Page 175

Ruhn paled. “Don’t be stupid. That was an accident during his Ordeal.”

Hunt kept his face neutral, but Bryce just leaned back in her chair. “If you say so.”

“You still believe this shit you tried to sell me as a kid?”

She crossed her arms. “I wanted your eyes open to what he really is before it was too late for you, too.”

Ruhn blinked, but straightened, shaking his head as he rose from the table. “Trust me, Bryce, I’ve known for a while what he is. I had to fucking live with him.” Ruhn nodded toward the messy table. “If I hear anything new about the Horn or this synthetic healing magic, I’ll let you know.” He met Hunt’s stare and added, “Be careful.”

Hunt gave him a half smile that told the prince he knew exactly what that be careful was about. And didn’t give a shit.

Two minutes after Ruhn left, the front door buzzed again.

“What does he fucking want now?” Bryce muttered, grabbing the tablet Lehabah had been using to watch her trash TV and pulling up the video feed for the front cameras.

A squeal escaped her. An otter in a reflective yellow vest stood on its hind legs, a little paw on the lower buzzer she’d had Jesiba install for shorter patrons. Out of the hope that one day, somehow, she’d find a fuzzy, whiskery messenger standing on the doorstep.

Bryce bolted from her chair a second later, her heels eating up the carpet as she ran upstairs.

The message the otter bore from Tharion was short and sweet.

I think you’ll find this of interest. Kisses, Tharion

“Kisses?” Hunt asked.

“They’re for you, obviously,” Bryce said, still smiling about the otter. She’d handed him a silver mark, for which she’d earned a twitch of the whiskers and a little fanged grin.

Easily the highlight of her day. Week. Year.

Honestly, her entire life.

At the desk in the showroom, Bryce removed Tharion’s letter from the top of the pile, while Hunt began to leaf through some of the pages beneath.

The blood rushed from her face at a photograph in Hunt’s hand. “Is that a body?”

Hunt grunted. “It’s what’s left of one after Tharion pried it from a sobek’s lair.”

Bryce couldn’t stop the shudder down her spine. Clocking in at more than twenty-five feet and nearly three thousand pounds of scale-covered muscle, sobeks were among the worst of the apex predators who prowled the river. Mean, strong, and with teeth that could snap you in two, a full-grown male sobek could make most Vanir back away. “He’s insane.”

Hunt chuckled. “Oh, he most certainly is.”

Bryce frowned at the gruesome photo, then read through Tharion’s notes. “He says the bite marks on the torso aren’t consistent with sobek teeth. This person was already dead when they were dumped into the Istros. The sobek must have seen an easy meal and hauled it down to its lair to eat later.” She swallowed the dryness in her mouth and again looked at the body. A dryad female. Her chest cavity had been ripped open, heart and internal organs removed, and bite marks peppered—

“These wounds look like the ones you got from the kristallos. And the mer’s lab figured this body was probably five days old, judging by the level of decay.”

“The night we were attacked.”

Bryce studied the analysis. “There was clear venom in the wounds. Tharion says he could feel it inside the corpse even before the mer did tests on it.” Most of those in the House of Many Waters could sense what flowed in someone’s body—illnesses and weaknesses and, apparently, venom. “But when they tested it …” She blew out a breath. “It negated magic.” It had to be the kristallos. Bryce cringed, reading on, “He looked into records of all unidentified bodies the mer found in the past couple years. They found two with identical wounds and this clear venom right around the time of …” She swallowed. “Around when Danika and the pack died. A dryad and a fox shifter male. Both reported missing. This month, they’ve found five with these marks and the venom. All reported missing, but a few weeks after the fact.”

“So they’re people who might not have had many close friends or family,” Hunt said.

“Maybe.” Bryce again studied the photograph. Made herself look at the wounds. Silence fell, interrupted only by the distant sounds of Lehabah’s show downstairs.

She said quietly, “That’s not the creature that killed Danika.”

Hunt ran a hand through his hair. “There might have been multiple kristallos—”

“No,” she insisted, setting down the papers. “The kristallos isn’t what killed Danika.”