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N o sooner did Anna touch Iron than electric fire burst across his skin. Before her senses could parse out what was happening, she screamed. Then he flung her away from him, arched his back, and bellowed a great deafening roar. Though more than satisfied, if mildly stunned, to be huddled in the corner of her living room away from the small inferno, her brain hadn’t gotten the message that fleeing was most definitely the course of action to take. She crouched there, mouth agape at the spectacle lighting up her tiny cabin.

Iron twisted his flaming body about, his deep chest rising and falling with far more than simple breaths. Snapping out of her stupor, Anna stood and finally started to creep toward the hallway, farther away from the inexplicable blaze before her. With her one shoulder blade already curved around the corner into the hallway, it would have been the work of a moment to run in the other direction, lock herself in her room, and call whatever emergency services specialized in dousing men who lit themselves on fire to impress women.

But her feet weren’t moving. Despite the hammering of her heart and her brain’s logic center screaming at her to get help, there was another warning, one that cast a veil over her worries and spoke softly to her mind that all was safe and right, which forced her to bear witness to what was happening before her.

The screaming had stopped, and she had to swallow several deep breaths to absorb the wonders that had taken center stage in her small living room. Iron stood on her hardwood floor like a warrior phoenix emboldened by its rebirth. True to his word, not a hair or patch of skin on either him or her had received a lick of heat, yet he still stood there, eyes closed, with blue flames swirling around his strength like the waves Poseidon would call to his side in service. His brows were drawn down his forehead in stern concentration, but his lower lip hung open in an expression of peace and rapture. There was no pain there, no tension in his muscles or any sort of bracing for the worst to come.

There was only tranquility. That and, if she read him right, a bit of bliss painting a face that she’d known to host a muted harshness, with only brief glimpses into soft-hearted humor.

Holy shit, he was right. This is all real.

The fire danced around his muscled arms, swaying in time to his subtle movements. Then, as fast as it appeared, it receded into his body, as if his heart had been the Bunsen burner responsible for igniting such a spectacle and it had just flicked off the gas. When the flames were all gone, not a hint of smoke fragranced the air. There was nothing to show any evidence that her cabin had just hosted a sort of mini nuclear reactor.

All that remained was Iron, who stood there with that same resigned expression, though now it was far more wistful than worried, and he had his eyes open.

Eyes that no longer held their bicolored charm but instead flashed a startling topaz.

“You don’t need to be afraid of me, Anna.” His voice was the same, if a bit raspier, as though he’d just completed a ten-mile hike.

“I . . . I think I know that.” It was true. The fear receptors in her body, the ones that had initially spiked her pulse and urged her to seek out anything other than the flaming man in her living room, had since dissolved into whispered echoes. In their place was a pleasant warmth not unlike the sensations she’d used to feel upon waking from her dream encounters with . . .

Iron.

Anna’s hand flew to her forehead, but she couldn’t stop the smile that broke free. “Holy shit, you were really in my dreams. For months, it was actually you!” Then a distressing thought occurred to her. “Wait, I’m not dreaming now, am I?” Anna started tugging at her hair and pinching her skin.

“No, you’re not dreaming. This is all real. Unbelievable,” he admitted in a rush of breath, “but real.”

“So, everything you just said is true, then? You’re an angel? And we’re connected somehow?”

Iron didn’t say anything, because what else was there to say? He’d done the right thing by urging her to find out for herself, by showing her that bone-like shard thing and letting her witness the circumstances of a fire that there could truly be no earthly explanation for.

Anna stepped fully into the living room, admiring the quick redecorating job Iron had done in preparation for the only form of proof he knew would convince her she wasn’t, as he’d firmly established, crazy. When her calf bumped her coffee table, the small curved shard—a piece of a celestial relic, he’d said—sat there nestled within its little innocuous test tube. The thing looked like no more than a small antler, similar to the ones she’d often seen shed by the deer around her house. It was no longer glowing and, strangely enough, didn’t scare her, nor did it look entirely out of place, well, sans test tube, among the dark wood of her cabin. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine it was just that—a shed antler, a token brought home from a hiking trip. It could almost be . . . normal.

She was about to mention as much, as well as ask about the whole lack-of-wings thing, if he really was an angel, when a quivering unease tightened her abdomen. Like a bad penny that always returned, a familiar sensation crashed through her, and her mouth puckered in preparation.

