House of Earth and Blood

Ruhn rolled his eyes, surprised to find Athalar doing the same.

Bryce gestured to the endless shelves that filled the library. “Well, cousin,” she said, “have at it. Let your Starborn powers guide you to enlightenment.”

“Funny,” he said, but began walking toward the shelves, scanning the titles. He paused at the various tanks and terrariums built into the bookcases, the small animals within wholly uninterested in his presence. He didn’t dare ask if the rumors about them were true, especially not when Lehabah called over from her couch, “The tortoise is named Marlene.”

Ruhn gave his sister an alarmed look, but Bryce was doing something on her phone.

Music began playing a moment later, trickling in from speakers hidden in the wood panels. Ruhn listened to the first strains of the song—just a guitar and two soaring, haunting female voices. “You’re still into this band?” As a kid, she’d been obsessed with the sister folk duo.

“Josie and Laurel keep making good music, so I keep listening.” She swiped at her phone.

Ruhn continued his idle browsing. “You always had really good taste.” He tossed it out there—a rope into the stormy sea that was their relationship.

She didn’t look up, but she said a shade quietly, “Thanks.”

Athalar, wisely, didn’t say a word.

Ruhn scanned the shelves, waiting to feel a tug toward anything beyond the sister who’d spoken more to him in the past few days than she had in nine years. The titles were in the common language, the Old Language of the Fae, the mer, and a few other alphabets he didn’t recognize. “This collection is amazing.”

Ruhn reached for a blue tome whose spine glittered with gold foil. Words of the Gods.

“Don’t touch it,” Lehabah warned. “It might bite.”

Ruhn snatched back his hand as the book stirred, rumbling on the shelf. His shadows murmured inside him, readying to strike. He willed them to settle. “Why does the book move?”

“Because they’re special—” Lehabah began.

“Enough, Lele,” Bryce warned. “Ruhn, don’t touch anything without permission.”

“From you or the book?”

“Both,” she said. As if in answer, a book high up on the shelf rustled. Ruhn craned his head to look, and saw a green tome … shining. Beckoning. His shadows murmured, as if in urging. All right, then.

It was a matter of moments to drag over the brass ladder and scale it. Bryce said, seemingly to the library itself, “Don’t bother him,” before Ruhn pulled the book from its resting place. He rolled his eyes at the title. Great Romances of the Fae.

Starborn power indeed. Tucking the book into the crook of his arm, he descended the ladder and returned to the table.

Bryce choked on a laugh at the title. “You sure that Starborn power isn’t for finding smut?” She called to Lehabah, “This one’s right up your alley.”

Lehabah burned to a raspberry pink. “BB, you’re horrible.”

Athalar winked at him. “Enjoy.”

“I will,” Ruhn shot back, flipping open the book. His phone buzzed before he could begin. He fished it from his back pocket and glanced at the screen. “Dec’s got the intel you wanted.”

Bryce and Athalar went still. Ruhn opened the email, then his fingers hovered over the forwarding screen. “I, uh … is your email still the same?” he asked her. “And I don’t have yours, Athalar.”

Hunt rattled his off, but Bryce frowned at Ruhn for a long moment, as if weighing whether she wanted to open yet another door into her life. She then sighed and answered, “Yes, it’s the same.”

“Sent,” Ruhn said, and opened up the attachment Declan had emailed over.

It was full of coordinates and their correlating locations. Danika’s daily routine as Alpha of the Pack of Devils had her moving throughout the Old Square and beyond. Not to mention her healthy social life after sundown. The list covered everything from the apartment, the Den, the City Head office at the Comitium, a tattoo parlor, a burger joint, too many pizza places to count, bars, a concert venue, the CCU sunball arena, hair salons, the gym … Fuck, had she ever gotten any sleep? The list dated back two weeks prior to her death. From the silence around the table, he knew Bryce and Hunt were also skimming over the locations. Then—

Surprise lit Hunt’s dark eyes as he looked to her. Bryce murmured, “Danika wasn’t merely on duty near Luna’s Temple around that time—this says Danika was stationed at the temple for the two days before the Horn was stolen. And during the night of the blackout.”

Hunt asked, “You think she saw whoever took it and they killed her to cover it up?”

Could it be that easy? Ruhn prayed it was.

Bryce shook her head. “If Danika saw the Horn being stolen, she would have reported it.” She sighed again. “Danika wasn’t usually stationed at the temple, but Sabine often switched her schedule around for spite. Maybe Danika had some of the Horn’s scent on her from being on duty and the demon tracked her down.”

“Go through it again,” Ruhn urged. “Maybe there’s something you’re missing.”

Bryce’s mouth twisted to the side, the portrait of skepticism, but Hunt said, “Better than nothing.” Bryce held the angel’s stare for longer than most people deemed wise.

Nothing good could come of it—Bryce and Athalar working together. Living together.

But Ruhn kept his mouth shut, and began reading.

“Any good sex scenes yet?” Bryce asked Ruhn idly, going over Danika’s location data for the third time. The first few of those locations, she’d realized, had been to Philip Briggs’s bomb lab just outside the city walls. Including the night of the bust itself.

She still remembered Danika and Connor limping into the apartment that night, after making the bust on Briggs and his Keres group two years ago. Danika had been fine, but Connor had sported a split lip and black eye that screamed some shit had gone down. They never told her what, and she hadn’t asked. She’d just made Connor sit at that piece-of-shit kitchen table and let her clean him up.

He’d kept his eyes fixed on her face, her mouth, the entire time she’d gently dabbed his lip. She’d known then and there that it was coming—that Connor was done waiting. That five years of friendship, of dancing around each other, was now going to change, and he’d make his move soon. It didn’t matter that she’d been dating Reid. Connor had let her take care of him, his eyes near-glowing, and she’d known it was time.

When Ruhn didn’t immediately respond to her taunting, Bryce looked up from the laptop. Her brother had kept reading—and didn’t seem to hear her. “Ruhn.”

Hunt halted his own searching through the gallery database. “Danaan.”

Ruhn snapped his head up, blinking. Bryce asked, “You found something?”

“Yes and no,” Ruhn said, sitting back in his chair. “This is just a three-page account of Prince Pelias and his bride, Lady Helena. But I didn’t realize that Pelias was actually the high general for a Fae Queen named Theia when they entered this world during the Crossing—and Helena was her daughter. From what it sounds like, Queen Theia was also Starborn, and her daughter possessed the same power. Theia had a younger daughter with the same gift, but only Lady Helena gets mentioned.” Ruhn cleared his throat and read, “Night-haired Helena, from whose golden skin poured starlight and shadows. It seems like Pelias was one of several Fae back then with the Starborn power.”