House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City) (50 page)

He knew Bryce was pissed about it. Upset. But she had Athalar now.

And no part of Ithan resented them for it. No, that history was behind him, but … he didn’t know what to do with himself when he spoke to her. The girl he’d been so convinced would be his wife and mate and mother to his kids.

How many times had he allowed himself to picture that future: him and Bryce opening presents with their children on Winter Solstice eve, traveling the world together while he played sunball, laughing and growing old in this city, their friends around them.

He was glad to not be living in her apartment anymore. He’d had nowhere else to go after Sabine and Amelie had kicked him out, and he sure as fuck wasn’t planning to stage any kind of coup with her, as Sabine seemed to fear, but … he was grateful Ruhn had offered him a place to stay instead.

“A little early, isn’t it?” Tharion called from the river, and Ithan stood from the bench to find the mer treading water, powerful fin swirling beneath him.

Ithan didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Can you get me to the Bone Quarter?”

Tharion blinked. “No. Unless you want to be eaten.”

“Just get me to the shore.”

“I can’t. Not if I don’t want to be eaten, either. The river beasts will attack.”

Ithan crossed his arms. “I have to find my brother. See if he’s okay.”

He hated the pity that softened Tharion’s face. “I don’t see what you can do either way. If he’s fine or if he’s … not.”

Ithan’s throat dried out. “I need to know. Swim me past the Sleeping City and I’ll see if I can glimpse him.”

“Again, river beasts, so no.” Tharion slicked back his hair. “But … I need to find that kid, if he’s not in the Sleeping City. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.”

Ithan angled his head. “Any idea where to look instead?”

“No. So I desperately need a hint in the right direction.”

Ithan frowned. “What do you have in mind?”

“You’re not going to like it. Neither is Bryce.”

“Why does she need to be involved?” Ithan couldn’t stop his voice from sharpening.

“Because I know Legs, and I know she’ll want to come.”

“Not if we don’t tell her.”

“Oh, I’m going to tell her. I like my balls where they are.” Tharion grinned and jerked his chin to the city behind Ithan. “Go get some money. Gold marks, not credit.”

“Tell me where we’re going.” Somewhere shady, no doubt.

Tharion’s eyes darkened. “To the mystics.”

37

“Keep holding, hold, hold!” Madame Kyrah chanted, and Bryce’s left leg shook with the effort of keeping her right leg aloft and in place.

Beside her, Juniper sweated along, face set with focused determination. June held perfect form—no hunched shoulders, no curved spine. Every line of her friend’s body radiated strength and grace.

“And down into first position,” the instructor ordered over the thumping music. Totally not the style that ballet was usually danced to, but that was why Bryce loved this class: it combined the formal, precise movements of ballet with dance club hits. And somehow, in doing so, it helped her understand both the movements and the sound better. Merge them better. Let her
enjoy
it, rather than dance along to music she’d once loved and daydreamed about getting to perform onstage.

Wrong body type
had no place here, in this bright studio on an artsy block of the Old Square.

“Take a five-minute breather,” said Madame Kyrah, a dark-haired swan shifter, striding to the chair by the wall of mirrors to swig from her water bottle.

Bryce wobbled over to her pile of crap by the opposite wall, ducking under the barre to pick up her phone. No messages. A blissfully quiet morning. Exactly what she’d needed.

Which was why she’d come here. Beyond
wanting
to come here twice a week, she needed to be here today—to work out every swirling thought. She hadn’t told Juniper what she’d learned.

What could she say?
Hey, just FYI, the Bone Quarter is a lie, and I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a true afterlife, because we all get turned into energy and herded through the Dead Gate, though some small bit of us gets shoved down the gullet of the Under-King, so … good fucking luck!

But Juniper was frowning at her own phone as she drank a few sips from her water bottle.

“What’s up?” Bryce asked between pants. Her legs shook simply standing still.

Juniper tossed her phone onto her duffel bag. “Korinne Lescau got tapped to be principal.”

Bryce’s mouth dropped open.

“
I know,
” Juniper said, reading the unspoken outrage on Bryce’s face. Korinne had entered the company two years ago. Had only been a soloist for this season. And the CCB had claimed it wasn’t promoting anyone this year.

