Page 21

A n hour had passed since Anna had seen Iron. The slow tinkling of water dripping through a coffee maker was the nails-on-a-chalkboard equivalent that rubbed against her already abraded nerves. The sixty minutes of worried time spent in his brothers’ care was the longest freaking year of her life.

When he and the others finally pushed through the solid metal door to their home, there was no such thing as a spared glance his way while she maintained some semblance of decorum on her part. Nope. She gave up on discreet courtesy the second she and the other women had been dragged into the angels’ home—a feat of construction best described as an underground palace with Wi-Fi, espresso on tap, and enough weapons to arm a small country—with only mild murmurings of “Charmers” and “It’s not safe.”

So, yeah, when Iron walked in with all limbs intact and an expression that could sour vinegar, she wasted no time. Anna abandoned her chamomile and fired herself at him like a heat-seeking missile. He caught her with an oof! but still banded her to him with an arm around her back. One arm, not two.

Then she saw why.

“Holy shit, you’re hurt!” Anna let him lower her to the ground and flew into full mother-hen mode, peeling his fingers away from the bandages at his neck. Up until that point, she’d never successfully nurtured anything beyond the mold colonies that grew in the back of her fridge, yet this somehow felt vital and instinctual. “Let me see it.”

“It’ll heal,” he said in tones far gentler than she was used to, but he didn’t resist when she lifted the—nope, not a bandage—wad of cocktail napkins from the bar away from his neck. She gasped. Angry slashes shredded the skin there. Each shorn edge of flesh was mottled with pockets of charred burns.

“How will this heal? This is in no way a heal-on-its-own thing. This is way more than a cat scratch. We need to get you to a hospital!”

Iron gathered her trembling hands and laid them against his warm chest. “I’ve got everything I need right here.” Then he dipped his forehead against hers, and the tense torso muscles beneath her fingers relaxed slightly. “The mountain will heal me.”

“What does that even mean?”

Tungsten, who’d stayed with her in the great room until everyone returned, stepped away from his conversation with Brass and the others and joined them. He rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “This mountain contains minerals and elements that call to our metals. When we are wounded, those earthly components commune with our magic, regenerating our strength and healing what our bodies naturally cannot. It is why we built our home beneath it.”

“Right,” she acknowledged, feeling slightly foolish. “I should have remembered that.”

Iron stood straight but didn’t let Anna’s hands go free. “You don’t have to remember anything.”

“But I’d like to,” she urged, impressing the importance of her conviction into her words, though hating how she still struggled to keep anything about his world straight. “It’s just that some thoughts are harder to keep in my head these days. Can you at least tell me what happened?”

Around them, several of the other angels began peeling off shirts and gear. Rhode came back from the kitchen with a fishing tackle box stuffed with first aid supplies.

Tungsten threw a chastising finger out at Bronze, who was already on the sandstone-colored couch, picking off flecks of charred skin from his bare chest and toned bicep like one would peel a sunburn. “Hey, keep it off the furniture. Tammy likes to read there in the mornings.” Then he returned his attention to Iron. “Anything we need to know?”

“There were six of them. Five dead. One lucky fucker escaped through a portal.” A penetrated silence settled through the room before Iron spoke again. “They saw Anna at the bar with us, with me. It’s safe to assume they’d be more than happy to use that intel against us. Oh, and they have angel fire-blocking shields now, which was fun.”

Muffled curses from every angel bounced through the great room, then Rhode said grimly, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they cooked something up with what they still have of my DNA.” Haunted shadows cast over the seraph’s eyes. “Regrettable but nothing to be done for it now.”

Anna knew the gist of the reference but only through surface-level context. Iron had explained how, before Rhode had come to live with the angels, he’d been a prisoner of war in Cyro’s camp for untold years. The experiments done on him were the stuff of nightmares and things he still had difficulty talking about.

But before Anna could ask any more questions, Iron’s hand was at the small of her back, urging her out of the room. “All that shit is a problem for another day. For now, let’s get some rest.” Then he growled over his shoulder, “And keep your goddamn shirts on when you’re in the den’s public spaces. We have bathrooms and an infirmary for a reason.”

Bronze craned his head up, a chunk of charred skin dangling from his fingertips. “Isn’t our home private, though?”

Tungsten wadded up a sweatshirt and tossed it at Bronze’s face.

Anna managed to smother a snort, which was saying something about her brain finally responding to the right social cues given the unfunny circumstances. Then Iron was leading her down a dark stone corridor. Though she’d been given a tour of the place when the others had first brought her in, she was still amazed at the craftsmanship and smoothness of it all. It was the difference between knowing a masterpiece existed and actually feeling the materials used to create it. Evenly spaced electrical lanterns, pristinely arched ceilings, and giant metal doors that, before the angels had welcomed their soul bonds into their home, had only operated by the magic of their metal alone. It was all the stuff of fairy tales. A belowground modern-day enchanted castle of sorts.

And here Anna was, desperately trying to hold a wad of cocktail napkins near Iron’s wound so she could prove her usefulness and keep some of the blood off the granite floor.

