House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2) by Sarah J. Maas

Shahar would never have done something like this, risked so much for someone who could do her absolutely no good. But Bryce … Hunt couldn’t stop himself from stepping closer to her. From brushing his wing against her in a silent apology.

Bryce stepped beyond his reach. Fair enough. He’d been an asshole. She asked Fury, “You’ve got the address?”

“Yes. We’ll be there in eight hours. Seven, if we don’t bother with snacks.”

“He’s a kid. He needs snacks,” Hunt cut in.

But Fury ignored him and stalked around the car, sliding into the driver’s seat. Two handguns were buckled to her thighs. He had a feeling more were in the glove compartment and trunk. And then there was whatever Vanir power she possessed that made Fury Axtar, well … Fury Axtar. “You’re lucky I love you, Quinlan. And that Juniper didn’t want this kid here for another minute.”

Hunt caught the way Bryce’s throat bobbed, but she lifted a hand in farewell. Then she approached the still-open back door, where she said to Emile, “Your name isn’t Emile Renast anymore, okay?”

Panic sparked in the kid’s face. Bryce touched his cheek, as if she couldn’t help it. The last of Hunt’s anger dissolved entirely.

Bryce was saying, “All the documents will be waiting for you. Birth certificate, adoption papers …”

“Adoption?” Emile croaked.

Bryce grinned winningly at the kid. “You’re part of the Quinlan-Silago clan now. We’re a crazy bunch, but we love each other. Tell Randall to make you chocolate croissants on Sundays.”

Hunt had no words. She hadn’t only found a place for this lost kid. She’d found him a new family. Her family. His throat tightened to the point of pain, his eyes stinging. But Bryce kissed Emile’s cheek, shut the door, and thumped the car roof. Fury sped off down the cobblestone street, hooked a sharp left, and was gone.

Slowly, Bryce turned back to him.

“You’re sending him to your parents,” he said quietly.

Her eyes iced over. “Did I miss the memo where I needed your approval to do so?”

“For Urd’s sake, that’s not why I was mad.”

“I don’t care if you’re mad,” she said, flickering with light. “Just because we’re fucking doesn’t mean I answer to you.”

“Pretty sure it’s a little bit more than fucking.”

She bristled, and his anger bristled with it. But he remembered where they were—right in front of the Viper Queen’s headquarters. Where anyone might see. Or try to start shit.

“I have to go to work,” Bryce said, practically biting out each word.

“Fine. So do I.”

“Fine.” She didn’t wait for him before striding off.

Hunt rubbed his eyes and shot skyward. He knew Bryce was well aware that he trailed her from above as she wove through the tangle of streets that made up the Meat Market, banking northward toward the CBD only when she’d crossed Crone Street into the safety of the Old Square.

But she didn’t look up. Not once.

“I only have ten minutes before I need to go to the archives,” Bryce said to her brother as he ushered her into his house an hour later. “I’m already behind as Hel at work.”

Steaming at Hunt, she’d used the long walk to process all that had happened with Emile and the Viper Queen. To pray that Fury didn’t scare the living daylights out of the kid before he reached her parents’ house in Nidaros. And contemplate whether she’d maybe overreacted a smidgen to Hunt’s anger at her not telling him.

Bryce had been just turning down the block to the archives when Ruhn called with his vague request to come over immediately. She’d thumbed in a quick message to her boss about a doctor’s appointment running late, and raced right over here.

She dumped her purse beside the front door. “Please start explaining why this was so urgent that you needed me to— Oh.”

She’d assumed it had something to do with Ithan, or that maybe Declan had found something. Which was why she’d sprinted from FiRo, in her stupid heels, in the stupid heat, and was now a sweaty mess.

She hadn’t expected a beautiful female clad in nothing but a blanket, standing against the foyer wall like some trapped animal. Her crimson eyes narrowed with warning.

Bryce offered a smile to the female against the wall. “Uh, hey. Everything … all right?” She hissed to Ruhn over her shoulder, “Where are her clothes?”

“She wouldn’t wear them,” Ruhn hissed back. “Believe me, Dec tried.” He pointed to an untouched pile of male clothes by the stairs.

But the female was scanning Bryce from her heels to her head. “You came to see the mystics. You blazed with starlight.”

Bryce peered back. It wasn’t the female mystic, but … she turned to see Ithan, looking guilty, on the couch. With three fire sprites floating around his head.

Her blood turned to acid. A plump sprite sprawled on his knee, beaming at Bryce. The memory of Lehabah burned bright and searing.

“So, Ithan might have gotten pissed when he went back to the Astronomer and found out that the female mystic is a wolf,” Ruhn was saying, “and he might have done something rash and taken something he shouldn’t have, and then these morons freed them from the rings …”