“This is definitely a
fuck you
,” Bryce seethed.

June’s throat bobbed, and Bryce’s fingers curled, as if she could rip the face off of every director and board member of the CCB for putting that pain there. “They’re too afraid to fire me, because the shows where I’m a soloist always bring in a crowd, but they’ll do what they can to punish me,” June said.

“All because you told a bunch of rich jerks that they were being elitist monsters.”

“I might bring in money for the shows, but those rich jerks donate millions.” The faun drained her water. “I’m going to stick it out until they
have
to promote me.”

Bryce tapped her foot on the pale wood floor. “I’m sorry, June.”

Her friend squared her shoulders with a quiet dignity that cracked Bryce’s heart. “I do this because I love it,” she said as Kyrah summoned the class back into their lines. “They’re not worth my anger. I have to keep remembering that.” She tucked a stray curl back into her bun. “Any word about that kid?”

Bryce shook her head. “Nope.” She’d leave it at that.

Kyrah started the music, and they got back into position.

Bryce sweated and grunted through the rest of the class, but Juniper had become razor-focused. Every movement precise and flawless, her gaze fixed on the mirror, as if she battled herself. That expression didn’t alter, even when Kyrah asked June to demonstrate a perfect series of thirty-two fouett
é
s—spins on one foot—for the class. Juniper whipped around like the wind itself propelled her, her grounding hoof not straying one inch from its starting point.

Perfect form. A perfect dancer. Yet it wasn’t enough.

Juniper left class almost as soon as it had finished, not lingering to chat like she usually did. Bryce let her go, and waited until most of the class had filtered out before approaching Kyrah by the mirror, where the instructor was panting softly. “Did you see the news about Korinne?”

Kyrah tugged on a loose pink sweatshirt against the chill of the dance studio. Even though she hadn’t danced on CCB’s stage in years, the instructor remained in peak form. “You seem surprised. I’m not.”

“You can’t say anything? You were one of CCB’s prized dancers.” And now one of their best instructors when she wasn’t teaching her outside classes.

Kyrah frowned. “I’m as much at the mercy of the company’s leadership as Juniper. She might be the most talented dancer I’ve ever seen, and the hardest-working, but she’s going up against a well-entrenched power structure. The people in charge don’t appreciate being called out for what they truly are.”

“But—”

“I get why you want to help her.” Kyrah shouldered her duffel and aimed for the double doors of the studio. “I want to help her, too. But Juniper made her choice this spring. She has to face the consequences.”

Bryce stared after her for a minute, the doors to the studio banging shut. As she stood alone in the sunny space, the silence pressed
on her. She looked to the spot where Juniper had been demonstrating those fouett
é
s.

Bryce pulled out her phone and did a quick search. A moment later, she was dialing. “I’d like to speak to Director Gorgyn, please.”

Bryce tapped her feet again as the CCB receptionist spoke. She clenched her fingers into fists before she answered, “Tell him that Her Royal Highness Princess Bryce Danaan is calling.”

Push-ups bored Hunt to tears. If it hadn’t been for the earbuds playing the last few chapters of the book he was listening to, he might have fallen asleep during his workout on the training roof of the Comitium.

The morning sun baked his back, his arms, his brow, sweat dripping onto the concrete floors. He had a vague awareness of people watching, but kept going. Three hundred sixty-one, three hundred sixty-two …

A shadow fell across him, blocking out the sun. He found the Harpy smirking down at him, her dark hair fluttering in the wind. And those black wings … Well, that’s why there was no more sun.

“What,” he asked on an exhale, keeping up his momentum.

“The pretty one wants to see you.” Her sharp voice was edged with cruel amusement.

“Her name is Celestina,” Hunt grunted, getting to three hundred seventy before hopping to his feet. The Harpy’s gaze slid down his bare torso, and he crossed his arms. “You’re her messenger now?”

“I’m Ephraim’s messenger, and since he just finished fucking her, I was the closest one to retrieve you.”

Hunt held in his cringe. “Fine.” He caught Isaiah’s attention from across the ring and motioned that he was leaving. His friend, in the middle of his own exercises, waved a farewell.

