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She didn’t miss the heat in his eyes. The spark.

She bit her lip. “Sexy assistant, huh? You cool with going from the Umbra Mortis to fetching my coffee?”

“If it comes with the perk of kinky office sex, I’m cool with anything,” Hunt growled, nipping at her ear.

“Oh, the position definitely comes with kinky office sex,” she purred.

She felt the hardness of him push into her hip before he said, low and wicked, “Sprites—go find somewhere else to be for a while.”

They grumbled, but zoomed out to the stairs, all blushing a bright pink. Syrinx dashed after them, yelping.

Bryce didn’t care where they went. Not as Hunt pressed his cock against her center, and she writhed. “Get on the desk,” he said, voice like gravel.

Her blood thrummed through her. “We’re already late for our meeting with Ruhn and the others at the Aux.”

“They can deal.” His voice was pure, unrelenting sex. Her knees wobbled.

But Bryce had only taken one step toward the desk when her phone rang. Baxian.

“Call back later,” Hunt said, coming to stand behind her. Sliding his hands up her thighs, bunching her skirt as he went. Yes—fuck yes.

Hunt’s phone rang. Baxian again.

“Maybe we should … answer,” Bryce said, though she almost didn’t, considering that Hunt had a fistful of her skirt in one hand and her bare ass palmed in his other—

Hunt groaned and reached for his phone, answering with a snapped “What.”

With her Fae ears, Bryce could hear perfectly clearly as Baxian asked, “Where’s your mate?”

It was the low note of panic and urgency that had Hunt putting him on speakerphone and saying, “We’re both here.”

Baxian let out a shuddering breath, and Bryce’s arousal vanished, cold dread filling her gut. If something had happened already, an attack on Avallen—

“I …” Baxian choked on the word. “There are about two dozen of them.”

Bryce swapped a confused glance with Hunt and asked, “Them?”

Baxian let out a laugh that verged on hysteria. “I swear, it’s like they sprang out of the earth, like they were hibernating or hiding there, I don’t fucking know—”

“Baxian,” Bryce said, heart thundering. “What is it?”

“Flying horses. Horses with wings.”

Bryce blinked slowly. “Horses … with wings.”

“Yes,” Baxian said, his voice rising. “They’re flying around and trampling everything and eating all the crops and I think you might need to come here because they seem to be the sort of thing that might belong to a Super Magical Fancy Starborn Princess …”

Bryce looked at Hunt, pure wonder flooding her.

“There are flying horses in Avallen,” Hunt said, eyes as wide as her own, pure joy sparking there.

“In Silene’s account,” Bryce breathed, “she talked about her mother having flying horses. How some came here … and there were depictions of them in the Cave of Princes and Morven’s castle. I thought they’d all been killed, but maybe …” Bryce shook her head. “Is it possible?” Had Helena somehow secretly kept them alive, suspended, waiting until it was safe again?

She didn’t care. Not right now. “There are flying horses in Avallen,” Bryce repeated to Hunt. “There are pegasuses in Avallen.”

“Please come help me,” Baxian said miserably.

“We’ll be there by dawn,” Bryce said, and hung up for Hunt. She met her mate’s blazingly bright eyes. No more shadows, no more halo, no more pain. Never again. “Rain check on the desk sex?”

“For Jelly Jubilee in the flesh?” Hunt grinned. “Anything.”

Bryce threw her arms around his neck, kissing him thoroughly, then dashed for the door.

There was an angel in her office, and a pegasus herd on Avallen. And the Asteri were gone and the dead were free … and though she knew there was work to do to heal Midgard, the world was out there. Life was out there.

So Bryce and Hunt ran out to live it.

Together.