Brooding in bed after the confrontation with Ember, Bryce rebuffs Hunt’s knock by calling him a traitor. Hunt enters anyway and offers to go with her to the medwitch. Bryce refuses, confessing she keeps her leg scar and pain as a tether to Danika and the Pack of Devils. Hunt gently insists healing won’t erase Danika, calls Bryce his friend if she’ll have him, and eases the moment with shared humor about the Jelly Jubilee mix-up. They settle in to watch TV together.

As they unwind, Bryce thanks Hunt for handling Ember kindly. She then recounts her past: Ember fled Bryce’s Fae father before he knew of the pregnancy and hid at a Cthona temple in Korinth, where Bryce was born and lived for three years. When rumors reached her father, he sent Fae to seize Bryce. The priestesses aimed to get them to the House of Earth and Blood in Hilene but needed protection.

They detoured to Solas’s Temple in Oia, where Randall, a human veteran serving as an acolyte, was assigned to escort them. Near Hilene, her father’s warriors attacked, but Randall’s marksmanship and Ember’s ferocity turned the tide. Bryce asks Hunt to keep the incident quiet, and he agrees. Afterward, the House of Earth and Blood recognized Ember and Randall as vessels of their deities, granting protection that her father wouldn’t challenge. Randall returned home with them, proposed within the year, and has loved Ember ever since.

Back in the present, the sexual tension simmers as Bryce invites more TV. Hunt reflects that “friends” doesn’t cover what’s growing between them, yet he lets himself relax beside her. Their easy companionship, after pain and confession, marks a decisive step toward trust and intimacy.