Page 29

T he coldness seeping into Anna’s limbs had nothing to do with the lingering chill that the promise of spring had yet to chase away. It was a bleak reminder that everything had a duty to fulfill, even down to the changing seasons. Eventually, the snow would thaw, and the flora would get its act together by popping up where it needed to. The ice would recede and all those migrating birds would make their way back to their warmer-climate homes in the ‘burbs.

But as she walked on wooden legs into her cold cabin that had yet to be graced with the seasonal tepid goodness she’d been assured would arrive any minute, one thing had become overly apparent.

Time was ticking, and not in her favor. Whether it was in the sad abandonment of unfulfilled bonds or hopeful future encounters that had been robbed of their luster, none of it would look like the happy life she’d finally known in Iron’s arms.

She wanted to call bullshit on all of it.

Anna toed off her shoes, threw her coat on whatever surface felt so inclined to catch it, and went to her bedroom. Vaguely, she heard the front door close and registered the familiar details of Iron locking them in safely at the top of her little mountain. Coats hung up properly, shoes moved to the boot tray Iron had bought her, curtains brushing softly against their rods as he shut them, blocking out all presence from the outside world. All pleasant domestic actions that had been stamped as past due and would soon be called home by their rightful owner.

Each sound was heavy and final in a way they hadn’t been before. Movements that were once comforting and sturdy now felt like heavily punctuated goodbyes. How many more times would she get to hear Iron thunking through her living room, refolding her throw blankets so the corners lined up evenly? Or hand-washing her favorite mug that she’d put off enjoying her hot drinks in for so long because life had tumbled her a bit too hard for her to manage anything that wasn’t dishwasher safe?

Anna peeled off her clothes and hucked them into her hamper, wishing they’d hit the bottom with the same force she’d put into her throw. They didn’t. Then she grabbed her bathrobe, the one overly plush number that did a shit job of keeping both her breasts fully covered but made up for it with its length and softness, and cinched the belt high above her belly.

It was the only armor she had to protect herself against the events of that evening. Seeing every one of the angels unleash the full force of their celestial fire, and then being communally cowed by something no bigger than a long sewing needle, was as humbling as it was heartbreaking.

They couldn’t go home. Not all of them. Not fully. None of them even knew what going home would look like when they did, but yet one of them still had to.

And the truly awful person inside of her had been frickin’ glad for the raw confusion in the moment, the pinched brows and soft curses that bounced from each one of Iron’s brothers as they all realized time had betrayed them.

Because it meant she got a few more hours to savor Iron before the weight of his family’s decision sent them all down a course they couldn’t turn back from.

Iron didn’t come to her. He didn’t seek her out or check on where her mind was at while he was likely trying to keep his own from falling apart. Instead, her only awareness of his presence came in the form of the bathroom door creaking open and the shower rushing to life.

Anna padded to the bathroom and joined Iron in the small space. He’d already shucked his flannel, shoes, and socks, leaving him in his jeans and black tank top. The bracers lay on top of his shirt, an acquiescence he only ever made when they were alone like this, and his hair had been unbound, with its ends already curling from the shower’s steam. But it was his eyes that took her breath away, just stole it right out of her lungs as he walked over to her and, without saying anything, parted the collar of her robe and delicately pushed the fabric over her shoulders, baring all of her to him.

The fire that burned in those eyes was desperate, the same kind of stuff she imagined could both destroy and rekindle entire star systems. It was a phoenix’s hope that simmered there, carving its determination and service into every muscle that flexed before her as he placed her glasses on the edge of the sink, then grabbed her hand and led her into the shower.

The rest of his clothes hit the floor before the tile’s chill had an opportunity to seep into her feet. Because then he was there, surrounding her with his unabashed strength and sex. Their bodies clashed with the unspoken warning of a thunderclap. She claimed his mouth with a fury of her own, gripping and pulling her frustration and agony into his scalp. Iron growled back against her tugs. Good. She wanted more, needed his outward display of savage heartache that could never be matched with words. Anything requiring communication was done through the slick movements of their bodies.

Iron grunted his crushing need into his kiss, then palmed her ass and lifted her above him, dragging feverish caresses of his lips across her collarbone and breasts. Their frantic movements became a conversation of their own.

I fucking hate this, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re mine.

Anna pushed the pad of her foot off the back of the shower wall, spinning them so he was caught in the spray and she had more leverage when he positioned himself just right so she could sink down on his cock.

I don’t want to think about anything other than you.

