“Not quite. He’d gotten back from the front a year before, but the stuff he did and saw while he was serving … It messed with him. Really badly. He didn’t want to go home, couldn’t face his family. So he’d offered himself as an acolyte to Solas, hoping that it’d somehow atone for his past. He was two weeks away from swearing his vows when the High Priest asked him to escort us to Hilene. Many of the priests are trained warriors, but Randall was the only human, and the High Priest guessed my mother wouldn’t trust a Vanir male. Right before we reached Hilene, my father’s people caught up with us. They expected to find a helpless, hysterical female.” Bryce smiled again. “What they found was a legendary sharpshooter and a mother who would move the earth itself to keep her daughter.”

Hunt straightened. “What happened?”

“What you might expect. My parents dealt with the mess afterward.” She glanced at him. “Please don’t tell that to anyone. It … There were never any questions about the Fae that didn’t return to Crescent City. I don’t want any to come up now.”

“I won’t say a word.”

Bryce smiled grimly. “After that, the House of Earth and Blood literally deemed my mother a vessel for Cthona and Randall a vessel for Solas, and blah blah religious crap, but it basically amounted to an official order of protection that my father didn’t dare fuck with. And Randall finally went home, bringing us with him, and obviously didn’t swear his vows to Solas.” Her smile warmed. “He proposed by the end of the year. They’ve been disgustingly in love ever since.”

Hunt smiled back. “It’s nice to hear that sometimes things work out for good people.”

“Yeah. Sometimes.” A taut silence stretched between them. In her bed—they were in her bed, and just this morning, she’d fantasized about him going down on her atop the kitchen counter—

Bryce swallowed hard. “Fangs and Bangs is on in five minutes. You want to watch?”

Hunt smiled slowly, as if he knew precisely why she’d swallowed, but lay back on the pillows, his wings sprawled beneath him. A predator content to wait for his prey to come to him.

Fucking Hel. But Hunt winked at her, tucking an arm behind his head. The motion made the muscles down his biceps ripple. His eyes glittered, as if he was well aware of that, too. “Hel yes.”

Hunt hadn’t realized how badly he needed to ask it. How badly he’d needed her answer.

Friends. It didn’t remotely cover whatever was between them, but it was true.