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Hunt picked up the jacket and read, “Through love, all is possible.”
Bryce nodded. “The tattoo on my back says the same thing. Well, in some fancy alphabet that she dug up online, but … Danika had a thing about that phrase. It was all the Oracle told her, apparently. Which makes no sense, because Danika was one of the least lovey-dovey people I’ve ever met, but …” Bryce toyed with the amulet around her neck, zipping it along the chain. “Something about it resonated with her. So after she died, I kept the jacket. And started wearing it.”
Hunt carefully set the jacket back on the chair. “I get it—about the personal effects.” He seemed like he wasn’t going to say more, but then he continued, “That sunball hat you made fun of?”
“I didn’t make fun of it. You just don’t seem like the kind of male who wears such a thing.”
He chuckled again—in that same way that slid over her skin. “That hat was the first thing I bought when I came here. With the first paycheck I ever received from Micah.” The corner of his mouth turned upward. “I saw it in an athletic shop, and it just seemed so ordinary. You have no idea how different Lunathion is from the Eternal City. From anything in Pangera. And that hat just …”
“Represented that?”
“Yeah. It seemed like a new beginning. A step toward a more normal existence. Well, as normal an existence as someone like me can have.”
She made an effort not to look at his wrist. “So you have your hat—and I have Jelly Jubilee.”
His smile lit up the dimness of the gallery. “I’m surprised you don’t have a tattoo of Jelly Jubilee somewhere.” His eyes skimmed over her, lingering on the short, tight green dress.
Her toes curled. “Who says I don’t have a tattoo of her somewhere you can’t see, Athalar?”
She watched him sort through everything he had already seen. Since he’d moved in, she’d stopped parading about the apartment in her underwear while getting dressed, but she knew he’d spotted her through the window in the days before. Knew he realized there was a limited, very intimate, number of places where another tattoo might be hidden.
She could have sworn his voice dropped an octave or two as he asked, “Do you?”
With any other male, she would have said, Why don’t you come find out?
With any other male, she would have already been on the other side of the desk. Crawling into his lap. Unbuckling his belt. And then sinking down onto his cock, riding him until they were both moaning and breathless and—
She made herself go back to her paperwork. “There are a few males who can answer that question, if you’re so curious.” How her voice was so steady, she had no idea.
Hunt’s silence was palpable. She didn’t dare look over her computer screen.
But his eyes remained focused on her, burning her like a brand.
Her heart thundered throughout her body. Dangerous, stupid, reckless—
Hunt let out a long, tight breath. The chair he sat in groaned as he shifted in it, his wings rustling. She still didn’t dare look. She honestly didn’t know what she’d do if she looked.
But then Hunt said, his voice gravelly, “We need to focus on Sabine.”
Hearing her name was like being doused with ice water.
Right. Yes. Of course. Because hooking up with the Umbra Mortis wasn’t a possibility. The reasons for that started with him pining for a lost love and ended with the fact that he was owned by the gods-damned Governor. With a million other obstacles in between.
She still couldn’t look at him as Hunt asked, “Any thoughts on how we can get more intel on her? Even just a glimpse into her current state of mind?”
Needing something to do with her hands, her too-warm body, Bryce printed out, then signed and dated, the paperwork Jesiba had sent. “We can’t bring in Sabine for formal questioning without making her aware that we’re onto her,” Bryce said, at last looking at Hunt.
His face was flushed, and his eyes … Fucking Solas, his black eyes glittered, wholly fixed on her face. Like he was thinking of touching her.
Tasting her.
“Okay,” he said roughly, running a hand through his hair. His eyes settled, the dark fire in them banking. Thank the gods.
An idea dawned upon her, and Bryce said in a strangled voice, her stomach twisting with dread, “So I think we have to bring the questions to Sabine.”
43
The wolves’ Den in Moonwood occupied ten entire city blocks, a sprawling villa built around a wild tangle of forest and grass that legend claimed had grown there since before anyone had touched these lands. Through the iron gates built into the towering limestone arches, Bryce could see through to the private park, where morning sunlight coaxed drowsy flowers into opening up for the day. Wolf pups bounded, pouncing on each other, chasing their tails, watched over by gray-muzzled elders whose brutal days in the Aux were long behind them.