Iron entered her with a primal growl, shifting his support of her to one arm while he braced his other against the tile next to her ear. He pumped higher, harder, his balls slapping crudely against her flesh, feeding parts of himself into her that she never knew she could hold.

I can’t take you with me.

Anna cried against his onslaught, gripping him fiercely, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and mingling with the shower spray that pelted his massive shoulders.

You’ll be inside me forever. Nothing will change that.

Her orgasm shattered not only her body but her heart. Iron, too, bucked through the pleasure-pain of what he’d wrought upon her. The laments that erupted from them both were cast into the steam around them like the desperate howls of dying animals. It was breaking her. Every touch, kiss, and shift of muscles against her skin tore new holes into a soul that had already been patched together a thousand times, leaving her with nothing but the threadbare integrity of tenuous promises she knew he couldn’t keep. Ripples of urgent and deeply seated awareness flashed through his eyes as she kissed him through the tremors of their connection, and she wanted to cry all over again at the sight.

His promises stared back at her, sorrowful yet determined regardless of themselves. They were the clingings of an anguished and hopeless warrior who had finally found his soul but was fated to lose it.

And all she could do was bury her wet head against his strong shoulder and hold him through the agony.

Among the strands of limp and soaking hair and the fog of steam surrounding them, Anna was struck with the one word she and Iron had refused to give voice to, despite the fusion of their bodies all but yanking it from them.

It was an ending to a beginning that had never left the starting gate.

Goodbye.

Anna had no clue what time it was, only that the sun had recently gotten its act together without her. She stretched her body, smiling at the familiar soreness that her inner thighs hadn’t entirely gotten used to but now knew there was no point in protesting anymore. Her whole body had been a revolving commuter train of activity over the past few months, having gone from off-peak operations lulls to rush-hour acrobatics. Even the large kiwi inside of her—or plum, depending on which pregnancy app she looked at—had taken to exercising, with movements decidedly more forceful than goldfish flutters.

Groaning, she rolled over and sighed at the cooling depression that met her palm. At some point in the night, she and Iron had finally collapsed into bed, only agreeing to give up the ghost of consciousness because it had been through unconsciousness that they’d originally found each other. He’d whispered his promise to her again, that he’d always find a way to care for her, and she’d shushed him mightily by placing her palm over his mouth and telling him to continue this conversation in the dreamscape.

It didn’t matter that they hadn’t seen each other there since they’d connected in real life. It was a thread she needed to cling to, one he had no choice but to oblige her with.

Too bad she’d dreamed of nothing.

The rustic scents of oatmeal and earthy maple finally pulled her out of bed, though let the record show she did so under extreme duress.

“Figures he’d already be making breakfast.”

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she felt around her nightstand for her glasses. When she couldn’t find them, she remembered how Iron had left them on the edge of the bathroom sink. Normally, he’d be attentive enough to make sure she had them near before bed, but like she could blame him? They couldn’t even get their own speech to show up for work last night, let alone demand employment from any of the other parts of their brains.

Despair had that effect on people.

Anna got to her feet and threw on whatever clothes she happened to grab first—a pair of maternity jeans and a long-sleeve tunic—and made her way out into the kitchen. Before she got there, though, her hip brushed against Iron’s coat, which he’d tossed over the edge of the couch in the living room. A sturdy case of some sort hit the floor, and she leaned down to pick it up.

“Going back out again?” She said this more to herself since Iron rarely left his coat anywhere other than the coat rack unless he didn’t plan on being inside very long.

“Yeah. I was about to touch base with Titan but remembered you have a client call at nine and wanted breakfast ready for you.”

As if either of them could possibly go back to normal after what they’d learned the night before.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say as much, and how she’d already planned to reschedule all her calls today and spend it with him, when her brain stalled out over what she’d picked up off the floor.

It was a rigid pyramidal gray glasses case with the designery-est of designer brand names stamped across the magnetic flap.

“What’s this?” Anna held up the case.

The wooden spoon hit the spoon rest next to the stove, and Iron filled the doorway between the kitchen and living room. A chagrined look of unease twisted his features. Then a huge sigh collapsed his shoulders. “Open it.”

Curious, she skimmed her thumb along the magnetic seam. Air rushed out of her lungs. Nestled within its plum-colored bassinet of a microfiber lens cloth was a shiny new pair of prescription glasses. She knew without even lifting them to her eyes that they were meant for her. The pale purple brushed metallic frames arched over lenses that were the perfect shapely mix of oval and cat eye. Wide but not distractingly so. The carved temple arms featured cut-aways of small, very subtle flames arching around the sides before bleeding out into the most comfortable-looking temple tips she’d ever seen.