Shit. I thought I was past this.

Iron scrutinized her, a worried expression pinching his features. He took a step toward her. “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

Anna shook her head, then brought one hand to her stomach and cupped the other over her mouth. All she could leave him with was a muffled “Excuse me” before she bolted to the bathroom. Her knees barely had time to hit the tile. Then a torrent of nausea squeezed everything out of her. Apples, coffee, the two bites of oatmeal she’d managed. It all came rushing forth in violent spasms.

Vaguely, she thought she heard footsteps, but even those weren’t clearly defined. Thuds, echoes, poundings, they were all the same as another surge took control and flung her head farther into the toilet bowl. After two more rounds of that, she was bracing herself to take another hit when rough fingers brushed the sides of her neck and gathered her hair back from her face.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Iron’s low voice in her ears dug its heels into her scrambled mind, anchoring her nerves against the waves of nausea. He kept collecting more pieces of her hair, gathering them loosely at her back. The rhythmic soft tugs straining gently against her scalp seemed to be the distraction her body needed. Like flicking the hair tie on her wrist during departure when she used to fly, the diversion worked. Soon, Anna was able to close the toilet lid, flush, and crawl to the vanity below the sink to pull out her mouthwash. Once Iron helped her to her feet, he stepped back out into the hallway, giving her the space she needed to defunkify herself.

“Sorry about that,” she said after splashing water on her face. “Man, I thought I wouldn’t have to go through that anymore, but I guess it can still linger.”

“What could you possibly have to be sorry for?”

The towel she’d been drying her face with halted beneath her chin. Iron didn’t just look confused but angry.

“Getting violently sick in front of someone isn’t generally a good thing. My fault for not closing the bathroom door. Kind of ran out of time, though. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had to deal with this, so my reflexes aren’t what they used to be.”

“This happens often?”

“Well, not so much anymore, but it used to, yeah. It was pretty much a semi-daily occurrence for the better part of two months.”

“Why? Are you ill?” Iron pelted her with that topaz gaze, the one that housed a host of swirling flames dancing through his irises, instead of the bicolored ones she’d grown used to. It was yet more proof of his wonderment and words. The effect would have been beautiful if not for the tension pulling his jaw into even harder lines.

Anna cleared her throat. “No, I’m not sick,” she said, hoping to infuse some lightness into her response, if only so it could melt away some of whatever had just soured his mood.

“Then why?—”

“I’m pregnant.”

Iron hadn’t moved from his post in front of the picture window since Anna had practically dropped a fucking football stadium on his head and politely dismissed him so she could shower and get dressed. The hot water was still pumping strongly thanks to the generator, though in another few hours, he’d have to go out and check on the fuel.

If Iron had learned one thing during his years in the mortal realm, it was that Mother Nature had a penchant for irony. A small snow squall had decided to move through, whipping its load around like a kid who’d just discovered packing peanuts and a box fan. Nothing devastating, since driving was out of the question, but definitely not something even he would brave, metallic armor or no. Thankfully, it would pass soon enough.

What wouldn’t pass was the image of Anna on her knees, heaving up her breakfast, and the casualness with which she declared her condition.

Pregnant. She was pregnant. By another man. And alone.

Outside, the snow whipped through the trees with the force of a sea gale, peeling off chunks of bark and leaving behind frosty coatings that would build up and ice over throughout the rest of the storm.

In a way, it was a type of defense through endurance. Whichever trees were still standing despite the assault were the ones that saw another season. It was a monumental bet in arboreal evolution, a gamble that those trees would heal and thrive in time.

Was that what Anna was doing here? Iron shook his head and let the side of his forehead rest against the glass, rapping his knuckles on the window in time to the tumultuousness of his thoughts.

In the span of five minutes, he’d felt the full kiss of his powers again after innumerable ages without them. The second Anna placed her hand in his, a wellspring of angel fire had burst from his core, spreading throughout his frame and infusing his muscles with memories of strength and satiety. Knowing what to expect had been far different than the influx of magic and emotions he’d not been able to access since falling to the mortal realm. Overwhelmed and uncertain, he’d flung Anna away from him just in case his fire didn’t behave as it should have.

