House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City) Read online

  “Reid,” she said. He just held up a finger.

  Bryce tapped a red nail on the base of her wineglass. She kept her nails long—and took a daily elixir to keep them strong. Not as effective as talons or claws, but they could do some damage. At least enough to potentially get away from an assailant.

  “Reid,” she said again. He kept typing, and looked up only when the first course appeared.

  It was indeed a salmon mousse. Over a crisp of bread, and encaged in some latticework of curling green plants. Small ferns, perhaps. She swallowed her laugh.

  “Go ahead and dig in,” Reid said distantly, typing again. “Don’t wait for me.”

  “One bite and I’ll be done,” she muttered, lifting her fork but wondering how the Hel to eat the thing. No one around them used their fingers, but … The Fae female sneered again.

  Bryce set down the fork. Folded her napkin into a neat square before she rose. “I’m going.”

  “All right,” Reid said, eyes fixed on his screen. He clearly thought she was going to the bathroom. She could feel the eyes of a well-dressed angel at the next table travel up her expanse of bare leg, then heard the chair groan as he leaned back to admire the view of her ass.

  Exactly why she kept her nails strong.

  But she said to Reid, “No—I’m leaving. Thank you for dinner.”

  That made him look up. “What? Bryce, sit down. Eat.”

  As if his being late, being on the phone, weren’t part of this. As if she were just something he needed to feed before he fucked. She said clearly, “This isn’t working out.”

  His mouth tightened. “Excuse me?”

  She doubted he’d ever been dumped. She said with a sweet smile, “Bye, Reid. Good luck with work.”

  “Bryce.”

  But she had enough gods-damned self-respect not to let him explain, not to accept sex that was merely okay basically in exchange for meals at restaurants she could never afford, and a man who had indeed rolled off her and gotten right back on that phone. So she swiped the bottle of wine and stepped away from the table, but not toward the exit.

  She went up to the sneering Fae female and her human plaything and said in a cool voice that would have made even Danika back away, “Like what you see?”

  The female gave her a sweeping glance, from Bryce’s heels to her red hair to the bottle of wine dangling from her fingers. The Fae female shrugged, setting the black stones in her long dress sparkling. “I’ll pay a gold mark to watch you two.” She inclined her head to the human at her table.

  He offered Bryce a smile, his vacant face suggesting he was soaring high on some drug.

  Bryce smirked at the female. “I didn’t know Fae females had gotten so cheap. Word on the street used to be that you’d pay us gold by the armful to pretend you’re not lifeless as Reapers between the sheets.”

  The female’s tan face went white. Glossy, flesh-shredding nails snagged on the tablecloth. The man across from her didn’t so much as flinch.

  Bryce put a hand on the man’s shoulder—in comfort or to piss off the female, she wasn’t sure. She squeezed lightly, again inclining her head toward the female, and strode out.

  She swigged from the bottle of wine and flipped off the preening hostess on her way through the bronze doors. Then snatched a handful of matchbooks from the bowl atop the stand, too.

  Reid’s breathless apologies to the noble drifted behind her as Bryce stepped onto the hot, dry street.

  Well, shit. It was nine o’clock, she was decently dressed, and if she went back to that apartment, she’d pace around until Danika bit her head off. And the wolves would shove their noses into her business, which she didn’t want to discuss with them at all.

  Which left one option. Her favorite option, fortunately.

  Fury picked up on the first ring. “What.”

  “Are you on this side of the Haldren or the wrong one?”

  “I’m in Five Roses.” The flat, cool voice was laced with a hint of amusement—practically outright laughter, coming from Fury. “But I’m not watching television with the pups.”

  “Who the Hel would want to do that?”

  A pause on the line. Bryce leaned against the pale stone exterior of the Pearl and Rose. “I thought you had a date with what’s-his-face.”

  “You and Danika are the worst, you know that?”

  She practically heard Fury’s wicked smile through the line. “I’ll meet you at the Raven in thirty minutes. I need to finish up a job.”

  “Go easy on the poor bastard.”

  “That’s not what I was paid to do.”

