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

Lehabah cleared her throat and asked Ruhn, “Have you ever visited the Fae Archives on Avallen? I heard they’re grander than what was brought over here.” She twirled her curl of flame around a finger.

“No,” Ruhn said. “But the Fae on that misty island are even less welcoming than the ones here.”

“They do like to hoard all their wealth, don’t they,” Lehabah said, eyeing Bryce. “Just like you, BB. Only spending on yourself, and never anything nice for me.”

Bryce removed her foot. “Do I not buy you strawberry shisha every other week?”

Lehabah crossed her arms. “That’s barely a gift.”

“Says the sprite who hotboxes herself in that little glass dome and burns it all night and tells me not to bother her until she’s done.” She leaned back in her chair, smug as a cat, and Hunt nearly grinned again at the spark in her eyes.

Bryce grabbed his phone from the table and snapped a photo of him before he could object. Then one of Lehabah. And another of Syrinx.

If Ruhn noticed she didn’t bother with a photo of him, he said nothing. Though Hunt could have sworn the shadows in the room deepened.

“All I want, BB,” Lehabah said, “is a little appreciation.”

“Gods spare me,” Bryce muttered. Even Ruhn smiled at that.

The prince’s phone rang, and he picked up before Hunt could see who it was. “Flynn.”

Hunt heard Flynn’s voice faintly. “You’re needed at the barracks. Some bullshit fight broke out about somebody’s girlfriend sleeping with someone else and I honestly don’t give two fucks about it, but they bloodied each other up pretty damn good.”

Ruhn sighed. “I’ll be there in fifteen,” he said, and hung up.

Hunt asked, “You really have to moderate petty fights like that?”

Ruhn ran a hand down the hilt of the Starsword. “Why not?”

“You’re a prince.”

“I don’t understand why you make that sound like an insult,” Ruhn growled.

Hunt said, “Why not do … bigger shit?”

Bryce answered for him. “Because his daddy is scared of him.”

Ruhn shot her a warning look. “He outranks me power-wise and title-wise.”

“And yet he made sure to get you under his thumb as early as possible—as if you were some sort of animal to be tamed.” She said the words mildly, but Ruhn tensed.

“It was going well,” Ruhn said tightly, “until you came along.”

Hunt braced himself for the brewing storm.

Bryce said, “He was alive the last time a Starborn Prince appeared, you know. You ever ask what happened to him? Why he died before he made the Drop?”

Ruhn paled. “Don’t be stupid. That was an accident during his Ordeal.”

Hunt kept his face neutral, but Bryce just leaned back in her chair. “If you say so.”

“You still believe this shit you tried to sell me as a kid?”

She crossed her arms. “I wanted your eyes open to what he really is before it was too late for you, too.”

Ruhn blinked, but straightened, shaking his head as he rose from the table. “Trust me, Bryce, I’ve known for a while what he is. I had to fucking live with him.” Ruhn nodded toward the messy table. “If I hear anything new about the Horn or this synthetic healing magic, I’ll let you know.” He met Hunt’s stare and added, “Be careful.”

Hunt gave him a half smile that told the prince he knew exactly what that be careful was about. And didn’t give a shit.

Two minutes after Ruhn left, the front door buzzed again.

“What does he fucking want now?” Bryce muttered, grabbing the tablet Lehabah had been using to watch her trash TV and pulling up the video feed for the front cameras.

A squeal escaped her. An otter in a reflective yellow vest stood on its hind legs, a little paw on the lower buzzer she’d had Jesiba install for shorter patrons. Out of the hope that one day, somehow, she’d find a fuzzy, whiskery messenger standing on the doorstep.

Bryce bolted from her chair a second later, her heels eating up the carpet as she ran upstairs.

The message the otter bore from Tharion was short and sweet.

I think you’ll find this of interest. Kisses, Tharion

“Kisses?” Hunt asked.

“They’re for you, obviously,” Bryce said, still smiling about the otter. She’d handed him a silver mark, for which she’d earned a twitch of the whiskers and a little fanged grin.

Easily the highlight of her day. Week. Year.

Honestly, her entire life.

At the desk in the showroom, Bryce removed Tharion’s letter from the top of the pile, while Hunt began to leaf through some of the pages beneath.

The blood rushed from her face at a photograph in Hunt’s hand. “Is that a body?”

Hunt grunted. “It’s what’s left of one after Tharion pried it from a sobek’s lair.”

Bryce couldn’t stop the shudder down her spine. Clocking in at more than twenty-five feet and nearly three thousand pounds of scale-covered muscle, sobeks were among the worst of the apex predators who prowled the river. Mean, strong, and with teeth that could snap you in two, a full-grown male sobek could make most Vanir back away. “He’s insane.”

Hunt chuckled. “Oh, he most certainly is.”