But Ruhn was already there, blood running from his temple as he helped her friend stand—
Bryce looked over every inch of Juniper: plaster and dust and someone else’s green blood, but not a scratch, not a scratch, not a scratch—
Bryce swayed back into Hunt, who gripped her shoulders. “We need to get out—now,” the angel was saying to Ruhn, ordering her brother like a foot soldier. “There could be more.”
Juniper pushed out of Ruhn’s grip and screamed at Bryce, “Are you out of your mind?”
Her ears—her ears wouldn’t stop ringing, and maybe her brain was leaking because she couldn’t talk, couldn’t seem to remember how to use her limbs—
Juniper swung. Bryce didn’t feel the impact on her cheek. Juniper sobbed as if her body would break apart. “I made the Drop, Bryce! Two years ago! You haven’t! Have you completely lost it?”
A warm, strong arm slid across her abdomen, holding her upright. Hunt said, his mouth near her ear, “Juniper, she’s shell-shocked. Give it a rest.”
Juniper snapped at him, “Stay out of this!” But people were wailing, screaming, and debris was still raining down. Pillars lay like fallen trees around them. June seemed to notice, to realize—
Her body, gods, her body wouldn’t work—
Hunt didn’t object when Ruhn gave them an address nearby and told them to go wait for him there. It was closer than her apartment, but frankly, Hunt wasn’t entirely sure Bryce would let him in—and if she went into shock and he couldn’t get past those enchantments … Well, Micah would spike his head to the front gates of the Comitium if she died on his watch.
He might very well do that just for not sensing that the attack was about to happen.
Quinlan didn’t seem to notice he was carrying her. She was heavier than she looked—her tan skin covered more muscle than he’d thought.
Hunt found the familiar white-columned house a few blocks away; the key Ruhn had given him opened a green-painted door. The cavernous foyer was laced with two male scents other than the prince’s. A flick of the light switch revealed a grand staircase that looked like it’d been through a war zone, scuffed oak floors, and a crystal chandelier hanging precariously.
Beneath it: a beer pong table painted with remarkable skill—portraying a gigantic Fae male swallowing an angel whole.
Ignoring that particular fuck you to his kind, Hunt aimed for the living room to the left of the entry. A stained sectional lay against the far wall of the long room, and Hunt set Bryce down there as he hurried for the equally worn wet bar midway down the far wall. Water—she needed some water.
There hadn’t been an attack in the city for years now—since Briggs. He’d felt the bomb’s power as it rippled through the club, shredding the former temple and its inhabitants apart. He’d leave it to the investigators to see what exactly it was, but—
Even his lightning hadn’t been fast enough to stop it, not that it would have been any protection against a bomb, not in an ambush like that. He’d destroyed enough on battlefields to know how to intercept them with his power, how to match death with death, but this hadn’t been some long-range missile fired from a tank.
It had been planted somewhere in the club, and detonated at a predetermined moment. There were a handful of people who might be capable of such a thing, and at the top of Hunt’s list … there was Philip Briggs again. Or his followers, at least—Briggs himself was still imprisoned at the Adrestia Prison. He’d think on it later, when his head wasn’t still spinning, and his lightning wasn’t still a crackle in his blood, hungry for an enemy to obliterate.
Hunt turned his attention to the woman who sat on the couch, staring at nothing.
Bryce’s green dress was wrecked, her skin was covered in plaster and someone else’s blood, her face pale—save for the red mark on her cheek.
Hunt grabbed an ice pack from the freezer under the bar counter and a dish towel to wrap it in. He set the glass of water on the stained wood coffee table, then handed her the ice. “She slugged you pretty damn good.”
Those amber eyes lifted slowly to him. Dried blood crusted inside her ears.
A moment’s searching in the sorry-looking kitchen and bathroom cabinet revealed more towels and a first aid kit.
He knelt on the worn gray carpet before her, tucking his wings in tight to keep them from tangling with the beer cans that littered the coffee table.
She kept staring at nothing as he cleaned out her bloody ears.
He didn’t have med-magic like a witch, but he knew enough battlefield healing to assess her arched ears. The Fae hearing would have made that explosion horrific—the human bloodline then slowing down the healing process. Mercifully, he found no signs of continued bleeding or damage.
He started on the left ear. And when he’d finished, he noticed her knees were scraped raw, with shards of stone embedded in them.
