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

He frowned. “It’s been two years.”

“So?” It sure as shit hadn’t done anything to help her feel better about it.

Hunt shook his head. “People still bring them up? Those messages?”

“Of course.” She snorted, shaking her head. “Just look me up online, Athalar. I had to shut down every account I had.” The thought made her stomach churn, nauseating panic tightening every muscle and vein in her body. She’d gotten better about managing it—that feeling—but not by much. “People hate me. Literally hate me. Some of the wolf packs even wrote a song and put it online—they called it ‘I Just Hooked Up with Someone in the Bathroom, Don’t Tell Connor.’ They sing it whenever they see me.”

His face had gone cold as ice. “Which packs?”

She shook her head. She certainly wouldn’t name them, not with that murderous expression on his face. “It doesn’t matter. People are assholes.”

It was as simple as that, she’d learned. Most people were assholes, and this city was rife with them.

She sometimes wondered what they’d say if they knew about that time two winters ago when someone had sent a thousand printed-out lyric sheets of the song to her new apartment, along with mock album artwork taken from the photos she’d snapped that night. If they knew she had gone up to the roof to burn them all—but instead wound up staring over the ledge. She wondered what would have happened if Juniper, on a whim, hadn’t called just to check in that night. Right as Bryce had braced her hands on the rail.

Only that friendly voice on the other end of the line kept Bryce from walking right off the roof.

Juniper had kept Bryce on the phone—babbling about nothing. Right until her cab had pulled up in front of the apartment. Juniper refused to hang up until she was on the roof with Bryce, laughing it off. She’d only known where to find her because Bryce had mumbled something about sitting there. And perhaps she’d rushed over because of how hollow Bryce’s voice had been when she’d said it.

Juniper had stayed to burn the copies of the song, then gone downstairs to the apartment, where they’d watched TV in bed until they fell asleep. Bryce had risen at one point to turn off the TV and use the bathroom; when she’d come back, Juniper had been awake, waiting.

Her friend didn’t leave her side for three days.

They’d never spoken of it. But Bryce wondered if Juniper had later told Fury how close it had been, how hard she’d worked to keep that phone call going while she raced over without alerting Bryce, sensing that something was wrong-wrong-wrong.

Bryce didn’t like to think about that winter. That night. But she would never stop being grateful for Juniper for that sense—that love that had kept her from making such a terrible, stupid mistake.

“Yeah,” Hunt said, “people are assholes.”

She supposed he’d had it worse than her. A lot worse.

Two centuries of slavery that was barely disguised as some sort of twisted path to redemption. Micah’s bargain with him, reduced or no, was a disgrace.

She made herself take a bite of her now-soggy cereal. Made herself ask something, anything, to clear her head a bit. “Did you make up your nickname? The Shadow of Death?”

Hunt set down his spoon. “Do I look like the sort of person who needs to make up nicknames for myself?”

“No,” Bryce admitted.

“They only call me that because I’m ordered to do that sort of shit. And I do it well.” He shrugged. “They’d be better off calling me Slave of Death.”

She bit her lip and took another bite of cereal.

Hunt cleared his throat. “I know that visit today was hard. And I know I didn’t act like it at first, Quinlan, but I’m glad you got put on this case. You’ve been … really great.”

She tucked away what his praise did to her heart, how it lifted the fog that had settled on her. “My dad was a Dracon captain in the 25th Legion. They stationed him at the front for the entire three years of his military service. He taught me a few things.”

“I know. Not about you being taught, I mean. But about your dad. Randall Silago, right? He’s the one who taught you to shoot.”

She nodded, an odd sort of pride wending its way through her.

Hunt said, “I never fought beside him, but I heard of him the last time I was sent to the front—around twenty-six years ago. Heard about his sharpshooting, I mean. What does he think about …” A wave of his hand to her, the city around them.

“He wants me to move back home. I had to go to the mat with him—literally—to win the fight about going to CCU.”

“You physically fought him?”

“Yeah. He said if I could pin him, then I knew enough about defense to hold my own in the city. Turns out, I’d been paying more attention than I’d let him believe.”

Hunt’s low laugh skittered over her skin. “And he taught you how to shoot a sniper rifle?”

“Rifles, handguns, knives, swords.” But guns were Randall’s specialty. He’d taught her ruthlessly, over and over and over again.

“You ever use any outside of practice?”

I love you, Bryce.

Close your eyes, Danika.

“When I had to,” she rasped. Not that it had made a difference when it mattered.