House of Earth and Blood

His power felt it coming a moment later. Recognized her, like seeing itself in a mirror.

How she was bringing up this much power, how she was making the Ascent alone … he didn’t care about that. He had Fallen, he had survived, he had gone through every trial and torture and horror—all for this moment. So he could be here.

It had all been for her. For Bryce.

Closer and closer, her power neared. Hunt braced himself, and sent another shock of lightning into her heart. She arced off the ground once more, body lifeless.

“Come on,” he repeated, pumping her chest again with his hands. “I’m waiting for you.”

He’d been waiting for her from the moment he’d been born.

And as if she’d heard him, Bryce exploded into life.

She was warm, and she was safe, and she was home.

There was light—around her, from her, in her heart.

Bryce realized she was breathing. And her heart was beating.

Both were secondary. Would always be secondary around Hunt.

She dimly registered that they were kneeling in the Old Square. His gray wings glowed like embers as they curved around them both, holding her tightly to him. And inside the wall of velvet-soft wings, like a sun contained inside a flower bud, Bryce shone.

She slowly lifted her head, pulling away only far enough to look at his face.

Hunt already stared down at her, his wings unfurling like petals at dawn. No tattoo marked his brow. The halo was gone.

She ran her shaking fingers over the smooth skin. Hunt silently brushed away her tears.

She smiled at him. Smiled at him with the lightness in her heart, her soul. Hunt slid his hand along her jaw, cupping her face. The tenderness in his eyes wiped away any lingering doubts.

She laid her palm over his thundering heart. “Did you just call me a fucking coward?”

Hunt tipped his head to the stars and laughed. “So what if I did?”

She angled her face closer to his. “Too bad all that healing firstlight didn’t turn you into a decent person.”

“Where would the fun be in that, Quinlan?”

Her toes curled at the way he said her name. “I suppose I’ll just have to—”

A door opened down the street. Then another and another. And stumbling, weeping with relief or silent in shock, the people of Crescent City emerged. Gaped at what they beheld. At Bryce and Hunt.

She let go of him and rose. Her power was a strange, vast well beneath her. Belonging not only to her—but to all of them.

She peered up at Hunt, who was now gazing at her as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. She took his hand. Interlaced their fingers.

And together, they stepped forward to greet the world.

95

Syrinx was sitting in her apartment’s open front doorway, whining with worry, as Bryce and Hunt stepped off the elevator.

Bryce scanned the empty hall, the chimera. “I left that door shut …” she began, earning a knowing chuckle from Hunt, but Syrinx was already sprinting for her.

“I’ll explain his gifts later,” Hunt murmured as Bryce herded a hysterical Syrinx into the apartment and knelt before the beast, flinging her arms around him.

She and Hunt had stayed in the Old Square for all of two minutes before the wailing began—from the people who stumbled from the shelters to discover that it had been too late for their loved ones.

The Horn inked into her back had done its job well. Not one void remained in the Gates. And her firstlight—through those Gates—had been able to heal everything: people, buildings, the world itself.

Yet it could not do the impossible. It could not bring back the dead.

And there were many, many bodies in the streets. Most only in pieces.

Bryce tightened her arms around Sryinx. “It’s okay,” she whispered, letting him lick her face.

But it wasn’t okay. Not even close. What had happened, what she’d done and revealed, the Horn in her body, all those people dead, Lehabah dead, and seeing Danika, Danika, Danika—

Her breathless words turned into pants, and then shuddering sobs. Hunt, standing behind her as if he’d been waiting for this, just scooped her and Syrinx into his arms.

Hunt brought her to her bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the mattress, keeping his arms around her and Syrinx, who pried his way free from Bryce’s arms to lick Hunt’s face, too.

His hand slipped into her hair, fingers twining through it, and Bryce leaned into him, soaking up that strength, that familiar scent, marveling that they had even gotten here, had somehow made it—

She glanced at his wrist. No sign of the halo on his brow, yet the slave tattoo remained.

Hunt noticed the shift in her attention. He said quietly, “I killed Sandriel.”

His eyes were so calm—clear. Fixed wholly on hers.

“I killed Micah,” she whispered.

“I know.” The corner of his mouth curled upward. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

“It’s not funny.”

“Oh, I know it’s not.” His fingers drifted through her hair, casually and gently. “I could barely stand to watch.”

She could barely stand to remember it. “How did you manage to kill her? To get rid of the tattoo?”

“It’s a long story,” he said. “I’d rather you fill in the details of yours.”

“You first.”

“Not a chance. I want to hear how you hid the fact that you’ve got a star inside you.”

He looked down at her chest then, as if he’d glimpse it shimmering beneath her skin. But when his eyebrows flicked upward, Bryce followed his line of sight.

“Well,” she said with a sigh, “that’s new.” Indeed, just visible down the V-neck of her T-shirt, a white splotch—an eight-pointed star—now scarred the place between her breasts.

Hunt chuckled. “I like it.”

Some small part of her did, too. But she said, “You know it’s just the Starborn light—not true power.”

“Yeah, except now you’ve got that, too.” He pinched her side. “A good amount from what I can sense. And the fucking Horn—” He ran his hand down her spine for emphasis.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

But his face grew grave. “You’re going to have to learn to control it.”

“We save the city, and you’re already telling me I need to get back to work?”

He chuckled. “Old habits, Bryce.”

Their eyes met again, and she glanced at his mouth, so close to hers, so perfectly formed. At his eyes, now staring so intently into her own.

It had all happened for a reason. She believed that. For this—for him.

And though the path she’d been thrust onto was royally fucked, and had led her through the lightless halls of grief and despair … Here, here before her, was light. True light. What she’d raced toward during the Ascent.

And she wanted to be kissed by that light. Now.

Wanted to kiss him back, and tell Syrinx to go wait in his crate for a while.

Hunt’s dark eyes turned near-feral. As if he could read those thoughts on her face, in her scent. “We have some unfinished business, Quinlan,” he said, voice roughening. He threw Syrinx a Look, and the chimera leapt from the bed and trotted out into the hall, lion’s tail waggling as if to say, It’s about time.