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

She’d fallen completely silent. Just stared at Hunt, blank and hollow. She didn’t so much as flinch with each punch of the staple gun Hunt had pulled from the small medkit built into his battle-suit. She just stared and stared and stared at the Umbra Mortis.

Yet Hunt hadn’t lingered after he’d stapled her leg shut—he’d launched into the night to do what he did best: find their enemies and obliterate them.

As if noticing the blood on his gloves, Hunt swore and peeled them off, dumping them into the metal trash can by the door.

Then the male leafed through Quinlan’s thin file, his shoulder-length black hair slipping over his unreadable face.

“Seems like she’s your standard spoiled party girl,” he said, turning the pages. A corner of Hunt’s mouth curved upward, anything but amused. “And what a surprise: she’s Danika Fendyr’s roommate. The Party Princess herself.”

No one but the 33rd used that term—because no one else in Lunathion, not even the Fae royals, would have dared. But Isaiah motioned to keep reading. Hunt had left the alley before he’d learned the entire scope of this disaster.

Hunt kept reading. His brows rose. “Holy fucking Urd.”

Isaiah waited for it.

Hunt’s dark eyes widened. “Danika Fendyr is dead?” He read further. “Along with the entire Pack of Devils.” He shook his head and repeated, “Holy fucking Urd.”

Isaiah took back the file. “It is totally and completely fucked, my friend.”

Hunt’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t find any trace of the demon that did this.”

“I know.” At Hunt’s questioning glance, Isaiah clarified, “If you had, you’d be holding a severed head in your hands right now and not a file.”

Isaiah had been there—on many occasions—when Hunt had done just that, returning triumphant from a demon-hunting mission he’d been ordered to go on by whatever Archangel currently held their reins.

Hunt’s mouth twitched slightly, as if remembering the last time he’d presented a kill in such a manner, but he crossed his powerful arms. Isaiah ignored the inherent dominance in the position. There was a pecking order among them, the five-warrior team who made up the triarii—the most elite of all the Imperial Legion units. Micah’s little cabal.

Though Micah had appointed Isaiah the Commander of the 33rd, he’d never formally declared him its leader. But Isaiah had always assumed he stood right at the top, the unspoken finest soldier of the triarii, despite his fancy suit and tie.

Where Hunt fell, however … no one had really decided in the two years since he’d arrived from Pangera. Isaiah wasn’t entirely sure he really wanted to know, either.

Tracking down and eliminating any demons who crept through cracks in the Northern Rift or entered this world through an illegal summoning was his official role, and one well suited to Hunt’s particular skill set. The gods knew how many of them he’d tracked down over the centuries, starting from that very first Pangeran unit they’d been in together—the 17th—dedicated to sending the creatures into the afterlife.

But the work Hunt did in the shadows for the Archangels—for Micah, currently—that was what had earned him his nickname. Hunt answered directly to Micah, and the rest of them stayed out of his way.

“Naomi just arrested Philip Briggs for the murders,” Isaiah said, naming the captain of the 33rd’s infantry. “Briggs got out of jail today—and Danika and the Pack of Devils were the ones who busted him in the first place.” That the honor hadn’t gone to the 33rd had irked Isaiah to no end. At least Naomi had been the one to apprehend him tonight. “How the fuck a human like Briggs could summon a demon that powerful, I don’t know.”

“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” Hunt said darkly.

Yeah, they fucking would. “Briggs has to be ten kinds of stupid to have been released only to go for a kill that big.” The leader of the Keres rebels—an offshoot of the larger rebellion movement, the Ophion—hadn’t seemed dumb, though. Just a fanatic hell-bent on starting a conflict to mirror the war raging across the sea.

“Or maybe Briggs acted on the sole chance of freedom he had before we found an excuse to bring him back into custody,” Hunt countered. “He knew his time was limited and wanted to make sure he got one up on the Vanir first.”

Isaiah shook his head. “What a mess.” Understatement of the century.

Hunt blew out a breath. “Has the press gotten wind of anything?”

“Not yet,” Isaiah said. “And I got the order a few minutes ago that we’re to keep it quiet—even if it’ll be all over the news tomorrow morning.”

Hunt’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve got no one to tell.”

Indeed, Hunt and the concept of friends didn’t mesh well. Even among the triarii, even after being here for two years, Hunt still kept to himself. Still worked relentlessly toward one thing: freedom. Or rather, the slim chance of it.

Isaiah sighed. “How soon until Sabine gets here?”

Hunt checked his phone. “Sabine’s on her way downstairs right—” The door blew open. Hunt’s eyes flickered. “Now.”

Sabine looked barely older than Bryce Quinlan, with her fine-boned face and long, silvery blond hair, but there was only an immortal’s rage in her blue eyes. “Where is that half-breed whore—” She simmered as she spotted Bryce through the window. “I’ll fucking kill her—”