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

Hunt nodded. “I won’t breathe a word.”

She assessed him for a moment, then turned to the iron door. “Consider this your birthday present, Lele,” she muttered through the metal.

The iron door opened on a sigh, revealing the pine-green carpeted staircase that led straight down into the library. Hunt almost crashed into her as Lehabah floated up between them, her fire shining bright, and purred, “Hello.”

The angel examined the fire sprite hovering a foot away from his face. She was no longer than Bryce’s hand, her flaming hair twirling above her head.

“Well, aren’t you beautiful,” Hunt said, his voice low and soft in a way that made every instinct in Bryce sit up straight.

Lehabah flared as she wrapped her plump arms around herself and ducked her head.

Bryce shook off the effects of Hunt’s voice. “Stop pretending to be shy.”

Lehabah cut her a simmering glare, but Hunt lifted a finger for her to perch on. “Shall we?”

Lehabah shone ruby red, but floated over to his scarred finger and sat, smiling at him beneath her lashes. “He is very nice, BB,” Lehabah observed as Bryce walked down the stairs, the sun-chandelier blinking to life again. “I don’t see why you complain so much about him.”

Bryce scowled over her shoulder. But Lehabah was making mooncalf eyes at the angel, who gave Bryce a wry smile as he trailed her into the library’s heart.

Bryce looked ahead quickly.

Maybe Lehabah had a point about Athalar’s looks.

Bryce was aware of every step downward, every rustle of Hunt’s wings mere steps behind her. Every bit of air that he filled with his breath, his power, his will.

Other than Jesiba, Syrinx, and Lehabah, only Danika had been down here with her before.

Syrinx stirred enough from his nap to see that they had a guest—and his little lion’s tail whacked against the velvet sofa. “Syrie says you can brush him now,” Lehabah told Hunt.

“Hunt is busy,” Bryce said, heading for the table where she’d left the book open.

“Syrie talks, does he?”

“According to her, he does,” Bryce muttered, scanning the table for—right, she’d put the list on Lehabah’s table. She aimed for it, heels sinking deep into the carpet.

“There must be thousands of books in here,” Hunt said, surveying the towering shelves.

“Oh yes,” Lehabah said. “But half of this is also Jesiba’s private collection. Some of the books date all the way back to—”

“Ahem,” Bryce said.

Lehabah stuck out her tongue and said in a conspiratorial whisper to Hunt, “BB is cranky because she hasn’t been able to make her list.”

“I’m cranky because I’m hungry and you’ve been a pain in my ass all morning.”

Lehabah floated off Hunt’s finger to rush to her table, where she plopped on her doll’s couch and said to the angel, who looked torn between wincing and laughing, “BB pretends to be mean, but she’s a softie. She bought Syrie because Jesiba was going to gift him to a warlord client in the Farkaan mountains—”

“Lehabah—”

“It’s true.”

Hunt examined the various tanks throughout the room and the assortment of reptiles within them, then the empty waters of the massive aquarium. “I thought he was some designer pet.”

“Oh, he is,” Lehabah said. “Syrinx was stolen from his mother as a cub, then traded for ten years around the world, then Jesiba bought him to be her pet, then Bryce bought him—his freedom, I mean. She even had proof of his freedom certified. No one can ever buy him again.” She pointed to the chimera. “You can’t see it with him lying down like that, but he’s got the freed brand on his front right paw. The official C and everything.”

Hunt twisted from the gloomy water to look Bryce over.

She crossed her arms. “What? You did the assuming.”

His eyes flickered. Whatever the fuck that meant.

She tried not to look at his own wrist, though—the SPQM stamped there. She wondered if he was resisting the same urge; if he was contemplating whether he’d ever get that C one day.

But then Lehabah said to Hunt, “How much do you cost to buy, Athie?”

Bryce cut in, “Lele, that’s rude. And don’t call him Athie.”

She sent up a puff of smoke. “He and I are of the same House, and are both slaves. My great-grandmother fought in his 18th Legion during their rebellion. I am allowed to ask.”

Hunt’s face wholly shuttered at the mention of the rebellion, but he approached the couch, let Syrinx sniff his fingers, then scratched the beast behind his velvety ears. Syrinx let out a low growl of pleasure, his lion’s tail going limp.

Bryce tried to block out the squeezing sensation in her chest at the sight of it.

Hunt’s wings rustled. “I was sold to Micah for eighty-five million gold marks.”

Bryce’s heel snagged on the carpet as she reached Lehabah’s little station and grabbed the tablet. Lehabah again floated over to the angel. “I cost ninety thousand gold marks,” Lehabah confided. “Syrie was two hundred thirty-three thousand gold marks.”

Hunt’s eyes snapped to Bryce. “You paid that?”

Bryce sat at the worktable and pointed to the empty chair beside hers. Hunt followed obediently, for once. “I got a fifteen percent employee discount. And we came to an arrangement.”