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

But there he was. Sitting naked on the floor of the shower, his head bowed between his knees. Water pounded into his back, his wings, dripping off his hair. His gold-dusted brown skin gleamed an angry red.

Bryce took one step into the shower and hissed. The water was scalding. Burning hot.

“Hunt,” she said. He didn’t so much as blink.

She glanced between him and the showerhead. His body was healing the burns—healing and then scalding, healing and scalding. It had to be torturous.

She bit down on her yelp as she reached into the shower, the near-boiling water soaking her shirt, her pants, and lowered the temperature.

He didn’t move. Didn’t even look at her. He’d done this many times, she realized. Every time Micah had sent him out, and for all the Archangels he’d served before that.

Syrinx came to investigate, sniffed at the bloody clothes, then sprawled himself on the bath mat, head on his front paws.

Hunt made no indication that he knew she stood there.

But his breathing deepened. Became easier.

And she couldn’t explain why she did it, but she grabbed a bottle of shampoo and the block of lavender soap from the nook in the tiles. Then knelt before him.

“I’m going to clean you off,” she said quietly. “If that’s all right.”

A slight but terribly clear nod was his only response. Like words were still too hard.

So Bryce poured the shampoo into her hands, and then laced her fingers into his hair. The thick strands were heavy, and she gently scrubbed, tipping his head back to rinse it. His eyes lifted at last. Met hers, as his head leaned back into the stream of water.

“You look how I feel,” she whispered, her throat tight. “Every day.”

He blinked, his only sign that he’d heard.

She removed her hands from his hair, and picked up the bar of soap. He was naked, she realized, having somehow forgotten. Utterly naked. She didn’t let herself contemplate it as she began lathering his neck, his powerful shoulders, his muscled arms. “I’ll leave your bottom half for you to enjoy,” she said, her face heating.

He was just watching her with that raw openness. More intimate than any touch of his lips on her neck. Like he indeed saw everything she was and had been and might yet become.

She scrubbed down his upper body as best she could. “I can’t clean your wings with you sitting against the wall.”

Hunt rose to his feet in a mighty, graceful push.

She kept her eyes averted from what, exactly, this brought into her direct line of vision. The very considerable something that he didn’t seem to notice or care about.

So she wouldn’t care about it, either. She stood, water splattering her, and gently turned him. She didn’t let herself admire the view from behind, either. The muscles and perfection of him.

Your ass is perfect, he’d said to her.

Likewise, she could now attest.

She soaped his wings, now dark gray in the water.

He towered over her, enough that she had to rise to her toes to reach the apex of his wings. In silence, she washed him, and Hunt braced his hands against the tiles, his head hanging. He needed rest, and the comfort of oblivion. So Bryce rinsed off the soap, making sure each and every feather was clean, and then reached around the angel to turn off the shower.

Only the dribbling of water eddying into the drain filled the steamy bathroom.

Bryce grabbed a towel, keeping her eyes up as Hunt turned to face her. She slung it around his hips, yanked a second towel off the bar just outside the shower stall, and ran it over his tan skin. Gently patted his wings dry. Then rubbed his hair.

“Come on,” she murmured. “Bed.”

His face became more alert, but he didn’t object when she tugged him from the shower, dripping water from her sodden clothes and hair. Didn’t object when she led him into the bedroom, to the chest of drawers where he’d put his things.

She pulled out a pair of black undershorts and stooped down, eyes firmly on the ground as she stretched out the waistband. “Step in.”

Hunt obeyed, first one foot and then the other. She rose, sliding the shorts up his powerful thighs and releasing the elastic waist with a soft snap. Bryce snatched a white T-shirt from another drawer, frowned at the complicated slats on the back to fit his wings, and set it down again. “Underwear it is,” she declared, pulling back the blanket on the bed he so dutifully made each morning. She patted the mattress. “Get some sleep, Hunt.”

Again, he obeyed, sliding between the sheets with a soft groan.

She shut off the bathroom light, darkening the bedroom, and returned to where he now lay, still staring at her. Daring to stroke his damp hair away from his brow, Bryce’s fingers grazed over the hateful tattoo. His eyes closed.

“I was so worried about you,” she whispered, stroking his hair again. “I …” She couldn’t finish the sentence. So she made to step back, to head to her room and change into dry clothes and maybe get some sleep herself.

But a warm, strong hand gripped her wrist. Halted her.

She looked back, and found Hunt staring at her again. “What?”

A slight tug on her wrist told her everything.

Stay.

Her chest squeezed to the point of pain. “Okay.” She took a breath. “Okay, sure.”

And for some reason, the thought of going all the way to her bedroom, of leaving him for even a moment, seemed too risky. Like he might vanish again if she left to change.