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

No surprise there. Hunt had heard that despite his laughing nature, when the butterfly shifter got pissed, he went all in. Juniper went on, “Fury’s probably coming home because of it. You know she can’t resist a challenge.”

Burning Solas. Throwing Fury Axtar into this mess was a bad fucking idea. Hunt spooned coffee beans into the gleaming chrome machine built into the kitchen wall.

Quinlan asked tightly, “So she’ll come back home for a bounty, but not to see us?”

A silence. Then, “You weren’t the only one who lost Danika that night, B. We all dealt with it in different ways. Fury’s answer to her pain was to bail.”

“Your therapist tell you that?”

“I’m not fighting with you about this again.”

More silence. Juniper cleared her throat. “B, I’m sorry for what I did. You’ve got a bruise—”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not—”

“It is. I get it, I—”

Hunt turned on the machine’s coffee grinder to give them some privacy. He might have ground the beans into a fine powder instead of rough shards, but when he finished, Juniper was saying, “So, the gorgeous angel who’s making you coffee right now—”

Hunt grinned at the coffee machine. It had been a long, long while since anyone had bothered describing him as anything but Umbra Mortis, the Knife of the Archangels.

“No, no, and no,” Bryce cut her off. “Jesiba is having me do a classified job, and Hunt was assigned to protect me.”

“Is being shirtless in your house part of that assignment?”

“You know how these Vanir males are. They live to show off their muscles.”

Hunt rolled his eyes as Juniper laughed. “I’m shocked you’re even letting him stay here, B.”

“I didn’t really have a choice.”

“Hmmm.”

A thump of bare feet on the ground. “You know he’s listening, right? His feathers are probably so puffed up he won’t be able to fit through the door.”

Hunt leaned against the counter, the coffee machine doing the growling for him as Bryce stalked into the hallway. “Puffed up?”

She certainly hadn’t bothered to fulfill her friend’s pants request. Each step had the pale pink lace of the nightgown’s hem brushing against her upper thighs, tugging up slightly to reveal that thick, brutal scar on the left leg. His stomach twisted at the sight of what he’d done to her.

“Eyes up here, Athalar,” she drawled. Hunt scowled.

But Juniper was following closely on Bryce’s heels, her hooves clopping lightly on the wood floors as she held up the pastry bag. “I just wanted to drop these off. I’ve got rehearsal in …” She fished her phone from the pocket of her tight black leggings. “Oh shit. Now. Bye, B.” She rushed to the door, chucking the pastry bag on the table with impressive aim.

“Good luck—call me later,” Bryce said, already going to inspect her friend’s peace offering.

Juniper lingered in the doorway long enough to say to him, “Do your job, Umbra.”

Then she was gone.

Bryce slid into one of the white leather chairs at the glass table and sighed as she pulled out a chocolate croissant. She bit in and moaned. “Do legionaries eat croissants?”

He remained leaning against the counter. “Is that an actual question?”

Crunch-munch-swallow. “Why are you up so early?”

“It’s nearly seven thirty. Hardly early by anyone’s count. But your chimera nearly sat on my face, so how could I not be up? And how many people, exactly, have keys to this place?”

She finished off her croissant. “My parents, Juniper, and the doorman. Speaking of which … I need to give those keys back—and get another copy made.”

“And get me a set.”

The second croissant was halfway to her mouth when she set it down. “Not going to happen.”

He held her stare. “Yes, it is. And you’ll change the enchantments so I can get access—”

She bit into the croissant. “Isn’t it exhausting to be an alphahole all the time? Do you guys have a handbook for it? Maybe secret support groups?”

“An alpha-what?”

“Alphahole. Possessive and aggressive.” She waved a hand at his bare torso. “You know—you males who rip your shirt off at the slightest provocation, who know how to kill people in twenty different ways, who have females falling over themselves to be with you; and when you finally bang one, you go full-on mating-frenzy with her, refusing to let another male look at or talk to her, deciding what and when she needs to eat, what she should wear, when she sees her friends—”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Your favorite hobbies are brooding, fighting, and roaring; you’ve perfected about thirty different types of snarls and growls; you’ve got a cabal of hot friends, and the moment one of you mates, the others fall like dominoes, too, and gods help you when you all start having babies—”

He snatched the croissant out of her hand. That shut her up.

Bryce gaped at him, then at the pastry, and Hunt wondered if she’d bite him as he lifted it to his mouth. Damn, but it was good.

“One,” he told her, yanking over a chair and turning it backward for him to straddle. “The last thing I want to do is fuck you, so we can take the whole Sex, Mating, and Baby option off the table. Two, I don’t have friends, so there sure as fuck will be no couples-retreat lifestyle anytime soon. Three, if we’re complaining about people who are clothing-optional …” He finished the croissant and gave her a pointed look. “I’m not the one who parades around this apartment in a bra and underwear every morning while getting dressed.”