But getting wasted was for off-nights only. Never when on duty or on call.
Bryce hit the worn oak floor of the first level, edging around the beer pong table occupying most of the foyer. A few cups littered its stained plywood surface, painted by Flynn with what they’d all deemed was high-class art: an enormous Fae male head devouring an angel whole, only frayed wings visible through the snapped-shut teeth. It seemed to ripple with movement as Ruhn cleared the stairs. He could have sworn the painting winked at him.
Yeah, water. He needed water.
Bryce showed herself through the living room, where the music blasted so loud it made Ruhn’s teeth rattle in his skull.
He entered in time to see Bryce striding past the pool table in the rear of the long, cavernous space. A few Aux warriors stood around it, females with them, deep in a game.
Tristan Flynn, son of Lord Hawthorne, presided over it from a nearby armchair, a pretty dryad on his lap. The glazed light in his brown eyes mirrored Ruhn’s own. Flynn gave Bryce a crooked grin as she approached. All it usually took was one look and females crawled into Tristan Flynn’s lap just like the tree nymph, or—if the look was more of a glower—any enemies outright bolted.
Charming as all Hel and lethal as fuck. It should have been the Flynn family motto.
Bryce didn’t stop as she passed him, unfazed by his classic Fae beauty and considerable muscles, but demanded over her shoulder, “What the fuck did you give him?”
Flynn leaned forward, prying his short chestnut hair free from the dryad’s long fingers. “How do you know it was me?”
Bryce walked toward the kitchen at the back of the room, accessible through an archway. “Because you look high off your ass, too.”
Declan called from the sectional couch at the other end of the living room, a laptop on his knee and a very interested draki male half-sprawled over him, running clawed fingers through Dec’s dark red hair, “Hey, Bryce. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Bryce jerked her thumb back at Ruhn. “Checking on the Chosen One. How’s your fancy tech crap going, Dec?”
Declan Emmet didn’t usually appreciate anyone belittling the lucrative career he’d built on a foundation of hacking into Republic websites and then charging them ungodly amounts of money to reveal their critical weaknesses, but he grinned. “Still raking in the marks.”
“Nice,” Bryce said, continuing into the kitchen and out of sight.
Some of the Aux warriors were staring toward the kitchen now, blatant interest in their eyes. Flynn growled softly, “She’s off-limits, assholes.”
That was all it took. Not even a snapping vine of Flynn’s earth magic, rare among the fire-prone Valbaran Fae. The others immediately returned their attention to the pool game. Ruhn threw his friend a grateful look and followed Bryce—
But she was already back in the doorway, water bottle in hand. “Your fridge is worse than mine,” she said, shoving the bottle toward him and entering the living room again. Ruhn sipped as the stereo system in the back thumped the opening notes of a song, guitars wailing, and she angled her head, listening, weighing.
Fae impulse—to be drawn to music, and to love it. Perhaps the one side of her heritage she didn’t mind. He remembered her showing him her dance routines as a young teenager. She’d always looked so unbelievably happy. He’d never had the chance to ask why she stopped.
Ruhn sighed, forcing himself to focus, and said to Bryce, “Why are you here?”
She stopped near the sectional. “I told you: I need to talk to you.”
Ruhn kept his face blank. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d bothered finding him.
“Why would your cousin need an excuse to chat with us?” Flynn asked, murmuring something in the dryad’s delicate ear that had her heading for the cluster of her three friends at the pool table, her narrow hips swishing in a reminder of what he’d miss if he waited too long. Flynn drawled, “She knows we’re the most charming males in town.”
Neither of his friends ever guessed the truth—or at least voiced any suspicions. Bryce tossed her hair over a shoulder as Flynn rose from his armchair. “I have better things to do—”
“Than hang out with Fae losers,” Flynn finished for her, heading to the built-in bar against the far wall. “Yeah, yeah. You’ve said so a hundred times now. But look at that: here you are, hanging with us in our humble abode.”
Despite his carefree demeanor, Flynn would one day inherit his father’s title: Lord Hawthorne. Which meant that for the past several decades, Flynn had done everything he could to forget that little fact—and the centuries of responsibilities it would entail. He poured himself a drink, then a second one that he handed to Bryce. “Drink up, honeycakes.”