Four months, three days, and … She peeked at the delicate watch on her wrist. Four hours. And at the stroke of midnight on Winter Solstice, she would be stroking—
“Burning fucking Solas, Quinlan,” Hunt grunted, again shifting in his seat.
“Sorry,” she muttered, thankful for the second time in an hour that her parents didn’t have the sense of smell that Hunt possessed.
But Hunt laughed, sliding an arm along the back of her chair, fingers tangling in her unbound hair. He seemed contented. Assured of his place there.
She glanced at her parents, sitting with similar closeness, and couldn’t help but smile. Her mom had taken a while to act on her desires with Randall, too. Well, there’d been some initial … stuff. That was as much as Bryce let herself think about them. But she knew it had been nearly a year before they’d made things official. And they’d turned out pretty damn well.
So these months with Hunt, she cherished them. As much as she cherished her dance classes with Madame Kyrah. No one except Hunt really understood what she’d gone through—only Hunt had been at the Gate.
She scanned his striking features, her lips curving again. How many nights had they stayed up, talking about everything and nothing? Ordering in dinner, watching movies or reality shows or sunball, playing video games, or sitting on the roof of the apartment building, observing malakim and witches and draki dart across the sky like shooting stars.
He’d shared so many things about his past, sad and horrible and joyous. She wanted to know all of it. And the more she learned, the more she found herself sharing, and the more she …
Light flared from the star on her chest.
Bryce clapped a hand over it. “I shouldn’t have worn this stupid dress.”
Her fingers could barely cover the star that was blaring white light through the dim theater, illuminating every face now turned her way as the orchestra quieted in anticipation of the conductor’s approach.
She didn’t dare look toward the Fae across the space. To see the disgust and disdain.
Ember and Randall twisted in their seats, her dad’s face scrunched with concern, Ember’s eyes wide with fear. Her mom knew those Fae were sneering, too. She’d hidden Bryce from them her whole life because of how they’d react to the power that now radiated from her.
Some jackass shouted from the audience below, “Hey! Turn off the light!” Bryce’s face burned as a few people chuckled, then quickly went silent.
She could only assume Fury had been nearby.
Bryce cupped both hands over the star, which had taken to glowing at the worst fucking times—this was merely the most mortifying. “I don’t know how to turn it off,” she muttered, making to rise from her seat and flee into the vestibule behind the curtain.
But Hunt slid a warm, dry hand over her scar, fingers grazing her breasts. His palm was broad enough that it covered the mark, capturing the light within. It glowed through his fingers, casting his light brown skin into rosy gold, but he managed to contain the light.
“Admit it: you just wanted me to feel you up,” Hunt whispered, and Bryce couldn’t help her stupid, giddy laugh. She buried her face in Hunt’s shoulder, the smooth material of his suit cool against her cheeks and brow. “Need a minute?” he asked, though she knew he was glaring daggers at all the assholes still gawking. The Fae nobility hissing about the disgrace.
“Should we go?” Ember asked, voice sharp with worry.
“No,” Bryce said thickly, putting a hand over Hunt’s. “I’m good.”
“You can’t sit there like that,” Ember countered.
“I’m good, Mom.”
Hunt didn’t move his hand. “We’re used to the staring. Right, Quinlan?” He flashed Ember a grin. “They won’t fuck with us.” An edge laced his smile, a reminder to anyone watching that he wasn’t only Hunt Athalar, he was also the Umbra Mortis. The Shadow of Death.
He’d earned that name.
Ember nodded again approvingly as Randall offered Hunt a grateful dip of the chin. Mercifully, the conductor emerged then, and a smattering of applause filled the theater.
Bryce inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled. She had zero control over when the star flared, or when it stopped. She sipped from her champagne, then said casually to Hunt, “The headline on the gossip sites tomorrow is going to be: Horndog Umbra Mortis Gropes Starborn Princess at Ballet.”
“Good,” Hunt murmured. “It’ll improve my standing in the 33rd.”
She smiled, despite herself. It was one of his many gifts—making her laugh, even when the world seemed inclined to humiliate and shun her.
His fingers went dark at her chest, and Bryce heaved a sigh. “Thanks,” she said as the conductor raised his baton.
Hunt slowly, so slowly, removed his hand from her chest. “Don’t mention it, Quinlan.”
She glanced sidelong at him again, wondering at the shift in his tone. But the orchestra began its lilting opening, and the curtain drew back, and Bryce leaned forward breathlessly to await her friend’s grand entrance.
2
Bryce tried not to shiver with delight when Hunt knocked her with a wing while they walked up the sagging stairs to Ruhn’s house.
A small get-together, Ruhn had said when he’d called to invite them to swing by after the ballet. Since the thought of her mother grilling her again about her job, sex life, and princess status was sure to drive her to drink anyway, Bryce and Hunt had dumped her parents back at their hotel, changed at the apartment—Hunt had insisted on that part with a grumbled I need to get the fuck out of this suit—and flown over here.
The entire Old Square had apparently turned up as well: Fae and shifters and people of all Houses drank and danced and talked. On the pathetic excuse for a front lawn, a cluster of green-haired river nymphs and fauns both male and female played cornhole. A cluster of Fae males behind them—Aux members, from their muscles and stick-up-the-ass posture—were engaged in what looked like an absolutely riveting game of bocce.
The arid day had yielded to a whisper-sweet night, warm enough that every bar and café and club in the Old Square—especially around Archer Street—teemed with revelers. Even with the booming music erupting from Ruhn’s house, she could make out the thump of the bass from the other houses along the street, the bar at the corner, the cars driving by.
Everyone was celebrating being alive.
As they should be.
“Fury and June are already here,” Bryce called to Hunt over the noise as they strode up the rickety, beer-splattered steps into Ruhn’s house. “June said they’re in the living room.”
Hunt nodded, though his focus remained fixed on the partying crowd. Even here, people noted from all directions as the Starborn Princess and the Umbra Mortis arrived. The crowd parted for them, some even backing away. Bryce stiffened, but Hunt didn’t halt his easy pace. He was accustomed to this shit—had been for a while now. And though he was no longer officially the Shadow of Death, people hadn’t forgotten what he had once done. Who he’d once served.
Hunt aimed for the living room to the left of the foyer, the ridiculous muscles along his shoulders shifting with the movement. They were put on near-obscene display by the black tank top he wore. Bryce might have survived the sight of it, had it not been for the white sunball hat, twisted backward the way Hunt usually wore it.