“You’re right. We’ve got a damn good reason for thinking she killed Danika, but nothing solid enough to explain these new murders.” He watched her long, delicate fingers twine through her hair. Made himself look at the darkened television screen instead. “Catching her with the demon would prove her involvement.”
“You think Viktoria can find that footage we requested?”
“I hope so,” he said. Hunt mulled it over. Sabine—fuck, if it was her …
Bryce rose from the couch. “I’m going for a run.”
“It’s one in the morning.”
“I need to run for a bit, or I won’t be able to fall asleep.”
Hunt shot to his feet. “We just came from the scene of a murder, and Sabine was out for your blood, Bryce—”
She aimed for her bedroom and didn’t look back.
She emerged two minutes later in her exercise clothes and found him standing by the door in workout gear of his own. She frowned. “I want to run alone.”
Hunt opened the door and stepped into the hall. “Too fucking bad.”
There was her breathing, and the pounding of her feet on the slick streets, and the blaring music in her ears. She’d turned it up so loud it was mostly just noise. Deafening noise with a beat. She never played it this loud during her morning runs, but with Hunt keeping a steady pace beside her, she could blast her music and not worry about some predator taking advantage of it.
So she ran. Down the broad avenues, the alleys, and side streets. Hunt moved with her, every motion graceful and rippling with power. She could have sworn lightning trailed in their wake.
Sabine. Had she killed Danika?
Bryce couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Each breath was like shards of glass.
They needed to catch her in the act. Find evidence against her.
Her leg began to ache, an acidic burn along her upper thighbone. She ignored it.
Bryce cut toward Asphodel Meadows, the route so familiar that she was surprised her footprints hadn’t been worn into the cobblestones. She rounded a corner sharply, biting down on the groan of pain as her leg objected. Hunt’s gaze snapped to her, but she didn’t look at him.
Sabine. Sabine. Sabine.
Her leg burned, but she kept going. Through the Meadows. Through FiRo.
Kept running. Kept breathing. She didn’t dare stop.
Bryce knew Hunt was making a concerted effort to keep his mouth shut when they finally returned to her apartment an hour later. She had to grip the doorway to keep upright.
His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He didn’t mention that her limp had been so bad she’d barely been able to run the last ten blocks. Bryce knew the limp and pain would be worse by morning. Each step drew a cry to her throat that she swallowed down and down and down.
“All right?” he asked tightly, lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. She had a too-brief glimpse of those ridiculous stomach muscles, gleaming with sweat. He’d stayed by her side the entire time—hadn’t complained or spoken. Had just kept pace.
Bryce made a point not to lean on the wall as she walked toward her bedroom.
“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly. “Just needed to run it out.”
He reached for her leg, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “That happen often?”
“No,” she lied.
Hunt just gave her a look.
She couldn’t stop her next limping step. “Sometimes,” she amended, wincing. “I’ll ice it. It’ll be fine by morning.” If she’d been full-blooded Fae, it would have healed in an hour or two. Then again, if she were full-blooded Fae, the injury wouldn’t have lingered like this.
His voice was hoarse as he asked, “You ever get it checked out?”
“Yep,” she lied again, and rubbed at her sweaty neck. Before he could call her on it, she said, “Thanks for coming.”
“Yeah.” Not quite an answer, but Hunt mercifully said nothing else as she limped down the hallway and shut the door to her room.
39
Despite its entrance facing the bustle of the Old Square, Ruhn found the medwitch clinic blissfully quiet. The white-painted walls of the waiting room glowed with the sunshine leaking through the windows that looked onto the semipermanent traffic, and the trickle of a small quartz fountain atop the white marble counter blended pleasantly with the symphony playing through the ceiling’s speakers.
He’d been waiting for five minutes now, while the witch he’d come to see finished up with a patient, and had been perfectly content to bask in the tendrils of lavender-scented steam from the diffuser on the small table beside his chair. Even his shadows slumbered inside him.