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His eyes turned distant, glazed. “Hatred was the only thing that fueled me through it. Briggs’s kind of hatred. Not hope, not love. Only unrelenting, raging hatred. For the Archangels. For the Asteri. For all of it.” He finally looked at her, his eyes as hollow as Briggs’s had been. “So, yeah. I might not have ever been willing to kill innocents to help Shahar’s rebellion, but that’s the only difference between me and Briggs. Still is.”
She didn’t let herself reconsider before she took his hand.
She hadn’t realized how much bigger Hunt’s hand was until hers coiled around it. Hadn’t realized how many calluses lay on his palms and fingers until they rasped against her skin.
Hunt glanced down at their hands, her dusk-painted nails contrasting with the deep gold of his skin. She found herself holding her breath, waiting for him to snatch his hand back, and asked, “Do you still feel like hatred is all that gets you through the day?”
“No,” he said, eyes lifting from their hands to scan her face. “Sometimes, for some things, yes, but … No, Quinlan.”
She nodded, but he was still watching her, so she reached for the spreadsheets.
“You have nothing else to say?” Hunt’s mouth twisted to the side. “You, the person who has an opinion on everything and everyone, have nothing else to say about what I just told you?”
She pushed her braid over her shoulder. “You’re not like Briggs,” she said simply.
He frowned. And began to withdraw his hand from hers.
Bryce clamped her fingers around his. “You might see yourself that way, but I see you, too, Athalar. I see your kindness and your … whatever.” She squeezed his hand for emphasis. “I see all the shit you conveniently forget. Briggs is a bad person. He might have once gotten into the human rebellion for the right reasons, but he is a bad person. You aren’t. You will never be. End of story.”
“This bargain I’ve got with Micah suggests otherwise—”
“You’re not like him.”
The weight of his stare pressed on her skin, warmed her face.
She withdrew her hand as casually as she could, trying not to note how his own fingers seemed hesitant to let go. But she leaned forward, stretching out her arm, and flicked his hat. “What’s up with this, by the way?”
He batted her away. “It’s a hat.”
“It doesn’t fit with your whole predator-in-the-night image.”
For a heartbeat, he was utterly silent. Then he laughed, tipping back his head. The strong tan column of his throat worked with the movement, and Bryce crossed her arms again.
“Ah, Quinlan,” he said, shaking his head. He swept the hat off his head and plunked it down atop her own. “You’re merciless.”
She grinned, twisting the cap backward the way he’d worn it, and primly shuffled the papers. “Let’s look this over again. Since Briggs was a bust, and the Viper Queen’s out … maybe there’s something with Danika at Luna’s Temple the night the Horn was stolen that we’re missing.”
He drifted closer, his thigh grazing her bent knee, and peered at the papers in her lap. She watched his eyes slide over them as he studied the list of locations. And tried not to think about the warmth of that thigh against her leg. The solid muscle of it.
Then he lifted his head.
He was close enough that she realized his eyes weren’t black after all, but rather a shade of darkest brown. “We’re idiots.”
“At least you said we.”
He snickered, but didn’t pull back. Didn’t move that powerful leg of his. “The temple has exterior cameras. They would have been recording the night the Horn was stolen.”
“You make it sound as if the 33rd didn’t check that two years ago. They said the blackout rendered any footage essentially useless.”
“Maybe we didn’t run the right tests on the footage. Look at the right fields. Ask the right people to examine it. If Danika was there that night, why didn’t anyone know that? Why didn’t she come forward about being at the temple when the Horn was stolen? Why didn’t the acolyte say anything about her presence?”
Bryce chewed on her lip. Hunt’s eyes dipped to it. She could have sworn they darkened. That his thigh pressed harder into hers. As if in challenge—a dare to see if she’d back down.
She didn’t, but her voice turned hoarse as she said, “You think Danika might have known who took the Horn—and she tried to hide it?” She shook her head. “Danika wouldn’t have done that. She barely seemed to care that the Horn had been stolen at all.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But let’s start by looking at the footage, even if it’s a whole lot of nothing. And send it to someone who can give us a more comprehensive analysis.” He swiped his hat off her head, and put it back on his own—still backward, still with those little curling pieces of hair peeking around the edges. As if for good measure, he tugged the end of her braid, then folded his hands behind his head as he went back to watching the game.
The absence of his leg against hers was like a cold slap. “Who do you have in mind?”
