was opening the glass doors, flashing some sort of entry ID into a scanner, when he said to her, “Viktoria’s a wraith.”

She almost said I know, but only nodded, following him inside. She and Hunt had barely spoken about that night. About what she remembered.

The air-conditioning was on full blast, and she instantly wrapped her arms around herself, teeth chattering at the shock of going from the storm into crisp cold.

“Walk fast” was the only help Hunt offered, wiping the rain off his face.

A cramped elevator ride and two hallways later, Bryce found herself shivering in the doorway of a spacious office overlooking a small park.

Watching as Hunt and Viktoria clasped hands over the wraith’s curved glass desk.

Hunt gestured to her, “Bryce Quinlan, this is Viktoria Vargos.”

Viktoria, to her credit, pretended to be meeting her for the first time.

So much of that night was a blur. But Bryce remembered the sanitized room. Remembered Viktoria playing that recording.

At least Bryce could now appreciate the beauty before her: the dark hair and pale skin and stunning green eyes were all Pangeran

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024