House of Earth and Blood

Bryce rose from the couch. “I’m going for a run.”

“It’s one in the morning.”

“I need to run for a bit, or I won’t be able to fall asleep.”

Hunt shot to his feet. “We just came from the scene of a murder, and Sabine was out for your blood, Bryce—”

She aimed for her bedroom and didn’t look back.

She emerged two minutes later in her exercise clothes and found him standing by the door in workout gear of his own. She frowned. “I want to run alone.”

Hunt opened the door and stepped into the hall. “Too fucking bad.”

There was her breathing, and the pounding of her feet on the slick streets, and the blaring music in her ears. She’d turned it up so loud it was mostly just noise. Deafening noise with a beat. She never played it this loud during her morning runs, but with Hunt keeping a steady pace beside her, she could blast her music and not worry about some predator taking advantage of it.

So she ran. Down the broad avenues, the alleys, and side streets. Hunt moved with her, every motion graceful and rippling with power. She could have sworn lightning trailed in their wake.

Sabine. Had she killed Danika?

Bryce couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Each breath was like shards of glass.

They needed to catch her in the act. Find evidence against her.

Her leg began to ache, an acidic burn along her upper thighbone. She ignored it.

Bryce cut toward Asphodel Meadows, the route so familiar that she was surprised her footprints hadn’t been worn into the cobblestones. She rounded a corner sharply, biting down on the groan of pain as her leg objected. Hunt’s gaze snapped to her, but she didn’t look at him.

Sabine. Sabine. Sabine.

Her leg burned, but she kept going. Through the Meadows. Through FiRo.

Kept running. Kept breathing. She didn’t dare stop.

Bryce knew Hunt was making a concerted effort to keep his mouth shut when they finally returned to her apartment an hour later. She had to grip the doorway to keep upright.

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He didn’t mention that her limp had been so bad she’d barely been able to run the last ten blocks. Bryce knew the limp and pain would be worse by morning. Each step drew a cry to her throat that she swallowed down and down and down.

“All right?” he asked tightly, lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. She had a too-brief glimpse of those ridiculous stomach muscles, gleaming with sweat. He’d stayed by her side the entire time—hadn’t complained or spoken. Had just kept pace.

Bryce made a point not to lean on the wall as she walked toward her bedroom.

“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly. “Just needed to run it out.”

He reached for her leg, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “That happen often?”

“No,” she lied.

Hunt just gave her a look.

She couldn’t stop her next limping step. “Sometimes,” she amended, wincing. “I’ll ice it. It’ll be fine by morning.” If she’d been full-blooded Fae, it would have healed in an hour or two. Then again, if she were full-blooded Fae, the injury wouldn’t have lingered like this.

His voice was hoarse as he asked, “You ever get it checked out?”

“Yep,” she lied again, and rubbed at her sweaty neck. Before he could call her on it, she said, “Thanks for coming.”

“Yeah.” Not quite an answer, but Hunt mercifully said nothing else as she limped down the hallway and shut the door to her room.

39

Despite its entrance facing the bustle of the Old Square, Ruhn found the medwitch clinic blissfully quiet. The white-painted walls of the waiting room glowed with the sunshine leaking through the windows that looked onto the semipermanent traffic, and the trickle of a small quartz fountain atop the white marble counter blended pleasantly with the symphony playing through the ceiling’s speakers.

He’d been waiting for five minutes now, while the witch he’d come to see finished up with a patient, and had been perfectly content to bask in the tendrils of lavender-scented steam from the diffuser on the small table beside his chair. Even his shadows slumbered inside him.

Magazines and pamphlets had been spread across the white oak coffee table before him, the latter advertising everything from fertility treatments to scar therapy to arthritis relief.

A door down the narrow hallway beyond the counter opened, and a dark head of softly curling hair emerged, a musical voice saying, “Please do call if you have any further symptoms.” The door clicked shut, presumably to give the patient privacy.

Ruhn stood, feeling out of place in his head-to-toe black clothes in the midst of the soft whites and creams of the clinic, and kept himself perfectly still as the medwitch approached the counter.

At the crime scene last night, he’d gone over to inquire as to whether she’d noted anything interesting about the corpse. He’d been impressed enough by her clear-eyed intelligence that he’d asked to stop by this morning.

The medwitch smiled slightly as she reached the other side of the counter, her dark eyes lighting with welcome.

Then there was that. Her arresting face. Not the cultivated beauty of a movie star or model—no, this was beauty in its rawest form, from her large brown eyes to her full mouth to her high cheekbones, all in near-perfect symmetry. All radiating a cool serenity and awareness. He’d been unable to stop looking at her, even with a splattered corpse behind them.

“Good morning, Prince.” And there was that, too. Her fair, beautiful voice. Fae were sensitive about sounds, thanks to their heightened hearing. They could hear notes within notes, chords within chords. Ruhn had once nearly run from a date with a young nymph when her high-pitched giggling had sounded more like a porpoise’s squeal. And in bed … fuck, how many partners had he never called again not because the sex had been bad, but because the sounds they’d made had been unbearable? Too many to count.

Ruhn offered the medwitch a smile. “Hi.” He nodded toward the hall. “I know you’re busy, but I was hoping you could spare a few minutes to chat about this case I’m working on.”

Clad in loose navy pants and a white cotton shirt with quarter-length sleeves that brought out her glowing brown skin, the medwitch stood with an impressive level of stillness.

They were a strange, unique group, the witches. Though they looked like humans, their considerable magic and long lives marked them as Vanir, their power mostly passed through the female line. All of them deemed civitas. The power was inherited, from some ancient source that the witches claimed was a three-faced goddess, but witches did pop up in non-magical families every now and then. Their gifts were varied, from seers to warriors to potion-makers, but healers were the most visible in Crescent City. Their schooling was thorough and long enough that the young witch before him was unusual. She had to be skilled to be already working in a clinic when she couldn’t have been a day over thirty.

“I have another patient coming soon,” she said, glancing over his shoulder to the busy street beyond. “But I have lunch after that. Do you mind waiting half an hour?” She gestured to the hall behind her, where sunlight leaked in through a glass door at its other end. “We have a courtyard garden. The day is fine enough that you could wait out there.”