Bryce and Danika: HOFAS Bonus Chapter

The thumping bass from the shitty old boom box reached Bryce full two levels below the apartment. The sweet, musky scent of mirthroot hit her when she reached the next landing. And by the time Bryce unlocked the door and stepped inside, she was already dancing.

“There’s my favorite person!” Danika shouted, saluting Bryce with a rolled cigarette of mirthroot. A pile of it lay on the coffee table before her, Danika’s bare feet inches away. Bryce’s roommate gestured magnanimously to the spread of drugs.

“Where the fuck did you even get that much mirthroot?” Bryce toed off her heels, scrunching her chafed, aching toes a few times to work some life back into them. Then she reached under her dress and snapped her bra free. She whipped it around her head once for good effect, then sent it soaring across the living area. It landed in a sweaty heap on the threshold of her bedroom. Fuck, it was hot out. And it was hot in here.

Even with the air-conditioning on, a light sweat coated Danika’s face. It probably didn’t help that she wore her familiar leather jacket, with Through love, all is possible scrawled across the back, despite the summer heat.

Danika took a long drag of mirthroot, exhaling through her nostrils before saying, “I confiscated it from some asshole tourists who thought it’d be cool to get wasted in the Oracle’s Park and see if they picked up on her psychic vibes or whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “Gave them a formal warning and took their drugs.”

Bryce chuckled, plopping onto the sagging couch beside her best friend. “You’re a real role model.”

Danika passed her the smoldering cigarette. “Oh yeah. Crescent City’s finest.”

Bryce inhaled deeply, every taut muscle in her body relaxing at the taste of the smoke in her mouth.

On the crappy, too-small TV across the living room, the evening news blathered on, barely audible above the thump of the music on the boom box. The blackout last week, blah, blah, blah-

“Where’s everyone else?” Bryce asked, exhaling slowly before passing the mirthroot back to Danika. She’d gotten Danika’s message half an hour ago: a short video showing the pile of mirth-root-which had then been on the kitchen counter-with music blasting in the background, accompanied by the words Hurry home quick, honey.

So Bryce had, locking the gallery up in record time. So fast that she’d forgotten her dirty dance clothes from the class she’d taken at lunchtime. So fast that poor Syrinx had only gotten in one cuddle before she’d been out the door with promises to bring him a big treat tomorrow.

“Working,” Danika replied at last, smoke rippling from her lips. “Being the role model that I am, I took the evening off to enjoy the spoils.” She wriggled her toes, each one coated in chipped purple nail polish, at the mirthroot. “Bronson made me promise to leave some for him, so don’t make me a liar.”

Bryce took another hit. “If we smoke all of that, I think we’ll die, Danika.”

“Nah,” Danika said, smirking as Bryce slowly released a sweet cloud. “But you might still be high in two days.”

Bryce’s phone chirped, and she grabbed it from the coffee table to find that an email from Jesiba had popped up. Bryce skimmed its contents, then winced. She’d just put her phone down, intending to ignore the message for as long as possible, when Danika said, rising to her feet, “Maybe three days.” Bryce laughed, the room starting to slow and spin with a familiar haziness. She set the mirthroot down in the lopsided ceramic ashtray-a gem from their half-assed college pottery class-and leaned back on the stained cushions to savor the chill creeping over her.

Humming along to the music, Danika padded into the galley kitchen. Bryce’s phone buzzed with another message from Jesiba I expect a reply within the next five–

Bryce sighed and began typing back, any building bliss fading away.

“Wanna go out?” Danika called from the kitchen.

Bryce propped her feet on the coffee table, sending the email to Jesiba as she did. “No. My bra is officially off and I am not put ting it back on.”

“Who said you need a bra on to go out?” Danika emerged from the kitchen, munching on a soggy leftover sandwich.

“There’s still plenty of ziti from what I made last night,” Bryce offered, the music starting to send rippling gold rings through the room. Pretty. “That sandwich is, like, six days old.”

