“Of course he will.” Hunt’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket.
He choked. Not just at the message from Bryce: The gallery roof isn’t a pigeon roost, you know, but what she’d changed her contact name to, presumably when he’d gone to the bathroom or showered or just left his phone on the coffee table: Bryce Rocks My Socks.
And there, beneath the ridiculous name, she’d added a photo to her contact: the one she’d snapped of herself in the phone store, grinning from ear to ear.
Hunt suppressed a growl of irritation and typed back, Shouldn’t you be working?
Bryce Rocks My Socks wrote back a second later, How can I work when you two are thumping around up there?
He wrote back, How’d you get my password? She hadn’t needed it to activate the camera feature, but to have gotten into his contacts, she would have needed the seven-digit combination.
I paid attention. She added a second later, And might have observed you typing it in a few times while you were watching some dumb sunball game.
Hunt rolled his eyes and pocketed his phone without replying. Well, at least she was coming out of that quiet cloud she’d been in for days.
He found Isaiah watching him carefully. “There are worse fates than death, you know.”
Hunt looked toward the Comitium, the female Archangel lurking in it. “I know.”
Bryce frowned out the gallery door. “The forecast didn’t call for rain.” She scowled at the sky. “Someone must be throwing a tantrum.”
“It’s illegal to interfere with the weather,” Hunt recited from beside her, thumbing a message into his phone. He hadn’t changed the new contact name she’d given herself, Bryce had noticed. Or erased that absurd photo she’d added to her contact listing.
She silently mimicked his words, then said, “I don’t have an umbrella.”
“It’s not a far flight to the lab.”
“It’d be easier to call a car.”
“At this hour? In the rain?” He sent off his message and pocketed his phone. “It’ll take you an hour just to cross Central Avenue.”
The rain swept through the city in sheets. “I could get electrocuted up there.”
Hunt’s eyes glittered as he offered her a hand. “Good thing I can keep you safe.”
With all that lightning in his veins, she supposed it was true.
Bryce sighed and frowned at her dress, the black suede heels that would surely be ruined. “I’m not in flying-appropriate attire—”
The word ended on a yelp as Hunt hauled her into the sky.
She clung to him, hissing like a cat. “We have to go back before closing for Syrinx.”
Hunt soared over the congested, rain-battered streets as Vanir and humans ducked into doorways and under awnings to escape the weather. The only ones on the streets were those with umbrellas or magical shields up. Bryce buried her face against his chest, as if it’d shield her from the rain—and the terrible drop. What it amounted to was a face full of his scent and the warmth of his body against her cheek.
“Slow down,” she ordered, fingers digging into his shoulders and neck.
“Don’t be a baby,” he crooned in her ear, the richness of his voice skittering over every bone of her body. “Look around, Quinlan. Enjoy the view.” He added, “I like the city in the rain.”
When she kept her head ducked against his chest, he gave her a squeeze. “Come on,” he teased over the honking horns and splash of tires through puddles. He added, voice nearly a purr, “I’ll buy you a milkshake if you do.”
Her toes curled in her shoes at the low, coaxing voice.
“Only for ice cream,” she muttered, earning a chuckle from him, and cracked open an eye. She forced the other one open, too. Clutching his shoulders nearly hard enough to pierce through to his skin, working against every instinct that screamed for her body to lock up, she squinted through the water lashing her face at the passing city.
In the rain, the marble buildings gleamed like they were made from moonstone, the gray cobblestone streets appeared polished a silvery blue splashed with the gold of the firstlight lamps. To her right, the Gates in the Old Square, Moonwood, and FiRo rose through the sprawl, like the humped spine of some twining beast breaking the surface of a lake, their crystal gleaming like melting ice. From this high, the avenues that linked them all—the ley lines beneath them—shot like spears through the city.
The wind rattled the palms, tossing the fronds to and fro, their hissing almost drowning out the cranky honking of drivers now in a traffic standstill. The whole city, in fact, seemed to have stopped for a moment—except for them, swiftly passing above it all.