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

“I heard you want to kill me, Hunt,” the Archangel said, crossing her thin arms. She clicked her tongue. “Are we really back to that old game?”

He said nothing. Just sat on his cot and held her gaze.

“You know, when you had your belongings confiscated, they found some interesting things, which Micah was kind enough to share.” She pulled an object from her pocket. His phone. “This in particular.”

She waved a hand and his phone screen appeared on the TV behind her, its wireless connection showing every movement of her fingers through the various programs. “Your email, of course, was dull as dirt. Do you never delete anything?” She didn’t wait for his response before she went on. “But your messages …” Her lips curled, and she clicked on the most recent chain.

Bryce had changed her contact name one last time, it seemed.

Bryce Thinks Hunt Is the Best had written:

I know you’re not going to see this. I don’t even know why I’m writing to you.

She’d messaged a minute after that, I just … Then another pause. Never mind. Whoever is screening this, never mind. Ignore this.

Then nothing. His head became so, so quiet.

“And you know what I found absolutely fascinating?” Sandriel was saying, clicking away from the messages and going into his photos. “These.” She chuckled. “Look at all of this. Who knew you could act so … commonly?”

She hit the slideshow function. Hunt just sat there as photos began appearing on the screen.

He’d never looked through them. The photos that he and Bryce had taken these weeks.

There he was, drinking a beer on her couch, petting Syrinx while watching a sunball game.

There he was, making her breakfast because he’d come to enjoy knowing that he could take care of her like that. She’d snapped another photo of him working in the kitchen: of his ass. With her own hand in the foreground, giving a thumbs-up of approval.

He might have laughed, might have smiled, had the next photo not popped up. A photo he’d taken this time, of her mid-sentence.

Then one of him and her on the street, Hunt looking notably annoyed at having his photo taken, while she grinned obnoxiously.

The photo he’d snapped of her dirty and drenched by the sewer grate, spitting mad.

A photo of Syrinx sleeping on his back, limbs splayed. A photo of Lehabah in the library, posing like a pinup girl on her little couch. Then a photo he’d gotten of the river at sunset as he flew overhead. A photo of Bryce’s tattooed back in the bathroom mirror, while she gave a saucy wink over her shoulder. A photo he’d taken of an otter in its yellow vest, then one he’d managed to grab a second later of Bryce’s delighted face.

He didn’t hear what Sandriel was saying.

The photos had begun as an ongoing joke, but they’d become real. Enjoyable. There were more of the two of them. And more photos that Hunt had taken, too. Of the food they’d eaten, interesting graffiti along the alleys, of clouds and things he normally never bothered to notice but had suddenly wanted to capture. And then ones where he looked into the camera and smiled.

Ones where Bryce’s face seemed to glow brighter, her smile softer.

The dates drew closer to the present. There they were, on her couch, her head on his shoulder, smiling broadly while he rolled his eyes. But his arm was around her. His fingers casually tangled in her hair. Then a photo he’d taken of her in his sunball hat. Then a ridiculous medley she’d taken of Jelly Jubilee and Peaches and Dreams and Princess Creampuff tucked into his bed. Posed on his dresser. In his bathroom.

And then some by the river again. He had a vague memory of her asking a passing tourist to snap a few. One by one, the various shots unfolded.

First, a photo with Bryce still talking and him grimacing.

Then one with her smiling and Hunt looking at her.

The third was of her still smiling—and Hunt still looking at her. Like she was the only person on the planet. In the galaxy.

His heart thundered. In the next few, her face had turned toward him. Their eyes had met. Her smile had faltered.

As if realizing how he was looking at her.

In the next, she was smiling at the ground, his eyes still on her. A secret, soft smile. Like she knew, and didn’t mind one bit.

And then in the last, she had leaned her head against his chest, and wrapped her arms around his middle. He’d put his arm and wing around her. And they had both smiled.

True, broad smiles. Belonging to the people they might have been without the tattoo on his brow and the grief in her heart and this whole stupid fucking world around them.

A life. These were the photos of someone with a life, and a good one at that. A reminder of what it had felt like to have a home, and someone who cared whether he lived or died. Someone who made him smile just by entering a room.

He’d never had that before. With anyone.

The screen went dark, and then the photos began again.

And he could see it, this time. How her eyes—they had been so cold at the start. How even with her ridiculous pictures and poses, that smile hadn’t reached her eyes. But with each photo, more light had crept into them. Brightened them. Brightened his eyes, too. Until those last photos. When Bryce was near-glowing with joy.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Sandriel was smirking like a cat. “Is this really what you wanted in the end, Hunt?” She gestured to the photos. To Bryce’s smiling face. “To be freed one day, to marry the girl, to live out some ordinary, basic life?” She chuckled. “Whatever would Shahar say?”