She was in the bathroom in a heartbeat, his name on her lips, bracing for the worst, wishing she’d grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter—

But there he was. Sitting naked on the floor of the shower, his head bowed between his knees. Water pounded into his back, his wings, dripping off his hair. His gold-dusted brown skin gleamed an angry red.

Bryce took one step into the shower and hissed. The water was scalding. Burning hot.

“Hunt,” she said. He didn’t so much as blink.

She glanced between him and the showerhead. His body was healing the burns—healing and then scalding, healing and scalding. It had to be torturous.

She bit down on her yelp as she reached into the shower, the near-boiling water soaking her shirt, her pants, and lowered the temperature.

He didn’t move. Didn’t even look at her. He’d done this many times, she realized. Every time Micah had sent him out, and for all the Archangels he’d served before that.

Syrinx came to investigate, sniffed at the bloody clothes, then sprawled himself on the bath mat, head on his front paws.

Hunt made no indication that he knew she stood there.

But his breathing deepened. Became easier.

And she couldn’t explain why she did it, but she grabbed a bottle of shampoo and the block of lavender soap from the nook in the tiles. Then knelt before him.

“I’m going to clean you off,” she said quietly. “If that’s all right.”

A slight but terribly clear nod was his only response. Like words were still too hard.

So Bryce poured the shampoo into her hands, and then laced her fingers into his hair. The thick strands were heavy, and she gently scrubbed, tipping his head back to rinse it. His eyes lifted at last. Met hers, as his head leaned back into the stream of water.

“You look how I feel,” she whispered, her throat tight. “Every day.”

He blinked, his only sign that he’d heard.

She removed her hands from his hair, and picked up the bar of soap. He was naked, she realized, having somehow forgotten. Utterly naked. She didn’t let herself contemplate it as she began lathering his neck, his powerful shoulders, his muscled arms. “I’ll leave your bottom half for you to enjoy,” she said, her face heating.

He was just watching her with that raw openness. More intimate than any touch of his lips on her neck. Like he indeed saw everything she was and had been and might yet become.

She scrubbed down his upper body as best she could. “I can’t clean your wings with you sitting against the wall.”

Hunt rose to his feet in a mighty, graceful push.

She kept her eyes averted from what, exactly, this brought into her direct line of vision. The very considerable something that he didn’t seem to notice or care about.