  The line went dead. Bryce swore and prayed Fury wouldn’t reek of blood when she got to their preferred club. She dialed another number.

  Juniper was breathless when she picked up on the fifth ring, right before it went to audiomail. She must have been in the studio, practicing after-hours. As she always did. As Bryce loved to do whenever she had a spare moment herself. To dance and dance and dance, the world fading into nothing but music and breath and sweat. “Oh, you dumped him, didn’t you?”

  “Did motherfucking Danika send a message to everyone?”

  “No,” the sweet, lovely faun replied, “but you’ve been on your date for only an hour. Since the recap calls usually happen the morning after …”

  “We’re going to the Raven,” Bryce snapped. “Be there in thirty.” She hung up before Juniper’s quicksilver laugh set her cursing.

  Oh, she’d find a way to punish Danika for telling them. Even though she knew it’d been meant as a warning, to prepare them for any picking up the pieces, if necessary. Just as Bryce had checked in with Connor regarding Danika’s state earlier that evening.

  The White Raven was only a five-minute walk away, right in the heart of the Old Square. Which left Bryce with enough time to either really, truly get into trouble, or face what she’d been avoiding for an hour now.

  She opted for trouble.

  Lots of trouble, enough to empty out the seven hard-earned gold marks in her purse as she handed them over to a grinning draki female, who slipped everything Bryce asked for into her waiting palm. The female had tried to sell her on some new party drug—Synth will make you feel like a god, she said—but the thirty gold marks for a single dose had been well above Bryce’s pay grade.

  She was still left with five minutes. Standing across from the White Raven, the club still teeming with revelers despite Briggs’s failed plan to blast it apart, Bryce pulled out her phone and opened the thread with Connor. She’d bet all the money she’d just blown on mirthroot that he was checking his phone every two seconds.

  Cars crawled past, the bass of their sound systems thumping over the cobblestones and cypresses, windows down to reveal passengers eager to start their Thursday: drinking; smoking; singing along to the music; messaging friends, dealers, whoever might get them into one of the dozen clubs that lined Archer Street. Queues already snaked from the doors, including the Raven’s. Vanir peered up in anticipation at the white marble facade, well-dressed pilgrims waiting at the gates of a temple.

  The Raven was just that: a temple. Or it had been. A building now encased the ruins, but the dance floor remained the original, ancient stones of some long-forgotten god’s temple, and the carved stone pillars throughout still stood from that time. To dance inside was to worship that nameless god, hinted at in the age-worn carvings of satyrs and fauns drinking and dancing and fucking amid grapevines. A temple to pleasure—that’s what it had once been. And what it had become again.

  A cluster of young mountain-lion shifters prowled past, a few twisting back to growl in invitation. Bryce ignored them and sidled over to an alcove at the left of the Raven’s service doors. She leaned against the slick stone, tucked the wine into the crook of her arm, braced a foot on the wall behind her as she bobbed her head to the music pouring out of a nearby car, and finally typed: Pizza. Saturday night at six. If you’re late, it’s over.

  Instantly, Connor began typing in reply. Then
the bubble paused. Then started again.

  Then finally, the message came.

  I’ll never keep you waiting.

  She rolled her eyes and wrote, Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

  More typing, deleting, typing. Then, You mean it—about the pizza?

  Do I look like I’m joking, Connor?

  You looked delicious when you left the apartment.

  Heat curled in her, and she bit her lip. Charming, arrogant bastard. Tell Danika I’m going to the Raven with Juniper and Fury. I’ll see you in two days.

  Done. What about what’s-his-face?

  REID is officially dumped.

  Good. I was getting worried I’d have to kill him.

  Her gut churned.

  He quickly added, Kidding, Bryce. I won’t go alphahole on you, I promise.

  Before she could answer, her phone buzzed again.

  Danika, this time. HOW DARE YOU GO TO THE RAVEN WITHOUT ME. TRAITOR.

  Bryce snorted. Enjoy Pack Night, loser.

  DO NOT HAVE FUN WITHOUT ME. I FORBID YOU.

