“I taught myself. It’s a useful skill for a soldier. Makes you a popular person in any legion camp. Besides, I’ve got two centuries under my belt. It’d be pathetic not to know how to cook at this point.” He held the plate closer. “Eat up, Quinlan. I won’t let anyone lose those clothes.”
She debated throwing the plate in his face, but finally took it and plunked into the seat at the head of the dining table. Syrinx trotted over to her, already gazing expectantly at the bacon.
A cup of coffee appeared on the table a heartbeat later, the cream still swirling inside.
Hunt smirked at her. “Wouldn’t want you to head out to the world without the proper provisions.”
Bryce flipped him off, took his phone from where he’d left it on the table, and snapped a few pictures: the breakfast, the coffee, his stupid smirking face, Syrinx sitting beside her, and her own scowl. But she drank the coffee anyway.
By the time she put her mug into the sink, Hunt finishing up his meal at the table behind her, she found her steps feeling lighter than they had in a while.
“Don’t lose those,” Hunt warned Viktoria as she sifted through the bag on her desk.
The wraith looked up from the faded gray band T-shirt with a wailing, robed figure on the front. The Banshees. “We’ve got clothes in Evidence for Danika Fendyr and the other victims.”
“Fine, but use these, too,” Hunt said. Just in case someone had tampered with the evidence here—and to let Quinlan feel as if she’d helped with this. Bryce was at the gallery dealing with some snooty customer, with Naomi watching. “You got the Mimir tech from Declan?”
“As I said on the phone: yes.” Vik peered into the bag again. “I’ll give you a call if anything comes up.”
Hunt stretched a piece of paper across the desk. “See if traces of any of these come up, too.”
Viktoria took one look at the words on it and went pale, her halo stark over her brow. “You think it’s one of these demons?”
“I hope not.”
He’d made a list of potential demons that might be working in conjunction with the kristallos, all ancient and terrible, his dread deepening with each new name he added. Many of them were nightmares that prowled bedtime stories. All of them were catastrophic if they entered Midgard. He’d faced two of them before—and barely made it through the encounters.
Hunt nodded toward the bag again. “I mean it: don’t lose those clothes,” he said again.
“Going soft, Athalar?”
Hunt rolled his eyes and aimed for the doorway. “I just like my balls where they are.”
Viktoria notified Hunt that evening that she was still running the diagnostic. The Fae’s Mimir tech was thorough enough that it’d take a good while to run.
He prayed the results wouldn’t be as devastating as he expected.
He’d messaged Bryce about it while she finished up work, chuckling when he saw that she’d again changed her contact information in his phone: Bryce Is a Queen.
They stayed up until midnight binge-watching a reality show about a bunch of hot young Vanir working at a beach club in the Coronal Islands. He’d refused at first—but by the end of the first hour, he’d been the one pressing play on the next episode. Then the next.
It hadn’t hurt that they’d gone from sitting on opposite ends of the sectional to being side by side, his thigh pressed against hers. He might have toyed with her braid. She might have let him.
The next morning, Hunt was just following Bryce toward the apartment elevator when his phone rang. He took one look at the number and grimaced before picking up. “Hi, Micah.”
“My office. Fifteen minutes.”
Bryce pressed the elevator button, but Hunt pointed to the roof door. He’d fly her to the gallery, then head to the CBD. “All right,” he said carefully. “Do you want Miss Quinlan to join us?”
“Just you.” The line went dead.
54
Hunt took a back entrance into the tower, careful to avoid any area that Sandriel might be frequenting. Isaiah hadn’t picked up, and he knew better than to keep calling until he did.
Micah was staring out the window when he arrived, his power already a brewing storm in the room. “Why,” the Archangel asked, “are you running Fae tests on old evidence down at the lab?”
“We have good reason to think the demon we identified isn’t the one behind Danika Fendyr’s death. If we can find what actually did kill her, it might lead us to whoever summoned it.”
“The Summit is in two weeks.”
“I know. We’re working as hard as we can.”
“Are you? Drinking at a whiskey bar with Bryce Quinlan counts as working?”
Asshole. “We’re on it. Don’t worry.”
“Sabine Fendyr called my office, you know. To rip my head off about being a suspect.” There was nothing humane behind those eyes. Only cold predator.
“It was a mistake, and we’ll own up to that, but we had sufficient cause to believe—”
“Get. The. Job. Done.”
Hunt gritted out, “We will.”
Micah surveyed him coolly. Then he said, “Sandriel has been asking about you—about Miss Quinlan, too. She’s made me a few generous offers to trade again.” Hunt’s stomach became leaden. “I’ve turned her down so far. I told her that you’re too valuable to me.”
Micah threw a file on the table, then turned back to the window.
“Don’t make me reconsider, Hunt.”
Hunt read through the file—the silent order it conveyed. His punishment. For Sabine, for taking too long, for just existing. A death for a death.
He stopped at the barracks to pick up his helmet.
Micah had written a note in the margin of the list of targets, their crimes. No guns.
So Hunt grabbed a few more of his black-hilted daggers, and his long-handled knife, too.
Every movement was careful. Deliberate. Every shift of his body as he donned his black battle-suit quieted his mind, pulling him farther and farther from himself.
His phone buzzed on his desk, and he glanced at it only long enough to see that Bryce Is a Queen had written to him: Everything okay?
Hunt slid on his black gloves.
His phone buzzed again.
I’m going to order in dumpling soup for lunch. Want some?
Hunt turned the phone over, blocking the screen from view. As if it’d somehow stop her from learning what he was doing. He gathered his weapons with centuries of efficiency. And then donned the helmet.
The world descended into cool calculations, its colors dimmed.
Only then did he pick up his phone and write back to Bryce, I’m good. I’ll see you later.
She’d written back by the time he reached the barracks landing pad. He’d watched the typing bubble pop up, vanish, then pop up again. Like she’d written out ten different replies before settling on Okay.
Hunt shut off his phone as he shouldered his way through the doors and into the open air.
He was a stain against the brightness. A shadow standing against the sun.
A flap of his wings had him skyborne. And he did not look back.
Something was wrong.
Bryce had known it the moment she realized she hadn’t heard from him after an hour in the Comitium.
The feeling had only worsened at his vague response to her message. No mention of why he’d been called in, what he was up to.
As if someone else had written it for him.
She’d typed out a dozen different replies to that not-Hunt message.
Please tell me everything is okay.
Type 1 if you need help.
Did I do something to upset you?
What’s wrong?
Do you need me to come to the Comitium?
Turning down an offer of dumpling soup—did someone steal this phone?
On and on, writing and deleting, until she’d written, I’m worried. Please call me. But she had no right to be worried, to demand those things of him.
So she’d settled with a pathetic Okay.
And had not heard back from him. She’d checked her phone obsessively the whole workday.
Nothing.
Worry was a writhing knot in her stomach. She didn’t even order the soup. A glance at the roof cameras showed Naomi sitting there all day, her face tight.
Bryce had gone up there around three. “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” she asked, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.
Naomi looked her over. “Hunt is fine,” she said. “He …” She stopped herself, reading something on Bryce’s face. Surprise flickered in her eyes. “He’s fine,” the angel said gently.