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

Isaiah just gave her a nod as he trailed Micah toward the chairs before the desk.

Hunt Athalar, however, lingered. Holding her gaze—before he glanced at her collarbone. As if the feather had left a mark. The tattoo of thorns across his forehead seemed to turn darker.

And just like that, that scent of sex rippling off the Archangel turned to rot.

The Asteri and the Archangels could have easily found another way to hobble the power of the Fallen, yet they’d enslaved them with the witch spells woven into magical tattoos stamped onto their foreheads like fucked-up crowns. And the tattoos on their wrists: SPQM.

Senatus Populusque Midgard.

The Midgard Senate and People. Total fucking bullshit. As if the Senate was anything but a puppet ruling body. As if the Asteri weren’t their emperors and empresses, ruling over everything and everyone for eternity, their rotted souls regenerating from one form to the next.

Bryce shoved the thought from her mind as she shut the iron door behind Hunt, just barely missing his gray feathers. His black eyes flashed with warning.

She gave him a smile to convey everything she didn’t dare say aloud regarding her feelings about this ambush. I’ve faced worse than you, Umbra Mortis. Glower and snarl all you like.

Hunt blinked, the only sign of his surprise, but Bryce was already turning toward her desk, trying not to limp as pain speared through her leg. She’d dragged up a third chair from the library, which had aggravated her leg further.

She didn’t dare rub at the thick, curving scar across her upper thigh, hidden under her white dress. “Can I get you anything, Your Grace? Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?” She’d already laid out bottled sparkling water on the small tables between the chairs.

The Archangel had claimed the middle seat, and as she smiled politely at him, the weight of his gaze pressed on her like a silken blanket. “I’m fine.” Bryce looked to Hunt and Isaiah, who slid into their chairs. “They’re fine, too,” Micah said.

Very well, then. She strode around the desk, sliding her hand beneath its ledge to push a brass button and sending up a prayer to merciful Cthona that her voice remained calm, even as her mind kept circling back to the same thought, over and over: Briggs didn’t kill Danika, Briggs didn’t kill Danika, Briggs didn’t kill Danika—

The wood panel in the wall behind her split open, revealing a large screen. As it flickered to life, she picked up the desk phone and dialed.

Briggs had been a monster who had planned to hurt people, and he deserved to be in jail, but—he’d been wrongly accused of the murder.

Danika’s killer was still out there.

Jesiba answered on the first ring. “Is the screen ready?”

“Whenever you are.” Bryce typed the codes into her computer, trying to ignore the Governor staring at her like she was a steak and he was … something that ate steak. Raw. And moaning. “I’m dialing you in,” she declared.

Jesiba Roga appeared on the screen an instant later—and they both hung up their phones.

Behind the sorceress, the hotel suite was decorated in Pangeran splendor: paneled white walls with gilded molding, plush cream carpets and pale pink silk drapes, a four-poster oak bed big enough for her and the two males Bryce had heard when she called before.

Jesiba played as hard as she worked while over on the massive territory, seeking out more art for the gallery, either through visiting various archaeological digs or courting high-powered clients who already possessed them.

Despite having less than ten minutes, and despite using most of that time to make some very important calls, Jesiba’s flowing navy dress was immaculate, revealing tantalizing glimpses of a lush female body adorned with freshwater pearls at her ears and throat. Her cropped ash-blond hair glowed in the golden firstlight lamps—cut shorter on the sides, longer on the top. Effortlessly chic and casual. Her face …

Her face was both young and wise, bedroom-soft yet foreboding. Her pale gray eyes gleamed with glittering magic, alluring and deadly.

Bryce had never dared ask why Jesiba had defected from the witches centuries ago. Why she’d aligned herself with the House of Flame and Shadow and its leader, the Under-King—and what she did for him. She called herself a sorceress now. Never a witch.

“Morning, Micah,” Jesiba said mildly. A pleasant, disarming voice compared to that of other members of Flame and Shadow—the hoarse rasp of Reapers, or the silken tones of vampyrs.

“Jesiba,” Micah purred.

Jesiba gave him a slight smile, as if she’d heard that purr a thousand different times, from a thousand different males. “Pleased as I am to see your handsome face, I’d like to know why you called this meeting. Unless the Danika thing was an excuse to talk to sweet Bryce.”

The Danika thing. Bryce kept her face neutral, even as she felt Hunt watching her carefully. As if he could hear her heart thundering, scent the sweat now coating her palms.

But Bryce gave him a bored look in return.

Micah leaned back in his chair, crossing his long legs, and said without so much as glancing at Bryce, “Tempting as your assistant is, we have important matters to discuss.”

She ignored the outright entitlement, the timbre of that sensual voice. Tempting—as if she were a piece of dessert on a platter. She was used to it, but … these gods-damned Vanir males.

Jesiba waved with ethereal grace to continue, silver nails sparkling in the hotel’s lamplight.