Danika took another bite and said around a mouthful, “I’d rather risk food poisoning from this thing than that… concoction.”

Bryce flipped off her friend with a finger that felt a million miles away. “You said the ziti was good!”

“It might have been on its own.” Danika crossed her arms. “But you added…?”

“Sausage.” “And?”

Bryce winced. “Some other stuff?” Okay, maybe she’d gotten a little overeager adding things to the recipe. She’d stopped herself after the garlic and olives, though.

Danika nodded sagely. “Yeah, no ziti. Let’s go out, though-I’ve still got plenty of room for more. Pizza, then beer. Then whiskey.”

“I have work tomorrow,” Bryce hedged. “Jesiba’s already messaging me about the pile of paperwork she wants me to fill out before she even gets in tomorrow morning. There’s no way I can get through it if I’m nursing a hangover. Or still high.”

Just two drinks.” Danika promised, unraveling and then re-braiding her blond, corn-silk hair with strands of amethyst, sapphire, and rose woven throughout. “I’ll have you in bed by one.”

That was a big fucking lie, if Bryce had ever heard one. But if Danika wanted to go out, only the two of them, no mention of making it a party with June and Fury….

“Please,” Danika asked, frowning slightly. She approached the coffee table and picked up the mirthroot cigarette, inhaling again.

“I could use it.”

Even with the haze of the drugs, it was hard to miss the tightness in Danika’s face, her posture.

So Bryce asked, as soberly as she could, “You all right?”

Danika shrugged, inhaling again. “Sabine. As usual.”

There was something in the way Danika didn’t look at her, didn’t meet her eyes… Bryce wasn’t entirely sure she bought it, even though Sabine was always nipping at Danika’s heels. But what else could it be? Maybe something with Thorne, but Thorne’s panting after Danika had never seemed to bother her before.

If Danika didn’t want to talk about it, though, Bryce wouldn’t push. She’d be there when Danika was ready. Bryce took another drag of the mirthroot herself, free-falling into the serene calmness, and said, “One-I want to be back here and in bed by one.”

Her best friend, the sister of her soul, winked. But some of that tightness, that distant worry remained- just a glimmer. Even as Danika said, eyes glowing with wolfish delight through the cloud of mirthroot smoke, “I’ll get you a fresh bra.”

“There’s a thousand-mark fine and a permanent citation for public drunkenness,” a male voice lectured Bryce and Danika two hours later, right as the clock neared midnight.

One in the morning loomed, but maybe she could push it to two. It was such a warm, beautiful night, the wind sighing through the palms. the kind of summer night that would linger in Bryce’s memory for years. The mirthroot still wrapped around her senses, heightening and yet soothing them, making her savor every perfect detail of this night.

Sitting on the rim of a fountain in a market square near Archer Street, Danika swigged from her bottle of beer. They’d gotten a six-pack from the nearby grocery store-and then another. This was their third. They had only the who cares effect of the mirthroot to blame for it, Bryce supposed. “No one likes a nare.”

Bryce snickered up at the trio of wolves standing around them: Connor, Zach, and Thorne. It was Zach who had spoken. and though his tone had been perfectly dry, his dark eyes glittered with amusement.

He made up half of the twin duo everyone called the Ghosts. If Zach was here, Zelda couldn’t be far away. But it was Connor who Bryce really looked at-and promptly tried to ignore. Especially as he said, “A little public drunkenness never hurt anyone.”

His tone was the opposite of Zach’s, though. He sounded amused, but she could have sworn something disapproving shone in Connor’s eyes as he looked at her Bryce glazed up at him as if to say, What? Danika needed a drink. And some mirthroot. A lot of it.

She could have sworn Connor’s frown said, There are better ways of helping her deal with Sabine.

Bryce shook her head. He saw too much-noticed too much. She changed the subject. “Where’s my bestie?”

Danika laughed. “I’m right here. You must have stoked more than I realized.”

“I meant Ithan,” Bryce said innocently “Hey!” Danika objected.

“Second-best friend,” Bryce amended.

