House of Earth and Blood

That color should be called Blow Job Red, Danika had said the first time Bryce had worn it. Because that’s all any male will think about when you wear it. Indeed, Connor’s eyes had dipped right to her lips. So Bryce said as nonchalantly as she could, “You know I like to enjoy my Thursday nights. Why not kick it off early?”

She balanced on her toes as she put the gin back in the upper cupboard, the hem of her dress rising precariously high. Connor studied the ceiling as if it were immensely interesting, his gaze only snapping to hers as she settled on her feet again. In the other room, someone turned the volume on the television up to an apartment-rattling level.

Thank you, Danika.

Even wolf hearing couldn’t sort through that cacophony to eavesdrop.

Connor’s sensuous mouth twitched upward, but he remained in the doorway.

Bryce swallowed, wondering how gross it would be to chase away the burn of the gin with the beer she’d left warming on the counter.

Connor said, “Look. We’ve known each other a while …”

“Is this a rehearsed speech?”

He straightened, color staining his cheeks. The Second in the Pack of Devils, the most feared and lethal of all the Auxiliary units, was blushing. “No.”

“That sounded like a rehearsed introduction to me.”

“Can you let me ask you out, or do I need to get into a fight with you about my phrasing first?”

She snorted, but her guts twisted. “I don’t date wolves.”

Connor threw her a cocky grin. “Make an exception.”

“No.” But she smiled slightly.

Connor merely said with the unwavering arrogance that only an immortal predator could achieve, “You want me. I want you. It’s been that way for a while, and playing with these human males hasn’t done a damn thing to make you forget that, has it?”

No, it hadn’t. But she said, her voice mercifully calm despite her thundering heart, “Connor, I’m not going out with you. Danika is bossy enough. I don’t need another wolf, especially a male wolf, trying to run my life. I don’t need any more Vanir shoving into my business.”

His golden eyes dimmed. “I’m not your father.”

He didn’t mean Randall.

She shoved off the counter, marching toward him. And the apartment door beyond. She was going to be late. “That has nothing to do with this—with you. My answer is no.”

Connor didn’t move, and she halted mere inches away. Even in heels, even though she fell on the taller side of average height, he towered over her. Dominated the entire space just by breathing.

Like any alphahole would. Like what her Fae father had done to nineteen-year-old Ember Quinlan, when he’d pursued her, seduced her, tried to keep her, and gone so far into possessive territory that the moment Ember had realized she was carrying his child—carrying Bryce—she ran before he could scent it and lock her up in his villa in FiRo until she grew too old to interest him.

Which was something Bryce didn’t let herself consider. Not after the blood tests had been done and she’d walked out of the medwitch’s office knowing that she’d taken after her Fae father in more ways than the red hair and pointed ears.

She would have to bury her mother one day, bury Randall, too. Which was utterly expected, if you were a human. But the fact that she’d go on living for a few more centuries, with only photos and videos to remind her of their voices and faces, made her stomach twist.

She should have had a third shot of gin.

Connor remained unmoving in the doorway. “One date won’t send me into a territorial hissy fit. It doesn’t even have to be a date. Just … pizza,” he finished, glancing at the stacked boxes.

“You and I go out plenty.” They did—on nights when Danika was called in to meet with Sabine or the other Aux commanders, he often brought over food, or he met up with her at one of the many restaurants lining the apartment’s lively block. “If it’s not a date, then how is it different?”

“It’d be a trial run. For a date,” Connor said through his teeth.

She lifted a brow. “A date to decide if I want to date you?”

“You’re impossible.” He pushed off the doorjamb. “See you later.”

Smiling to herself, she trailed him out of the kitchen, cringing at the monstrously loud television the wolves were all watching very, very intently.

Even Danika knew there were limits to how far she could push Connor without serious consequences.

For a heartbeat, Bryce debated grabbing the Second by the shoulder and explaining that he’d be better off finding a nice, sweet wolf who wanted to have a litter of pups, and that he didn’t really want someone who was ten kinds of fucked-up, still liked to party until she was no better than a puking-in-an-alley CCU student, and wasn’t entirely sure if she could love someone, not when Danika was all she really needed anyway.

But she didn’t grab Connor, and by the time Bryce scooped her keys from the bowl beside the door, he’d slumped onto the couch—again, in her spot—and was staring pointedly at the screen. “Bye,” she said to no one in particular.

Danika met her gaze from across the room, her eyes still wary but faintly amused. She winked. “Light it up, bitch.”

“Light it up, asshole,” Bryce replied, the farewell sliding off her tongue with the ease of years of usage.

But it was Danika’s added “Love you” as Bryce slipped out into the grimy hallway that made her hesitate with her hand on the knob.

It’d taken Danika a few years to say those words, and she still used them sparingly. Danika had initially hated it when Bryce said them to her—even when Bryce explained that she’d spent most of her life saying it, just in case it was the last time. In case she wouldn’t get to say goodbye to the people who mattered most. And it had taken one of their more fucked-up adventures—a trashed motorcycle, and literally having guns pointed at their heads—to get Danika to utter the words, but at least she now said them. Sometimes.

Forget Briggs’s release. Sabine must have really done a number on Danika.

Bryce’s heels clacked on the worn tile floor as she headed for the stairs at the end of the hall. Maybe she should cancel on Reid. She could grab some buckets of ice cream from the corner market and cuddle in bed with Danika while they watched their favorite absurd comedies.

Maybe she’d call up Fury and see if she could pay a little visit to Sabine.

But—she’d never ask that of Fury. Fury kept her professional shit out of their lives, and they knew better than to ask too many questions. Only Juniper could get away with it.

Honestly, it made no sense that any of them were friends: the future Alpha of all wolves, an assassin for high-paying clients waging war across the sea, a stunningly talented dancer and the only faun ever to grace the stage of the Crescent City Ballet, and … her.

Bryce Quinlan. Assistant to a sorceress. Would-be, wrong-body-type dancer. Chronic dater of preening, breakable human men who had no idea what to do with her. Let alone what to do with Danika, if they ever got far enough into the dating crucible.

Bryce clomped down the stairs, scowling at one of the orbs of firstlight that cast the crumbling gray-blue paint in flickering relief. The landlord went as cheap as possible on the firstlight, likely siphoning it off the grid rather than paying the city for it like everyone else.