“This one’s mine.” Iron halted her in front of yet another massive door, this one located at the end of the hall where the other living quarters were. When the slab of metal creaked open, it was the final welcome ushering her into a world she’d only wondered about.

Iron’s suite. The place where he laid his head each night.

But when she took a turn around the room, she had to stop herself lest she trip over her jaw.

Every single wall of his space was made up of floor-to-ceiling white marble. It chased away any lingering darkness that had followed them in from the evening’s horrors and set up shop like a field of blooming wildflowers hell-bent on taking a stand against insufferable sadness. Already, Anna’s cheeks pinched against the rims of her glasses as she smiled wider than she could remember. It was impossible not to. There was just so much . . .

“Light,” she breathed. Anna walked over to the closest wall and ran her fingers along the ridges of the stone. It was sensually smooth, with dappled striations etched in rivers of gold and silver. “How did you get this here? We don’t have this kind of white marble in New Hampshire. Did you clean out Vermont’s marble mines or something?”

She followed the track of one of the marble veins, which led her to mounted wall displays of massive weapons, instruments she recognized but couldn’t immediately place, and various clay masks and other ceramic artifacts. Did the man know he slept in a museum? Crap, should she have taken her shoes off?

“The marble came from the Carrara quarries in Italy. It’s just an overlay, though, and is only about an inch thick. I bonded it to the granite some time ago.”

Iron shut the door and walked over to a dark oak dresser situated beneath a massive mirror. He reached into his flannel pocket and removed the test tube he always carried around with him, then placed it in what looked like a ceramic teapot. He then balled up his flannel shirt and chucked it into a nearby hamper.

He was rummaging through his drawers when Anna asked, “How the hell did you bond marble to granite?”

He shrugged, his back muscles doing interesting things to accommodate the gesture. “I played around with the iron oxide in the marble. There isn’t usually much of it in marble since the stone’s mostly made up of calcium carbonate, but what’s there was enough for me to use my metal to make it adhere to the granite.”

“It’s truly breathtaking. It sure as hell beats the pastel paint chips I have in my desk drawer back home. Somehow, the idea of repainting my office with some variant of not-white-marble suddenly feels like a disservice.” Anna sank down on the bed, suddenly getting hit with every ounce of exhaustion her adrenaline had been keeping from her. “You know, I think I need more light where I live, something that brings out a smile, like this,” she said, gesturing at the walls. “I imagine the baby would like that. Poor thing’s been in the dark for so long, after all. Can they even detect light yet? I have no idea.”

All at once, images of her dream cabin pelted against the fortress she found herself in, and the beautiful wooden space she’d carved out for her and soon her small family seemed like a dreary default to a life she should have upgraded long ago. But like anyone who refused to install the latest software for fear of losing what they loved about the old stuff, it was futile. The world was a master at planned obsolescence, always changing and evolving, and if she didn’t change with it, what would that mean for her baby?

There were a few sharp rips, then papers crinkling. More rummaging in a drawer, then the sound of it snicking shut before Iron joined her on the bed. He’d taped up his neck with fresh gauze and medical tape and had a bundle of folded clothes in his hands. She studied his face and tried to find the fear she was harboring reflected back at her, something large and heavy enough to overwhelm her to the point where she’d run screaming right back up her mountain and into the cozy socks and shielded comfort she was used to.

Instead, what she found was Iron’s russet hair unbound and tumbling in waves around his shoulders, which were bare except for what his tank top covered. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were cast down at the corners, as if in resolute acknowledgment that something had shifted between them, but the scales hadn’t yet settled on whether it was good or bad.

“Those glasses suit you,” Iron said, skimming his gaze over the rims of her pale pink cat eye frames that, up until a few days ago, only her virtual clients ever saw her wear. “They play well with the green in your eyes. It’s a stunning effect.”

“Thanks,” she replied, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Kind of lost my old pair, so I’m having to get used to the higher prescription.”

“The proper prescription, you mean?” he asked, and she thrilled at the teasing lilt to his tone. Man, she liked this Iron. The one who battled her in Scrabble and chastised her about her empty-calorie addiction without ever needling the whole aren’t you a nutritionist? point to death. He knew, just as she did, how much of a walking contradiction she was, but living that role was fun and easy with him and made everything about their time together in her little cabin feel warm in a way the space never had felt before.

“Quiet, you,” she said, narrowing her eyes, before finally working up the courage to ask the question that had been worrying a hole through her chest ever since he’d returned. “You got that injury because you exhausted your fire, didn’t you?”

All the air got sucked out of the room on the wisps of her query, including bits of whatever essential stuff always starched his shoulders. “Yes. But I still got the job done. I always do.”

She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have to find a workaround, though. Your fire is a part of you. It’s heartbreaking how you can’t access it when you need to.”

It had been a nagging worry that had dug its claws into the back of her mind and then army crawled its way into every thought that had surrounded her time with him.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in this room who has trouble accessing deeper parts of themselves.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Iron dropped the pile of clothes into her lap. Another one of his flannels sat folded on top, but she didn’t realize there were more clothes beneath it. A pair of mesh athletic shorts and a T-shirt. “I think you know or you wouldn’t be hiding.”

