House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,9

over in Pangera. She made it a point never to give details.

Assassin, Danika claimed. Even sweet Juniper, the faun who occupied the fourth side of their little friendship-square, admitted the odds were that Fury was a merc. Whether Fury was occasionally employed by the Asteri and their puppet Imperial Senate was up for debate, too. But none of them really cared—not when Fury always had their back when they needed it. And even when they didn’t.

Bryce’s hand hovered over the golden disk. Danika’s gaze was a cool weight on her.

“Come on, B, don’t be a wimp.”

Bryce sighed, and set her hand on the pad. “I wish Danika would get a manicure. Her nails look like shit.”

Lightning zapped through her, a slight vacuuming around her belly button, and then Danika was laughing, shoving her. “You fucking dick.”

Bryce slung an arm around Danika’s shoulders. “You deserved it.”

Danika thanked the security guard, who beamed at the attention, and ignored the tourists still snapping photos. They didn’t speak until they reached the northern edge of the square—where Danika would head toward the angel-filled skies and towers of the CBD, to the sprawling Comitium complex in its heart, and Bryce toward Luna’s Temple, three blocks up.

Danika jerked her chin toward the streets behind Bryce. “I’ll see you at home, all right?”

“Be careful.” Bryce blew out a breath, trying to shake her unease.

“I know how to look out for myself, B,” Danika said, but love shone in her eyes—gratitude that crushed Bryce’s chest—merely for the fact that someone cared whether she lived or died.

Sabine was a piece of shit. Had never whispered or hinted who Danika’s father might be—so Danika had grown up with absolutely no one except her grandfather, who was too old and withdrawn to spare Danika from her mother’s cruelty.

Bryce inclined her head toward the CBD. “Good luck. Don’t piss off too many people.”

“You know I will,” Danika said with a grin that didn’t meet her eyes.

3

The Pack of Devils was already at her apartment by the time Bryce got home from work.

It had been impossible to miss the roaring laughter that met her before she’d even cleared the second-floor stairwell landing—as well as the canine yips of amusement. Both had continued as she ascended the remaining level of the walk-up apartment building, during which time Bryce grumbled to herself about her plans for a quiet evening on the couch being ruined.

Chanting a string of curses that would make her mother proud, Bryce unlocked the blue-painted iron door to the apartment, bracing for the onslaught of lupine bossiness, arrogance, and general nosiness in all matters of her life. And that was just Danika.

Danika’s pack made each of those things an art form. Mostly because they claimed Bryce as one of their own, even if she didn’t bear the tattoo of their sigil down the side of her neck.

Sometimes she felt bad for Danika’s future mate, whoever that would be. The poor bastard wouldn’t know what hit him when he bound himself to her. Unless he was wolf-kind himself—though Danika had about as much interest in sleeping with a wolf as Bryce did.

That is to say, not a gods-damned shred.

Giving the door a good shove with her shoulder—its warped edges got stuck more often than not, mostly thanks to the romping of the hellions currently spread across the several sagging couches and armchairs—Bryce sighed as she found six pairs of eyes fixed on her. And six grins.

“How was the game?” she asked no one in particular, chucking her keys into the lopsided ceramic bowl Danika had half-assed during a fluff pottery course in college. She’d heard nothing from Danika regarding the Briggs meeting beyond a general I’ll tell you at home.

It couldn’t have been that bad, if Danika made it to the sunball game. She’d even sent Bryce a photo of the whole pack in front of the field, with Ithan a small, helmeted figure in the background.

A message from the star player himself had popped up later: Next time, you better be with them, Quinlan.

She’d written back, Did baby pup miss me?

You know it, Ithan had answered.

“We won,” Connor drawled from where he lounged on her favorite spot on the couch, his gray CCU sunball T-shirt rumpled enough to reveal the cut of muscle and golden skin.

“Ithan scored the winning goal,” Bronson said, still wearing a blue-and-silver jersey with Holstrom on the back.

Connor’s little brother, Ithan, held an unofficial membership in the Pack of Devils. Ithan also happened to be Bryce’s second-favorite person