He didn’t bother waving to Baxian, despite his help last night. And Pollux hadn’t come up to the ring for their private hour of training—he was presumably still in bed with the Hind. Naomi had
waited for him for thirty minutes before bailing and going to inspect her own troops.

Hunt stepped toward the glass doors into the building, wiping the sweat from his brow, but the Harpy followed him. He sneered over a shoulder. “Bye.”

She gave him a slashing grin. “I’m to escort you back.”

Hunt stiffened. This couldn’t be good. His body going distant, he kept walking, aiming for the elevators. If he sent a warning message to Bryce right now, would she have enough time to flee the city? Unless they’d already come for her—

The Harpy trailed him like a wraith. “Your little disappearing act last night is going to bite you in the ass,” she crooned, stepping into the elevator with him.

Right. That.

He tried not to look too relieved as the acid in his veins eased. That had to be why Celestina was summoning him. A chewing-out for bad behavior, he could deal with.

If only the Harpy knew what he’d really been up to lately.

So Hunt leaned against the far wall of the elevator, contemplating how he’d best like to kill her. A lightning strike to the head would be swift, but not as satisfying as plunging his sword into her gut and twisting as he drove upward.

The Harpy tucked in her black wings. She’d been built wiry and long, her face narrow and eyes a bit too large for her features. She went on, “You always did think more with your cock than your head.”

“One of my most winning attributes.” He wouldn’t let her bait him. She’d done it before, when they’d both served Sandriel, and he’d always paid for it. Sandriel had never once punished the female for the brawls that had left his skin shredded. He’d always been the one to take the flaying afterward for “disturbing the peace.”

The Harpy stepped onto the Governor’s floor like a dark wind. “You’ll get what’s coming to you, Athalar.”

“Likewise.” He trailed her to the double doors of Celestina’s public office. She halted outside, knocking once. Celestina murmured
her welcome, and Hunt stepped into the room, shutting the door on the Harpy’s pinched face.

The Archangel, robed in sky blue today, was immaculate—glowing. If she’d been kept up all night with Ephraim, she didn’t reveal it. Or any emotion, really, as Hunt stopped before her desk and said, “You asked for me?” He took a casual stance, legs apart, hands behind his back, wings high but loose.

Celestina straightened a golden pen on her desk. “Was there an emergency last night?”

Yes. No. “A private matter.”

“And you saw fit to prioritize that over assisting me?”

Fuck. “You seemed to have the situation under control.”

Her lips thinned. “I had hoped that when you promised to have my back, it would be for the entire night. Not for an hour.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “If it had been for anything else—”

“I’m assuming it had to do with Miss Quinlan.”

“Yeah.”

“And are you aware that you, as one of my triarii, chose to assist a Princess of the Fae instead of your Governor?”

“It wasn’t for anything political.”

“That was not how my … mate perceived it. He asked why two of my triarii had ditched our private celebration. If they thought so little of me, of him, that they could leave without permission to help a Fae royal.”

Hunt ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry, Celestina. I really am.”

“I’m sure you are.” Her voice was distant. “This shall not happen again.”

Or what?
he almost asked. But he said, “It won’t.”

“I want you staying in the barracks for the next two weeks.”

“
What?
” Hunt supposed he could always quit, but what the fuck would he do with himself then?

Celestina’s gaze was steely. “After that time, you may return to Miss Quinlan. But I think you need a reminder of your …
priorities. And I’d like you to fully commit to helping Baxian adjust.” She shuffled some papers on her desk. “You’re dismissed.”

Two weeks here. Without Quinlan. Without getting to touch her, fuck her, lie next to her—

“Celestina—”

“Goodbye.”

Despite his outrage, his frustration, he looked at her. Really looked.

She was alone. Alone, and like a ray of sunshine in a sea of darkness. He should have had her back last night. But if it was between her and Bryce, he’d always,
always
pick his mate. No matter what it cost him.

Which was apparently two weeks without Bryce.

But he asked, “How’d it go with Ephraim?”
You don’t look too happy for a female who recently bedded her mate
.