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She nodded to where her brother was again speaking with the stunning medwitch. “I already got the pep talk from Ruhn, don’t worry.”
Down the alley, Hunt was saying to Isaiah, “Call me if Viktoria gets any video of it.” Then he added, as if not quite used to it, “Thanks.”
In the distance, clouds gathered. Rain had been predicted for the middle of the night, but it seemed it was arriving sooner.
Hunt stalked back toward them. “They’re on it.”
“We’ll see if the 33rd follows through this time,” Declan muttered. “I’m not holding my breath.”
Hunt straightened. Bryce waited for his defense, but the angel shrugged. “Me neither.”
Flynn jerked his head toward the angels working the scene. “No loyalty?”
Hunt read a message that flashed on his phone’s screen, then pocketed it. “I don’t have any choice but to be loyal.”
And to tick off those deaths one by one. Bryce’s stomach twisted.
Declan’s amber eyes dropped to the tattoo on Hunt’s wrist. “It’s fucked up.”
Flynn grumbled his agreement. At least her brother’s friends were on the same page as her regarding the politics of the Asteri.
Hunt looked the males over again. Assessing. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It is.”
“Understatement of the century.” Bryce surveyed the murder scene, her body tightening again, not wanting to look. Hunt met her eyes, as if sensing that tightening, the shift in her scent. He gave her a subtle nod.
Bryce lifted her chin and declared, “We’re going now.”
Declan waved. “I’ll call you soon, B.”
Flynn blew her a kiss.
She rolled her eyes. “Bye.” She caught Ruhn’s stare and motioned her farewell. Her brother threw her a wave, and continued talking to the witch.
They made it all of one block before Hunt said, a little too casually, “You and Tristan Flynn ever hook up?”
Bryce blinked. “Why would you ask that?”
He tucked in his wings. “Because he flirts with you nonstop.”
She snorted. “You wanna tell me about everyone you’ve ever hooked up with, Athalar?”
His silence told her enough. She smirked.
But then the angel said, as if he needed something to distract him from the pulped remains they’d left behind, “None of my hookups are worth mentioning.” He paused again, taking a breath before continuing. “But that’s because Shahar ruined me for anyone else.”
Ruined me. The words clanged through Bryce.
Hunt went on, eyes swimming with memory, “I grew up in Shahar’s territory in the southeast of Pangera, and as I worked my way up the ranks of her legions, I fell in love with her. With her vision for the world. With her ideas about how the angel hierarchies might change.” He swallowed. “Shahar was the only one who ever suggested to me that I’d been denied anything by being born a bastard. She promoted me through her ranks, until I served as her right hand. Until I was her lover.” He blew out a long breath. “She led the rebellion against the Asteri, and I led her forces—the 18th Legion. You know how it ended.”
Everyone in Midgard did. The Daystar would have led the angels—maybe everyone—to a freer world, but she’d been extinguished. Another dreamer crushed under the boot heel of the Asteri.
Hunt said, “So you and Flynn …?”
“You tell me this tragic love story and expect me to answer it with my bullshit?” His silence was answer enough. She sighed. But—fine. She, too, needed to talk about something to shake off that murder scene. And to dispel the shadows that had filled his eyes when he’d spoken of Shahar.
For that alone she said, “No. Flynn and I never hooked up.” She smiled slightly. “When I visited Ruhn as a teenager, I was barely able to function in Flynn’s and Declan’s presence.” Hunt’s mouth curled upward. “They indulged my outrageous flirting, and for a while, I had a fanatic’s conviction that Flynn would be my husband one day.”
Hunt snickered, and Bryce elbowed him. “It’s true. I wrote Lady Bryce Flynn on all my school notebooks for two years straight.”