Thorne chuckled. “Sleeping Big game in a few days”

Connor cautioned, “Do not invite him out. He needs rest.”

“Of course,” Danika said. “It’s a big, fancy, important sunball game. Why, the fate of the world rests upon it! We’d never interfere with that.”

Bryce and Danika swapped a glance. As soon as the trio left, they were totally messaging Ithan – the fun Holstrom, as she often teased Connor.

But Connor didn’t look like he’d appreciate being teased at the moment. Gods, did everyone have something smoldering inside them right now? Was it the summer heat? The way he was staring at her…

Bryce became keenly aware of how high her dress had ridden up her thighs, how much bare leg she had exposed, the drunken angle of her feet in her high heels.

“Look,” Thorne said, ever the voice of reason, “Amelie and the Black Rose Pack are on patrol tonight. Just… be careful.”

“Let them try something.” Danika snarled, and even Bryce tensed at that. Danika was spoiling for a fight.

“Don’t even think about it,” Connor warned, teeth bared in a way that reminded Bryce he might have been an Alpha in his own right if he hadn’t chosen to serve Danika instead. “A confrontation with Amelie is the last thing you need right now.”

“Oh?” Danika rose gracefully to her feet, only swaying a bit. “Why?”

Thorne stepped between them, the Omega flashing a disarming smile. “Because I don’t want to have to drag you into jail for murder.”

That seemed to appease Danika, who gently patted Thorne’s face. He held her gaze, and Bryce was surprised to see that Danika was the first to look away- like she couldn’t stand whatever she found in Thorne’s expression. Bryce could have sworn pure pain and longing filled Thorne’s stare.

But Zach nodded to Bryce as she stood, heels wobbling on the cobblestones. “Keep an eye on her, B,” he said.

Bryce saluted sloppily. “Will do.”

Danika snickered, slipping an arm around Bryce’s shoulders.

“We’ll go take our public drunkenness inside.” She tugged Bryce from the fountain, from the square. “We’ll be drinking ourselves into oblivion at Lethe should anyone need us.”

Bryce glanced over a shoulder to find Connor still frowning after her. She didn’t like that look, or all she read in it, so she just winked at him and let Danika lead her to Lethe’s forgetful embrace.

The whiskey bar was fairly busy for a weeknight. People still in work clothes sipped the expensive stuff from crystal glasses at the array of high tables, while drunk assholes like Bryce and Danika perched at the bar, downing straight shots of the cheap nail polish remover Lethe claimed was their house whiskey.

If they could have afforded the good stuff, they would have bought it gladly, but Bryce had zero money, and though Danika technically had the funds, Sabine was the one who signed off on the credit payments.

Bryce didn’t usually mind the cheap crap, but Danika was put- ting away an inordinate amount of it tonight. What was going on with her?

Bryce sifted through all that had happened in the past few days. Or tried to. With all the booze in her system – why had they started with beer? – she could barely think at all.

There was only one moment that stood out amid the drunken blur. “What’s up with you and Thorne?” Bryce asked Danika with no warning whatsoever.

“Huh?” Danika knocked back another whiskey. Gods, what number was that? Bryce herself had had… She tried to count on her fingers, but they multiplied and blurred.

Down the bar, an angel in the uniform of the 33rd was checking them out. She couldn’t tell if he wanted to try to arrest thei or try to fuck them. The red-haired male wasn’t bad-looking, actually. Tempting enough that if she hadn’t been seeing Reid Redner, maybe-

“There’s nothing up with me and Thorne,” Danika said shortly, signaling for another whiskey. “You gonna talk to that angel or what?”

“Not my type,” Bryce sniffed.

“Liar.” Danika teased. “He’s hot as shit.” Bryce laughed. “You go talk to him, then.” Danika winked. “Not my type.”

Bryce considered. “When was the last time you even went on a date with someone?”

Danika nodded her thanks to the bartender and sighed for a long moment. Like she was about to say something-

Gods, Bryce’s head was spinning. Maybe she should stop drinking.