Anna ran her fingers along the flannel, not daring to meet his eyes. “You’re casting aspersions.” She winced, even as she spoke the words. That was a phrase her mother had always tossed around the house like throw pillows meant to cover up their family’s otherwise gross lack of morals. It was a proper phrase meant to chastise in a proper way while concealing exactly nothing. She fucking hated it, yet the defense came flaring to life on demand regardless.

She was hiding, but was it worth it to come aboveground if the sun she was seeking kept avoiding her behind the clouds?

Iron exhaled a sadness far deeper than she thought him capable of, and it worried her. “Look, I’d like you to stay here tonight, with me. I mean, not with me. I’ll sleep elsewhere, but here, in my suite of rooms. Those clothes are for you, to get comfortable.”

That had her head shooting up. “Why?”

“Because I can’t take you back home tonight. I’m gassed, I need to heal up and recharge a bit, and you’ll be safe if?—”

“No, I mean, why won’t you stay with me?”

Entire chasms could have opened between them, and still, there wouldn’t have been enough space to keep her question from pelting him against the forehead and for her to expect an answer in return.

An unsettled heat ignited the air between them, filling it with heartfelt promises they’d yet to find a way to voice, but dammit all to hell, she wasn’t about to let him off the hook without trying.

“I could have stopped him if I had my full fire.” A pleading note sat behind his words, unnerving her further. “My fire failed me, and it was only by the stroke of dumb luck that some poor soul had likely ditched their car into the lake and my metal latched on to it before it was too late. But it came with a cost.”

Fire returned to his eyes, a heated fury searching for an outlet that could either soothe or stoke what burned within. “They know about you. They know you’re important to me. Because I got cocky and, for a few unbelievable hours, got to play pretend and live a life where happiness and laughter were the orders of the day.” He placed his hand over hers on top of the clothes, his knuckles brushing against her abdomen. “Where I got to envision taking you to the doctor tomorrow and asking far too late whether you’d let me come in the exam room because I knew it’d frazzle the fuck out of you.” He swallowed hard. “That you might secretly want me there but couldn’t bring yourself to ask. I got to create a moment in my mind where I saw your face light up at hearing the sound of your baby’s heartbeat and handing you extra tissues to wipe the excess ultrasound goop off your belly.”

Then a dark cloud stormed over those would-be memories, robbing her of the promise of those happy thoughts. “And I erased it all by putting a goddamn target on your back. By the mages, how can you even look at me, let alone want to share with me where you lay your head at night?”

“Because I want all of that, too!” she screamed, tossing the clothes to the floor. “I want you to take whatever you need from me that would bring you closer to your fullest self. I want you to go with me to the doctor and stare down every nose-in-the-air guy in that waiting room who assumes the worst of me because I’m a single thirty-four-year-old pregnant woman, as if that’s such a goddamn crime. I want to get closer to you, and I think you want that, too, but I am absolute shit when it comes to mind games, so what the hell am I missing, Iron? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I can’t return to the Empyrean unless I have my full fire back!” he rushed out. “And neither can my brothers.” His chest heaved through the exertion of his emotions, and it was enough to stun her back into silence. “Whatever we have, it would be a transaction. A temporary transaction.”

“But you said the soul bond was forever.”

He looked away from her. “Yes.”

“Can two people be bonded and live apart like that, with you in the Empyrean and me here?”

More silence and then, “I don’t know.”

“So, you’re not certain about any of it, yet you’ve already made your decision that I shouldn’t have one.”

He didn’t respond at first, then replied, “I don’t want you to get hurt, but I don’t know how to stop the course you and I are both on.”

She sat straighter on the bed, running through words spoken and scenarios described, but above them all was the pounding need in her chest. The need to be needed, to explore and provide in a way she’d never been afforded before. It was a transactional relationship of a different sort, one with a potential time limit, but one she couldn’t help but reach for with both hands.

“What if I don’t want to stop?” she asked, then set aside every fear hen-pecking at her logic center and did what her body had been urging her to do since she’d first dreamed of this man.

Anna rose to her feet and slid onto Iron’s lap, straddling his hips and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and then she brought his hands to her waist, settling them there like the anchors she needed them to be.

“Living for the moments we have while exploring whatever joy you and I are capable of. Am I scared? A bit, but not when I’m with you. And I’d rather do it scared than hide back in my cabin with only dreams to keep me company. I want the real thing, warts and all.”

Iron’s fingers fanned along the expanse of her ribs, pressing possessive divots into the negative spaces. Before he could voice any asinine words of so-called reason, she silenced his lips with her finger.

A burgeoning heat ignited between them, tightening her abdominals and prickling her skin.

She wanted this. Oh god, she wanted him, and if he spurned her one more time, well, she wasn’t sure she had it in her to bounce back from that type of rejection. The very idea of it felt dire.

But then his lips parted, and the heat of his tongue licked a wicked current along the pad of her finger.

Any breaths and lingering concerns she had were soon lost to the mesmerizing cove of his mouth.