Had he known she was pregnant, he never would have been so reckless. He would have been more controlled, more?—

A paralyzing thought gripped him, chilling his blood.

Did I hurt her? Her baby?

“Ah, much better.” Anna walked into the living room, her long wet hair pulled back into a braid far more intricate than how he’d seen Chrome’s mate, Drea, usually wear her hair. A French braid, he thought it was called. Otherwise, she was the picture of comfort. Lounge pants, sweatshirt, and thick cozy socks provided a far softer contrast to his usual ensemble of flannel and jeans.

Like the trees’ bark, it was her sort of armor, one that also spoke of endurance and protection. Of defenses.

The sadness it called forth was a bitter pill on his tongue.

He walked around the coffee table, which he’d put back in place, along with the rest of the furniture. “Are you all right? Hurt at all? I pushed you back hard and saw you hit the wall.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit shaken up. It was only the fleshy part of my arm. My stomach’s actually more worse for wear than anything else, but that’s not from anything you did, and it’s getting better.” She hugged herself and plopped down into the armchair she’d claimed earlier.

Never on the couch. Always in the chair alone.

“Do you want me to make you some tea?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Honestly, I’m sick of tea. I’ve kind of been stuck with the herbal stuff because of my lowered caffeine allowances. Unfortunately, that crap tastes like whatever junk was left on the floor at the tea factories.”

“Why are you alone?” He didn’t mean for the question to be so abrupt, but he’d never been in the habit of dancing delicately through dialogue.

Anna’s eyes widened, then darted to the living room window. “Poor choices, I suppose.”

When she didn’t elaborate further, Iron took a seat on the couch in front of the window, forcing her gaze to focus on him. Once it finally landed where he wanted, those soft green eyes had begun to mist over.

“My baby’s father, Travis, and I were together for six years. I’m older than him by four years, but his dream was bigger. He wanted to be a life coach guru, and I wanted to be a nutritionist. My telehealth business was what kept us afloat for those early years, until it didn’t, and I had to find new ways to get clients so he could attend mastermind retreats, rub elbows with the next promising someone or other, and bet on a life that would be better for both of us. And then I got pregnant.”

Those pursed lips lifted into a small, sad smile that twisted his gut, even as she rested her hand on her stomach. “When I told him, he showed his hand.” She shook her head. “It’s funny, but my mother, when she was still in my life, always told me that when someone shows you who they really are, you should believe them. Turns out, the little life I was willing to bet on, the one we’d created together, didn’t fit into his entrepreneurial risk assessment. In the end, I forced him to leave me with the cabin and a promise for him to stay in California. I wasted far too many of my good years on that asshole, and I’m not about to let him have any more.”

Iron pushed back the rage threatening to coat his words. “How far along are you?”

“About sixteen weeks. I have my next checkup on Friday.”

“Do you have any other family?”

Anna took a deep breath. “Yeah. This little pumpkin.” She rubbed her stomach. “Though, I think it’s technically the size of an avocado now. Otherwise, no one I really speak to.”

“Anna,” Iron said, unsure what the hell to say. He leaned forward and tried for all the world not to leap to his feet and get closer to her. Fuck, he could hear it. The small hurt in her words that she clearly had so much practice at keeping small or hidden.

“So, what happens now?” she asked, cutting him off while sinking farther into the chair, into herself, and curling her knees up in front of her.

The wind lashed its roaring blows against the picture window, which, on any other day, would have no doubt reflected back at Anna the beautiful solitude of her life in the mountains.

But it wasn’t just her life. She would soon have a child to care for and raise. The comfort she’d crafted here wasn’t so much a security blanket but a lie dressed in the trappings of hard work and hope.

He’d bonded with her, had been chasing after her for months in his own way, and now that he’d finally found her, he was less certain where to go from here.

She was pregnant, and he would sooner rip his wings off than risk Cyro and his demon charmers getting a hold of her, a prospect that only increased in likelihood if she became a part of his life.

He’d been down this road once before long ago and had spent countless years trying to forget the pain he still bore the mark of beneath his leather cuffs.

For now, though, Anna was safe, secluded behind the screen of the storm. And it was daylight. Even if they knew about her, charmers couldn’t touch her and were just as susceptible to the elements as mortals were.

Iron exhaled slowly and adjusted his flannel sleeves lower over his wrists. “For now, we wait.”