House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

Again, his jaw worked. Then he said, “But I was blind. About a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“Just a lot,” he hedged. “Looking at Briggs, what they’re doing to him … I don’t know why it bothered me this time. I’ve been down there often enough with other prisoners that—I mean …” His knee bounced. He said without looking at her, “You know what kinda shit I have to do.”

She said gently, “Yeah.”

“But for whatever reason, seeing Briggs like that today, it just made me remember my own …” He trailed off again and swigged from his beer.

Icy, oily dread filled her stomach, twisting with the fried noodles she’d inhaled thirty minutes ago. “How long did they do that to you—after Mount Hermon?”

“Seven years.”

She closed her eyes as the weight of those words rippled through her.

Hunt said, “I lost track of time, too. The Asteri dungeons are so far beneath the earth, so lightless, that days are years and years are days and … When they let me out, I went right to the Archangel Ramuel. My first … handler. He continued the pattern for two years, got bored with it, and realized that I’d be more useful dispatching demons and doing his bidding than rotting away in his torture chambers.”

“Burning Solas, Hunt,” she whispered.

He still didn’t look at her. “By the time Ramuel decided to let me serve as his assassin, it had been nine years since I’d seen sunlight. Since I’d heard the wind or smelled the rain. Since I’d seen grass, or a river, or a mountain. Since I’d flown.”

Her hands shook enough that she crossed her arms, tucking her fingers tight to her body. “I—I am so sorry.”

His eyes turned distant, glazed. “Hatred was the only thing that fueled me through it. Briggs’s kind of hatred. Not hope, not love. Only unrelenting, raging hatred. For the Archangels. For the Asteri. For all of it.” He finally looked at her, his eyes as hollow as Briggs’s had been. “So, yeah. I might not have ever been willing to kill innocents to help Shahar’s rebellion, but that’s the only difference between me and Briggs. Still is.”

She didn’t let herself reconsider before she took his hand.

She hadn’t realized how much bigger Hunt’s hand was until hers coiled around it. Hadn’t realized how many calluses lay on his palms and fingers until they rasped against her skin.

Hunt glanced down at their hands, her dusk-painted nails contrasting with the deep gold of his skin. She found herself holding her breath, waiting for him to snatch his hand back, and asked, “Do you still feel like hatred is all that gets you through the day?”

“No,” he said, eyes lifting from their hands to scan her face. “Sometimes, for some things, yes, but … No, Quinlan.”

She nodded, but he was still watching her, so she reached for the spreadsheets.

“You have nothing else to say?” Hunt’s mouth twisted to the side. “You, the person who has an opinion on everything and everyone, have nothing else to say about what I just told you?”

She pushed her braid over her shoulder. “You’re not like Briggs,” she said simply.

He frowned. And began to withdraw his hand from hers.

Bryce clamped her fingers around his. “You might see yourself that way, but I see you, too, Athalar. I see your kindness and your … whatever.” She squeezed his hand for emphasis. “I see all the shit you conveniently forget. Briggs is a bad person. He might have once gotten into the human rebellion for the right reasons, but he is a bad person. You aren’t. You will never be. End of story.”

“This bargain I’ve got with Micah suggests otherwise—”

“You’re not like him.”

The weight of his stare pressed on her skin, warmed her face.

She withdrew her hand as casually as she could, trying not to note how his own fingers seemed hesitant to let go. But she leaned forward, stretching out her arm, and flicked his hat. “What’s up with this, by the way?”

He batted her away. “It’s a hat.”

“It doesn’t fit with your whole predator-in-the-night image.”

For a heartbeat, he was utterly silent. Then he laughed, tipping back his head. The strong tan column of his throat worked with the movement, and Bryce crossed her arms again.

“Ah, Quinlan,” he said, shaking his head. He swept the hat off his head and plunked it down atop her own. “You’re merciless.”

She grinned, twisting the cap backward the way he’d worn it, and primly shuffled the papers. “Let’s look this over again. Since Briggs was a bust, and the Viper Queen’s out … maybe there’s something with Danika at Luna’s Temple the night the Horn was stolen that we’re missing.”

He drifted closer, his thigh grazing her bent knee, and peered at the papers in her lap. She watched his eyes slide over them as he studied the list of locations. And tried not to think about the warmth of that thigh against her leg. The solid muscle of it.

Then he lifted his head.

He was close enough that she realized his eyes weren’t black after all, but rather a shade of darkest brown. “We’re idiots.”

“At least you said we.”

He snickered, but didn’t pull back. Didn’t move that powerful leg of his. “The temple has exterior cameras. They would have been recording the night the Horn was stolen.”