House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,202

Why Danika had stolen the Horn, who wanted it so badly that they’d kill her for it … Bryce still had no idea. But if Ruhn was right about a method to heal the Horn … It all had to tie together somehow.

And she knew that while they’d killed the one kristallos demon, there were other kristallos waiting in Hel that could still be summoned to hunt the Horn. And if its kind had failed so far, when the breed had literally been created by the Princes of Hel to track the Horn … How could she even hope to find it?

Then there was the matter of those gruesome, pulping killings … which hadn’t been done by a kristallos. Hunt had already put in a request to have the footage checked again, but nothing had come through.

Hunt’s phone buzzed, and he fished it from his pocket, glimpsed at the screen, then put it away. From across the desk, she could just barely make out the text box of a message on the screen.

“Not going to write back?”

His mouth twisted to the side. “Just one of my colleagues, busting my balls.” His eyes flickered when he looked at her, though. And when she smiled at him, shrugging, his throat bobbed—just slightly.

Hunt said a bit roughly, “I gotta head out for a while. Naomi will come to stand guard. I’ll pick you up when you’re ready to leave.”

Before she could ask about it, he was gone.

“I know it’s been a while,” Bryce said, her phone wedged between her shoulder and ear.

Hunt had been waiting outside the gallery while she locked up, smiling at Syrinx scratching at the door. The chimera yowled in protest when he realized Bryce wasn’t bringing him along yet, and Hunt stooped to scratch his fuzzy golden head before Bryce shut the door, locking him in.

“I’ll have to look at my calendar,” Bryce was saying, nodding her hello to Hunt.

She looked beautiful today, in a rose-pink dress, pearls at her ears, and hair swept back on either side with matching pearl combs.

Fuck, beautiful wasn’t even the right word for it.

She’d emerged from her bedroom and he’d been struck stupid.

She hadn’t seemed to notice that he’d noticed, though he supposed she knew that she looked gorgeous every day. Yet there was a light to her today, a color that hadn’t been there before, a glow in her amber eyes and flush to her skin.

But that pink dress … It had distracted him all day.

So had their encounter in the kitchen this morning. He’d done his best to ignore it—to forget about how close he’d come to begging her to touch him, to let him touch her. It hadn’t stopped him from being in a state of semi-arousal all day.

He had to get his shit together. Considering that their investigation had slowed this past week, he couldn’t afford distractions. Couldn’t afford to ogle her every time she wasn’t looking. This afternoon, she’d been rising up onto her toes, arm straining to grab some book on a high shelf in the library, and it was like that color pink was the fucking Horn, and he was a kristallos demon.

He’d been out of his chair in an instant, at her side a heartbeat after that, and had pulled the book off the shelf for her.

She’d stood there, though, when he’d held the book out. Hadn’t backed up a step as she looked between the outstretched book and his face. His blood had begun pounding in his ears, his skin becoming too tight. Just like it had this morning when he’d seen her breasts peak, and had scented how filthy her own thoughts had turned.

But she’d just taken the book and walked away. Unfazed and unaware of his sheer stupidity.

It hadn’t improved as the hours had passed. And when she’d smiled at him earlier … He’d been half-relieved to be called away from the gallery a minute later. It was while he was heading back, breathing in the brisk air off the Istros, that Viktoria sent him a message: I found something. Meet me at Munin and Hugin in 15.

He debated telling the wraith to wait. To delay the inevitable bad news coming their way, to go just a few more days with that beautiful smile on Bryce’s face and that desire starting to smolder in her eyes, but … Micah’s warnings rang in his ears. The Summit was still two weeks away, but Hunt knew Sandriel’s presence had stretched Micah’s patience thinner than