  She knew that as much as it killed Danika to stay in, she wouldn’t leave the pack. Not on the one night they all had together, the night they used to keep the bonds between them strong. Not after this shitstorm of a day. And especially not while Briggs was on the loose, with a reason to get back at the whole Pack of Devils.

  That loyalty was why they loved Danika, why they fought so fiercely for her, went to the mat for her again and again when Sabine publicly wondered if her daughter was worthy of the responsibilities and status as second in line. The power hierarchy among the wolves of Crescent City was dictated by dominance alone—but the three-generation lineage that made up the Prime of the wolves, Prime Apparent, and whatever Danika was (the Apparent Prime Apparent?) was a rarity. Powerful, ancient bloodlines was the usual explanation.

  Danika had spent countless hours looking into the history of the dominant shifter packs in other cities—why lions had come to rule in Hilene, why tigers oversaw Korinth, why falcons reigned in Oia. Whether the dominance that determined the Prime Alpha status passed through families or skipped around. Non-predatory shifters could head up a city’s Aux, but it was rare. Honestly, most of it bored Bryce to tears. And if Danika had ever learned why the Fendyr family claimed such a large share of the dominance pie, she’d never told Bryce.

  Bryce wrote back to Connor, Good luck handling Danika.

  He simply replied, She’s telling me the same about you.

  Bryce was about to put her phone away when the screen flashed again. Connor had added, You won’t regret this. I’ve had a long while to figure out all the ways I’m going to spoil you. All the fun we’re going to have.

  Stalker. But she smiled.

  Go enjoy yourself. I’ll see you in a few days. Message me when you’re home safe.

  She reread the conversation twice because she really was an absolute fucking loser, and was debating asking Connor to skip waiting and just meet her now, when something cool and metal pressed against her throat.

  “And you’re dead,” crooned a female voice.

  Bryce yelped, trying to calm the heart that had gone from stupid-giddy to stupid-scared in the span of one beat.

  “Don’t fucking do that,” she hissed at Fury as the female lowered the knife from Bryce’s throat and sheathed it across her back.

  “Don’t be a walking target,” Fury said coolly, her long onyx hair tied high in a ponytail that brought out the sharp lines of her light brown face. She scanned the line into the Raven, her deep-set chestnut eyes marking everything and promising death to anyone who crossed her. But beneath that … mercifully, the black leather leggings, skintight velvet top, and ass-kicking boots did not smell of blood. Fury gave Bryce a once-over. “You barely put on any makeup. That little human should have taken one look at you and known you were about to dump his ass.”

  “He was too busy on his phone to notice.”

  Fury glanced pointedly at Bryce’s own phone, still clenched in a death grip in her hand. “Danika’s going to nail your balls to the wall when I tell her I caught you distracted like that.”

  “It’s her own damn fault,” Bryce snapped.

  A sharp smile was her only response. Bryce knew Fury was Vanir, but she had no idea what kind. No idea what House Fury belonged to, either. Asking wasn’t polite, and Fury, aside from her preternatural speed, grace, and reflexes, had never revealed another form, nor any inkling of magic beyond the most basic.

  But she was a civitas. A full citizen, which meant she had to be something they deemed worthy. Given her skill set, the House of Flame and Shadow was the likeliest place for her—even if Fury was certainly not a daemonaki, vampyr, or even a wraith. Definitely not a witch-turned-sorceress like Jesiba, either. Or a necromancer, since her gifts seemed to be taking life, not illegally bringing it back.

  “Where’s the leggy one?” Fury asked, taking the wine bottle from Bryce and swigging as she scanned the teeming clubs and bars along Archer Street.

  “Hel if I know,” Bryce said. She winked at Fury and held up the plastic bag of mirthroot, jostling the twelve rolled black cigarettes. “I got us some goodies.”

  Fury’s grin was a flash of red lips and straight white teeth. She reached into the back pocket of her leggings and held up a small bag of white powder that glittered with a fiery iridescence in the glow of the streetlamp. “So did I.”

