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“Of course not.”
“Just because I’m male and have an opinion doesn’t make me into some psychotic, domineering prick.”
She shoved her hands into the pockets of Danika’s leather jacket. “Look, my mom went through a lot thanks to some psychotic, domineering pricks.”
“I know.” His eyes softened. “But even so, look at her and your dad. He voices his opinions. And he seems pretty damn psychotic when it comes to protecting both of you.”
“You have no idea,” Bryce grumbled. “I didn’t go on a single date until I got to CCU.”
Hunt’s brows rose. “Really? I would have thought …” He shook his head.
“Thought what?”
He shrugged. “That the human boys would have been crawling around after you.”
It was an effort not to glance at him, with the way he said human boys, as if they were some other breed than him—a full-grown malakh male.
She supposed they were, technically, but that hint of masculine arrogance … “Well, if they wanted to, they didn’t dare show it. Randall was practically a god to them, and though he never said anything, they all got it into their heads that I was firmly off-limits.”
“That wouldn’t have been a good enough reason for me to stay away.”
Her cheeks heated at the way his voice lowered. “Well, idolizing Randall aside, I was also different.” She gestured to her pointed ears. Her tall body. “Too Fae for humans. Woe is me, right?”
“It builds character,” he said, examining a stall full of opals of every color: white, black, red, blue, green. Iridescent veins ran through them, like preserved arteries from the earth itself.
“What are these for?” he asked the black-feathered, humanoid female at the stall. A magpie.
“They’re luck charms,” the magpie said, waving a feathery hand over the trays of gems. “White is for joy; green for wealth; red for love and fertility; blue for wisdom … Take your pick.”
Hunt asked, “What’s the black for?”
The magpie’s onyx-colored mouth curved upward. “For the opposite of luck.” She tapped one of the black opals, kept contained within a glass dome. “Slip it under the pillow of your enemy and see what happens to them.”
Bryce cleared her throat. “Interesting as that may be—”
Hunt held out a silver mark. “For the white.”
Bryce’s brows rose, but the magpie swept up the mark, and plunked the white opal into Hunt’s awaiting palm. They left, ignoring her gratitude for their business.
“I didn’t peg you for superstitious,” Bryce said.
But Hunt paused at the end of the row of stalls and took her hand. He pressed the opal into it, the stone warm from his touch. The size of a crow’s egg, it shimmered in the firstlights high above.
“You could use some joy,” Hunt said quietly.
Something bright sparked in her chest. “So could you,” she said, attempting to press the opal back into his palm.
But Hunt stepped away. “It’s a gift.”
Bryce’s face warmed again, and she looked anywhere but at him as she smiled. Even though she could feel his gaze lingering on her face while she slid the opal into the pocket of her jacket.
The opal had been stupid. Impulsive.
Likely bullshit, but Bryce had pocketed it, at least. She hadn’t commented on how rusty his skills were, since it had been two hundred years since he’d last thought to buy something for a female.
Shahar would have smiled at the opal—and forgotten about it soon after. She’d had troves of jewels in her alabaster palace: diamonds the size of sunballs; solid blocks of emerald stacked like bricks; veritable bathtubs filled with rubies. A small white opal, even for joy, would have been like a grain of sand on a miles-long beach. She’d have appreciated the gift but, ultimately, let it disappear into a drawer somewhere. And he, so dedicated to their cause, would probably have forgotten about it, too.
Hunt clenched his jaw as Bryce strode for a hide stall. The teenager—a feline shifter from her scent—was in her lanky humanoid form and watched them approach from where she perched on a stool. Her brown braid draped over a shoulder, nearly grazing the phone idly held in her hands.
