It took Hunt a second to sort it out. Then his dark eyes widened. “Oh fuck. Really?” She didn’t fail to note his glance to her legs—between them. The way his eyes seemed to darken further, something within them sharpening. “Wouldn’t that hurt?”
“I didn’t want to find out.”
Hunt shook his head, and she wondered if he was unsure whether to cringe or laugh. But the light had come back to his eyes. “No more vamps after that?”
“Definitely not. He claimed the finest pleasure was always edged in pain, but I showed him the door.”
Hunt grunted his approval. Bryce knew she probably shouldn’t, but asked carefully, “You still have a thing for Shahar?”
A muscle feathered in his jaw. He scanned the skies. “Until the day I die.”
No longing or sorrow graced the words, but she still wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the dropping sensation in her stomach.
Hunt’s eyes slid to hers at last. Bleak and lightless. “I don’t see how I can move on from loving her when she gave up everything for me. For the cause.” He shook his head. “Every time I hook up, I remember it.”
“Ah.” No arguing with that. Anything she said against it would sound selfish and whiny. And maybe she was dumb, for letting herself read into his leg touching hers or the way he’d looked at her at the shooting range or coaxed her through her panic or any of it.
He was staring at her. As if seeing all of that. His throat bobbed. “Quinlan, that isn’t to say that I’m not—”
His words were cut off by a cluster of people approaching from the other end of the street.
She glimpsed silvery blond hair and couldn’t breathe. Hunt swore. “Let’s get airborne—”
But Sabine had spotted them. Her narrow, pale face twisted in a snarl.
Bryce hated the shaking that overtook her hands. The trembling in her knees.
Hunt warned Sabine, “Keep moving, Fendyr.”
Sabine ignored him. Her stare was like being pelted with shards of ice. “I heard you’ve been showing your face again,” she seethed at Bryce. “Where the fuck is my sword, Quinlan?”
Bryce couldn’t think of anything to say, any retort or explanation. She just let Hunt lead her past Sabine, the angel a veritable wall of muscle between them.
Hunt’s hand rested on Bryce’s back as he nudged her along. “Let’s go.”
“Stupid slut,” Sabine hissed, spitting at Bryce’s feet as she passed.
Hunt stiffened, a growl slipping out, but Bryce gripped his arm in a silent plea to let it go.
His teeth gleamed as he bared them over a shoulder at Sabine, but Bryce whispered, “Please.”
He scanned her face, mouth opening to object. She made them keep walking, even as Sabine’s sneer branded itself into her back.
“Please,” Bryce whispered again.
His chest heaved, as if it took every bit of effort to reel in his rage, but he faced forward. Sabine’s low, smug laugh rippled toward them.
Hunt’s body locked up, and Bryce squeezed his arm tighter, misery coiling around her gut.
Maybe he scented it, maybe he read it on her face, but Hunt’s steps evened out. His hand again warmed her lower back, a steady presence as they walked, finally crossing the street.
They were halfway across Main when Hunt scooped her into his arms, not saying a word as he launched into the brisk skies.
She leaned her head against his chest. Let the wind drown out the roaring in her mind.
They landed on the roof of her building five minutes later, and she would have gone right down to the apartment had he not gripped her arm to stop her.
Hunt again scanned her face. Her eyes.
Us, he’d said earlier. A unit. A team. A two-person pack.
Hunt’s wings shifted slightly in the wind off the Istros. “We’re going to find whoever is behind all this, Bryce. I promise.”
And for some reason, she believed him.
She was brushing her teeth when her phone rang.
Declan Emmet.
She spat out her toothpaste before answering. “Hi.”
“You still have my number saved? I’m touched, B.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s up?”
“I found something interesting in the footage. The taxpaying residents of this city should revolt at how their money’s being blown on second-rate analysts instead of people like me.”
Bryce padded into the hall, then into the great room—then to Hunt’s door. She knocked on it once, and said to Declan, “Are you going to tell me or just gloat about it?”