  Bryce squinted at the powder. “Is that what the dealer just tried to sell me?”

  Fury went still. “What’d she say it was?”

  “Some new party drug—gives you a godlike high, I don’t know. Super expensive.”

  Fury frowned. “Synth? Stay away from it. That’s some bad shit.”

  “All right.” She trusted Fury enough to heed the warning. Bryce peered at the powder Fury still held in her hand. “I can’t take anything that makes me hallucinate for days, please. I have work tomorrow.” When she had to at least pretend she had some idea how to find that gods-damned Horn.

  Fury tucked the bag into her black bra. She swigged from the wine again before passing it back to Bryce. “Jesiba won’t be able to scent it on you, don’t worry.”

  Bryce linked elbows with the slender assassin. “Then let’s go make our ancestors roll over in their graves.”

  5

  Going on a date with Connor in a few days didn’t mean she had to behave.

  So within the inner sanctum of the White Raven, Bryce savored every delight it offered.

  Fury knew the owner, Riso, either through work or whatever the Hel she did in her personal life, and as such, they never had to wait in line. The flamboyant butterfly shifter always left a booth open for them.

  None of the smiling, colorfully dressed waiters who brought over their drinks so much as blinked at the lines of glittering white powder Fury arranged with a sweep of her hand or the plumes of smoke that rippled from Bryce’s parted lips as she tipped her head back to the domed, mirrored ceiling and laughed.

  Juniper had a studio class at dawn, so she abstained from the powder and smoke and booze. But it didn’t stop her from sneaking away for a good twenty minutes with a broad-chested Fae male who took in the dark brown skin, the exquisite face and curling black hair, the long legs that ended in delicate hooves, and practically begged on his knees for the faun to touch him.

  Bryce reduced herself into the pulsing beat of the music, to the euphoria glittering through her blood faster than an angel diving out of the sky, to the sweat sliding down her body as she writhed on the ancient dance floor. She would barely be able to walk tomorrow, would have half a brain, but holy shit—more, more, more.

  Laughing, she swooped over the low-lying table in their private booth between two half-crumbling pillars; laughing, she arched away, a red nail releasing its hold on one nostril as she sagged against the dark leather bench; laughing, she knocked back water and elderberry wine and stumbled again into the dancing throng.

  Life was good. Life wa
s fucking good, and she couldn’t gods-damn wait to make the Drop with Danika and do this until the earth crumbled into dust.

  She found Juniper dancing amid a pack of sylph females celebrating a friend’s successful Drop. Their silvery heads were adorned with circlets of neon glow sticks chock-full of their friend’s designated allotment of her own firstlight, which she’d generated when she successfully completed the Drop. Juniper had managed to swipe a glow-stick halo for herself, and her hair shone with blue light as she extended her hands to Bryce, their fingers linking as they danced.

  Bryce’s blood pulsed in time to the music, as if she had been crafted just for this: the moment when she became the notes and rhythm and the bass, when she became song given form. Juniper’s glittering eyes told Bryce that she understood, had always understood the particular freedom and joy and unleashing that came from dancing. Like their bodies were so full of sound they could barely contain it, could barely stand it, and only dance could express it, ease it, honor it.

  Males and females gathered to watch, their lust coating Bryce’s skin like sweat. Juniper’s every movement matched hers without so much as a lick of hesitation, as if they were question and answer, sun and moon.

  Quiet, pretty Juniper Andromeda—the exhibitionist. Even dancing in the sacred, ancient heart of the Raven, she was sweet and mild, but she shone.

  Or maybe that was all the lightseeker Bryce had ingested up her nose.

  Her hair clung to her sweaty neck, her feet were utterly numb thanks to the steep angle of her heels, her throat was ravaged from screaming along to the songs that blasted through the club.

  She managed to shoot a few messages to Danika—and one video, because she could barely read any of what was coming in anyway.

  She’d be so royally fucked if she showed up at work tomorrow unable to read.

  Time slowed and bled. Here, dancing among the pillars and upon the timeworn stones of the temple that had been reborn, no time existed at all.