“They’re titanium,” Iron added as if he hadn’t just added another several hundred dollars to the wonder sitting in her palms.

“What? Wait, you can’t mean what I think you’re meaning.”

Iron lifted a brawny shoulder as if the half a grand worth of eyewear she cradled to her chest like a baby bird was just no big deal. “I know a guy. Helps that he’s my brother and knows a thing or two about titanium metal manipulation. Rose had fun playing with the color wheel on that pair, too, after I told her what I was thinking. And before you ask, yes, it’s the right prescription.”

Gently, he lifted the glasses from their case and settled them on her face. All at once, her world came into focus again, starting with Iron, all glorious and charming, smiling sweetly before her, and ending with the last time she’d seen her old pair of glasses before she’d lost them. Iron had been with her then, too, as he’d usually been.

“You had something to do with my old pair going missing, didn’t you?”

“Guilty.” But there was a calm, comforting edge to the admission, as though he didn’t mind getting caught because he was looking forward to the punishment. Then he cupped the sides of her face. “I hated seeing you settle for whatever you thought you deserved to see of the world. And I also learned real fast that I was a pretty miserable bastard to be around when I was away from you.”

Anna snorted. “How could you tell?”

He lifted her chin higher and silenced her with a searing kiss that stole her breath as well as her brazen teases. “It wasn’t hard to see the writing on the wall. Brass poured his beer in my lap when he asked whether everyone liked the cranberry scones Molly sent him home with, and I neglected to respond.”

“Her food’s amazing, though.”

“Oh, I know. I just had other things on my mind, and by the time I realized how loud my silence was, I had a crotch full of IPA and the insistence from several dubiously well-intentioned family members that I needed to fix my shit or they’d fix it for me.”

He didn’t have to say what had been on his mind. The heat in his stare confirmed everything she was already thinking. She tried to look away, but her heart was utterly captivated. The beautiful warmth pumping out of him was just so damn bright even for her soul.

“The next time I saw you and saw the pitiful condition of your favorite glasses, I swiped them, determined to give them an overhaul for you. It was a small kindness I could offer. I kept telling myself that if I could make sure you had groceries, that your oil heat tank was accessible, that your damn car had enough in her to get you down the mountain and back, that you’d be okay without me.”

Anna let her tears slip, not caring a whit whether or not she smudged her new glasses. And like freaking clockwork, Iron was there to catch every single tear that slid down her cheeks.

He was always there, and she was fairly certain she’d no longer know how to exist in a world where he didn’t.

Iron smoothed his rough thumbs over her cheeks. “At one point, I wasn’t even sure I was capable of returning your glasses to you. I debated with that selfish part of myself and thought if I could at least carry a piece of you with me, even if that piece was a pair of seen-better-days glasses with a scratch on the left lens, then that was better than not seeing you at all. I couldn’t bear not having some of you to protect and hold in any way. After all, you had already been taken from my dreams, and though we’d yet to figure out how to use the relic’s magic, I’d always known I wasn’t meant to keep you forever. Just like I couldn’t keep your glasses either.”

The dam burst free on every emotion that had been lodged deep inside Anna. She cried rivers onto Iron’s shirt. Anger, love, betrayal, fear, acceptance, compassion, it all poured out in great ugly gasps. Iron held her to him as he guided them to the nearby couch. There, he let her unleash everything she’d been feeling, and never once did he shush her or tell her it was going to be okay.

Because it wasn’t. None of it was okay. Not the fact that he and his family had an impossible choice to make, or that she’d just begun to truly know the man she imagined her child meeting for the first time.

Not the fact that she loved him.

That thought had slapped her soberly across the face but made itself known as nothing but fact when she hadn’t retreated from the sting it left behind. Instead, she relished it, searching out more of what it would mean to love a man such as him.

And all of that newly unearthed wonder had been stamped with an expiration date.

Anna kicked and sobbed and screamed, and Iron just held her through it all, until, finally, she lifted her head away from his chest just long enough to confirm what she dreaded. “We have two days, right? We still have that, don’t we?”

He squeezed her tighter and nodded. “Two days.”

They had two days until he and his brothers would meet to decide how they would proceed. Two days to cram a timeless future into. Two days to pretend they could be happy while simultaneously watching the clock call bullshit on the endeavor.

Two days to live a life she’d only begun to realize had been finally worth living.