“You’re Danika Fendyr,” a male growled from down the bar. They looked, and the male-a great, hulking brute of a draki with greenish scales running down his muscular arms under his gray T-shirt-tipped his glass toward them.

“What about it?” Danika asked, the words slurring only slightly.

The male downed his whiskey in one gulp, steam puffing from his nostrils. “Heard a lot about you.”

Bryce leaned forward on the bar, peering down its shining length at him. “All good things, I hope,” she

said with saccharine sweetness. It was definitely the mirthroot prompting her to sass a draki.

The draki spared her a glance, his reptilian eyes sweeping over her, then back to Danika. Bryce was dismissed. Invisible, unworthy of more than a look. Maybe a quick fuck in the alley, if he’d condescend to that. Bryce’s fingers clenched around her glass.

“Heard you’re a handful,” the draki said to Danika. “Who the Hel are you?” No drunkenness fogged

Danika’s words now. They were crisp and sharp. “Just a guy from the north,” the male answered, twisting his glass in his clawed hands. “Passing through. Didn’t think I’d see local celebrity.” He bit out every syllable of celebrity, his pointed white teeth glinting.

“Happy to make your night,” Danika said, her smile all teeth as well.

“Your mom’s a hateful bitch, you know.” The bar quieted.

But Danika remained utterly unruffled. “Oh, I know. What’d she do to you?”

The male’s pupils narrowed to the finest of slits. “Not to me. To my cousins. They’re just kids. Came down to the city for a fun weekend and never made it back home. Last we heard, Sabine Fendyr was having a little fox hunting them through the streets.” Bryce put a warning hand on Danika’s arm, but said nothing. Danika, however, said, “That doesn’t surprise me.” She nod ded toward the male. “You come down here to settle the score?” The wood bar smoldered beneath the male’s clawed, scaled hand. “You gonna try to stop me?”

Danika flashed a crooked grin. “Hel no. I’ll wish you luck, if anything.”

“Danika,” Bryce said. There was defying Sabine, and then there was outright mutiny. If Danika went too far over the line, she’d pay.

Smoke curled from the draki’s nostrils. “I did hear you weren’t like her.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” But Bryce didn’t miss the gleam in Danika’s eyes.

The male nodded to her, then slid off his stool, aiming for the door. He had almost reached it when he turned back and said to Danika, “You tip her off and I’ll come back to find you first.”

With that, he was gone.

“Solas,” Bryce breathed after the bar resumed its usual low-key murmur of activity.

Danika drained her whiskey. “The poor bastard doesn’t realize that he’s not going to walk away at all, whether Sabine knows he’s coming or not.”

“You should be careful,” Bryce said, fear clearing her mind for a moment. “You don’t know who the fuck that is-“

“If he wants to take out Sabine, he’s my new best friend.”

Bryce squeezed Danika’s arm, hard. “That’s a dumb fucking thing to say.”

Danika didn’t answer; she only ordered yet another drink. And Bryce didn’t object when another slid in front of her, too. After that encounter, she needed it.

And the next one. And the next.

Music began, and Bryce was dancing to it, even though Lethe didn’t have a dance floor. She made the whole bar her dance floor, and Danika was dancing beside her, and they were laughing and laughing, all thoughts of Sabine melting away, the rest of Midgard with her.

Minutes or an hour passed, and all Bryce knew was that she was sweating, and back at the bar once more, downing yet another whiskey. The hot angel had vanished, though she’d made a decent attempt at trying to lure him with sex-eyes to her side as she danced.

But the snobbery of angels ran deep. He might have given her sex-eyes right back, but he’d no doubt flown directly up into the lofty towers of the CBD and laughed with his friends about the half-human-

“Come on,” Danika said suddenly, pulling her off the barstool. “Let’s get tattoos.”

“Tattoos!” Bryce burst out laughing. “No fucking way.”

“Pleeeeeeaaaaase,” Danika whined. “Best friend tattoos.”

“Absolutely not.”

