“What would Sabine want with a broken artifact? And even if she knew how to repair it, what would she do with it?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t know if someone else has it and she wants it, but—”

“If Danika saw Sabine steal it, it’d make sense that Danika never said anything. Same with the guard and the acolyte. They were probably too scared to come forward.”

“It would explain why Sabine swapped the footage. And why it freaked her out when we showed up at the temple, causing her to kill anyone who might have seen anything that night. The bomb at the club was probably a way to either intimidate us or kill us while making it look like humans were behind it.”

“But … I don’t think she has it,” Bryce mused, toying with her toes. They were painted a deep ruby. Ridiculous, he told himself. Not the alternative. The one that had him imagining tasting each and every one of those toes before slowly working his way up those sleek, bare legs of hers. Bare legs that were mere inches from him, golden skin gleaming in the firstlights. He forced himself to withdraw his hand from her knee, even as his fingers begged to move, to stroke along her thigh. Higher.

Bryce went on, oblivious to his filthy train of thoughts, “I don’t see why Sabine would have the Horn and still summon the kristallos.”

Hunt cleared his throat. It’d been a long fucking day. A weird one, if this was where his thoughts had drifted. Honestly, they’d been drifting in this direction since the gun range. Since he’d seen her hold that gun like a gods-damned pro.

He forced himself to focus. Consider the conversation at hand and not contemplate whether Quinlan’s legs would feel as soft beneath his mouth as they looked. “Don’t forget that Sabine hates Micah’s guts. Beyond silencing the victims, the killings now could also be to undermine him. You saw how tied up he is about getting this solved before the Summit. Murders like these, caused by an unknown demon, when Sandriel is here? It’ll make a mockery of him. Maximus Tertian was high profile enough to create a political headache for Micah—Tertian’s death might have just been to fuck with Micah’s standing. For fuck’s sake, she and Sandriel might even be in on it together, hoping to weaken him in the Asteri’s eyes, so they appoint Sandriel to Valbara instead. She could easily make Sabine the Prime of all Valbaran shifters—not just wolves.”