“Juniper stands a shot of being promoted to principal,” Bryce rasped at last. “The first faun ever. The summer season starts soon—she’s an understudy for the main roles in two of the ballets. A soloist in all five of them. This season is crucial. If she got injured, it could interfere.”
“She made the Drop. She would have bounced back quickly.” He pulled a pair of tweezers from the kit.
“Still.”
She hissed as he carefully pried out some shards of metal and stone from her knee. She’d hit the ground hard. Even with the club exploding, he’d seen her move.
She’d thrown herself right over Juniper, shielding her from the blast.
“This will sting,” he told her, frowning at the bottle of healing solution. Fancy, high-priced stuff. Surprising that it was even here, given that the prince and his roommates had all made the Drop. “But it’ll keep it from scarring.”
She shrugged, studying the massive, dark television screen over his shoulder.
Hunt doused her leg with the solution, and she jerked. He gripped her calf hard enough to keep her down, even as she cursed. “I warned you.”
She pushed a breath out between clenched teeth. The hem of her already short dress had ridden up with her movements, and Hunt told himself he looked only to assess if there were other injuries, but—
The thick, angry scar cut across an otherwise sleek, unnervingly perfect thigh.
Hunt stilled. She’d never gotten it healed.
And every limp he’d sometimes caught her making from the corner of his eye … Not from her dumb fucking shoes. But from this. From him. From his clumsy battlefield instincts to staple her up like a soldier.
“When males are kneeling between my legs, Athalar,” she said, “they’re not usually grimacing.”
“What?” But her words registered, just at the moment he realized his hand still gripped her calf, the silky skin beneath brushing against the calluses on his palms. Just as he realized that he was indeed kneeling between her thighs, and had leaned closer to her lap to see that scar.
Hunt reeled back, unable to help the heat rising to his face. He removed his hand from her leg. “Sorry,” he ground out.
Any amusement faded from her eyes as she said, “Who do you think did it—the club?”
The heat of her soft skin still stained his palm. “No idea.”
“Could it have anything to do with us looking into this case?” Guilt already dampened her eyes, and he knew the body of the acolyte flashed through her mind.
He shook his head. “Probably not. If someone wanted to stop us, a bullet in the head’s a lot more precise than blowing up a club. It could easily have been some rival of the club’s owner. Or the remaining Keres members looking to start more shit in this city.”
Bryce asked, “You think we’ll have war here?”
“Some humans want us to. Some Vanir want us to. To get rid of the humans, they say.”
“They’ve destroyed parts of Pangera with the war there,” she mumbled. “I’ve seen the footage.” She looked at him, letting her unspoken question hang. How bad was it?
Hunt just said, “Magic and machines. Never a good mix.”
The words rippled between them. “I want to go home,” she breathed. He peeled off his jacket and settled it around her shoulders. It nearly devoured her. “I want to shower all this off.” She gestured at the blood on her bare skin.
“Okay.” But the front door in the foyer opened. One set of booted feet.
Hunt had his gun out, hidden against his thigh as he turned, when Ruhn walked in, shadows in his wake. “You’re not going to like this,” the prince said.
She wanted to go home. Wanted to call Juniper. Wanted to call her mom and Randall just to hear their voices. Wanted to call Fury and learn what she knew, even if Fury wouldn’t pick up or answer her messages. Wanted to call Jesiba and make her find out what had happened. But she mostly just wanted to go home and shower.
Ruhn, stone-faced and blood-splattered, halted in the archway.
Hunt slid the handgun back into its holster at his thigh before sitting on the couch beside her.
Ruhn went to the wet bar and filled a glass of water from the sink. Every movement was stiff, shadows whispering around him. But the prince exhaled and the shadows, the tension, vanished.
Hunt spared her from demanding that Ruhn elaborate. “I’m assuming this has to do with whoever bombed the club?”
Ruhn nodded and tossed back a gulp of water. “All signs point to the human rebels.” Bryce’s blood chilled. She and Hunt swapped glances. Their discussion moments ago hadn’t been far from the mark. “The bomb was smuggled into the club through some new exploding liquid hidden in a delivery of wine. They left the calling card on the crate—their own logo.”
Hunt cut in. “Any potential connection to Philip Briggs?”
Ruhn said, “Briggs is still behind bars.” A polite way of describing the punishment the rebel leader now endured at Vanir hands in Adrestia Prison.