Danika then unleashed her ultimate weapon: the puppy eyes. And damn if they weren’t effective. “I’m sad and lonely and I want to get a tattoo with my best friend.”

“My mom will kill me,” Bryce protested. “We’ll get it in a place where she won’t see.” “It’ll hurt.”

“You’re so drunk you won’t even feel it.” Danika squeezed her hand. “Please? Pleasepleaseplease-“

Bryce sighed. What was some ink in her skin? Right now, just about any idea sounded good. Granted, what Danika had said-sad and lonely-lingered, but Bryce would press her on that tomorrow.

For right now, the night was still young, and they were young, and would one day be nearly immortal. The whole world lay at their feet.

So Bryce sighed again and said, “Sure. Why not?”

They weren’t the only drunk assholes in the tattoo parlor at two in the morning. No, they’d actually had to it, but now here they were. Gods, time was bending and slowing, then shivering and speeding up.

Danika had told the tattoo artist that she had a design and specific text in mind-Through love, all is possible-and wanted it done in a certain way. She’d said something about bringing an additive for the ink, a special wolf thing… No, that couldn’t be right. This had been spontaneous, and what the fuck did Danika know about tattoos? She had her pack tattoo, but nothing more.

Bryce lay face down on the plastic-wrapped leather of the tattoo table, the room spinning, spinning, spinning, Danika was spinning, too…

Literally sitting on the tattoo artist’s stool and spinning, like all that mirthroot and booze wasn’t impacting her at all.

“Why am I going first?” Bryce asked.

“Because you’re about an hour away from puking and passing out. I’ve got at least two hours until that point.” Danika halted her spinning, fixing her bright eyes on Bryce. “Cold feet?”

Bryce snorted. “No. But again: my mom is going to freak.”

“Ember’s got tattoos. And you’re way past the legal age.”

“You already have Through love, all is possible on your jacket. Why do we need it on our skin?“

The traced lettering-in some strange alphabet that Bryce had never seen but Danika had insisted on using-was drying on Bryce’s back while the tattoo artist prepared her supplies and ink in an adjacent room.

Danika winked at Bryce. “Best friends and all.”

Bryce smiled drunkenly, resting her chin on her hands. “Best best, best friends.”

Danika kissed her brow. “Always.”

“No matter what.” Bryce closed her eyes, humming to herself.

Danika’s voice was soft. “No matter what.”

Bryce opened her eyes at that softness. “Hey-what’s that all about?”

Were those tears in Danika’s gaze? Danika just winked again, though. “I love you, B. You know that? There’s no one else who would put up with me, or go along with me on all this… craziness.”

“I believe the term Thorne would use is bad influence.”

Danika grinned crookedly. “Nah. You’re the good in my life.”

Bryce’s heart squeezed. “Right back at you.”

The door groaned open, and a moment later, the tattoo artist reappeared, little pots of ink in hand. “This stuff you gave me is some weird shit,” she said, snapping on her gloves. “Took a while to dissolve.”

“But it mixed in?” Danika asked a bit sharply. “Yeah,” the artist said, fixing a mask over her mouth. “No guarantees that it won’t fuck with the healing or the longevity of the ink, though.”

“It’ll be fine,” Danika assured her. “The Prime gave it to me. Sacred wolf tattoo crap.”

“Sure,” the artist said, clearly not caring one bit where it came from or what it was. She probably only wanted to get through the night’s endless parade of assholes.

Danika waggled her brows at Bryce, drawing a laugh from her. “Don’t move,” the artist said, fingers testing along the knobs of Bryce’s spine, the expanse of her upper back. “I’m starting.”

“Here goes,” Danika said to Bryce, and reached for Bryce’s hand, their fingers interlocking.

“Light it up,” Bryce whispered to Danika as the artist stepped on the power pedal and the tattoo gun buzzed to life.

Danika just squeezed Bryce’s hand gently. And as the tip of the needle bit into Bryce’s flesh, piercing even through the drunken, stoned numbness, she whispered, “Light it up, Bryce.”