“The rest of his Keres group isn’t,” Bryce croaked. “Danika was the one who made the raid on Briggs in the first place. Even if he didn’t kill her, he’s still doing time for his rebel crimes. He could have instructed his followers to carry out this bombing.”
Ruhn frowned. “I thought they’d disbanded—joined other factions or returned to Pangera. But here’s the part you’re not going to like. Next to the logo on the crate was a branded image. My team and your team thought it was a warped C for Crescent City, but I looked at the footage of the storage area before the bomb went off. It’s hard to make out, but it could also be depicting a curved horn.”
“What does the Horn have to do with the human rebellion?” Bryce asked. Then her mouth dried out. “Wait. Do you think that Horn image was a message to us? To warn us away from looking for the Horn? As if that acolyte wasn’t enough?”
Hunt mused, “It can’t just be coincidence that the club was bombed when we were there. Or that one of the images on the crate seems like it could be the Horn, when we’re knee-deep in a search for it. Before Danika busted him, Briggs planned to blow up the Raven. The Keres sect has been inactive since he went to prison, but …”
“They could be coming back,” Bryce insisted. “Looking to pick up where Briggs left off, or somehow getting directions from him even now.”
Hunt looked somber. “Or it was one of Briggs’s followers all along—the planned bombing, Danika’s murder, this bombing … Briggs might not be guilty, but maybe he knows who is. He could be protecting someone.” He pulled out his phone. “We need to talk to him.”
Ruhn said, “Are you fucking nuts?”
Hunt ignored him and dialed a number, rising to his feet. “He’s in Adrestia Prison, so the request might take a few days,” he said to Bryce.
“Fine.” She blocked out the thought of what, exactly, this meeting would be like. Danika had been unnerved by Briggs’s fanaticism toward the human cause, and had rarely wanted to talk about him. Busting him and his Keres group—an offshoot of the main Ophion rebellion—had been a triumph, a legitimization of the Pack of Devils. It still hadn’t been enough to win Sabine’s approval.
Hunt tucked the phone to his ear. “Hey, Isaiah. Yeah, I’m all right.” He stepped into the foyer, and Bryce watched him go.
Ruhn said quietly, “The Autumn King knows I’ve involved you in looking for the Horn.”
She lifted heavy eyes to her brother. “How pissed is he?”
Ruhn’s grim smile wasn’t comforting. “He warned me of the poison you’d spew in my ear.”
“I should take that as a compliment, I suppose.”
Ruhn didn’t smile this time. “He wants to know what you’ll do with the Horn if it’s found.”
“Use it as my new drinking mug on game day.”
Hunt gave a snort of laughter as he entered the room, call over. Ruhn just said, “He was serious.”
“I’ll give it back to the temple,” Bryce said. “Not to him.”
Ruhn looked at both of them as Hunt again sat on the couch. “My father said that since I have now involved you in something so dangerous, Bryce, you need a guard to … remain with you at all times. Live with you. I volunteered.”
Every part of her battered body ached. “Over my dead fucking corpse.”
Hunt crossed his arms. “Why does your king care if Quinlan lives or dies?”
Ruhn’s eyes grew cold. “I asked him the same. He said that she falls under his jurisdiction, as half-Fae, and he doesn’t want to have to clean up any messy situations. The girl is a liability, he said.” Bryce could hear the cruel tones in every word Ruhn mimicked. Could see her father’s face as he spoke them. She often imagined how it’d feel to beat in that perfect face with her fists. To give him a scar like the one her mother bore along her cheekbone—small and slender, no longer than a fingernail, but a reminder of the blow he’d given her when his hideous rage drove him too far.
The blow that had sent Ember Quinlan running—pregnant with Bryce.
Creep. Old, hateful creep.
“So he’s just concerned about the PR nightmare of Quinlan’s death before the Summit,” Hunt said roughly, disgust tightening his face.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Ruhn said, then added to Bryce, “I’m only the messenger. Consider whether it’s wise to pick this as your big battle with him.”
No chance in Hel was she letting Ruhn into her apartment to order her around. Especially with those friends of his. It was bad enough she had to work with him on this case.
Gods, her head was pounding. “Fine,” she said, simmering. “He said I needed a guard—not you specifically, right?” At Ruhn’s tense silence, Bryce went on, “That’s what I thought. Athalar stays with me instead. Order fulfilled. Happy?”
“He won’t like that.”