Page 12

Twelve

They landed back in the crowded safe house to find Nature’s army checking each other over for injuries, including Abigail tending to a still trembling Simon.

Atlas moved to comfort the boy too but barely made it a step before he was spun back around by the biceps, a post-shift Robin growling in his face. “Why’d you do that?”

“He was going to kill you.”

“And now he’s going to come up here and kill her and the rest of us.”

“He’s not,” Atlas said, shaking loose of Robin’s hold. “Evan would have come after her already if that was his purpose.”

“What was it then?” Mary asked from atop the loft stairs. She stood next to Mac, who was cinching the terrycloth robe Atlas had stolen from Icarus around him.

“You need to get somewhere safe,” Atlas replied, then said to Mac, “Take her back to Monte Corvo. Non-magically.”

“We’re not idiots,” Jenn grumbled, the bark in her tone so much like her cousin’s that Atlas had to fight a smile. “We took Paris’s plane down here.”

Atlas’s smile fought harder, making his lips twitch.

He covered it with a smirk. “Take everyone back with you.” When Simon stiffened, Atlas kneeled before him.

“Go with them, okay?” The boy hesitated, trembling harder, and Atlas gently clasped his arm, easing some of the anxiety.

“They’re going to an even bigger vineyard than this one.

” That notion seemed to comfort him some.

“They’ll take care of you. And I’ll be there before long too. Promise.”

The boy gave a small nod and accepted Abigail’s offered hand, the shifter leading him toward the front door. Once they were outside, Atlas stood, snatched the framed picture of his brothers off the mantel, then headed the opposite direction, to the back door. “And torch this place on your way out.”

It was already burned; might as well make it official.

Plus, it was standard operating procedure for erased persons; burn all the evidence.

The stone walls would survive, as they had for generations.

The rest Atlas couldn’t care less about, the only important item in his hand.

He let the door slam behind him and set off on the path to the main house, needing to pick up Evan’s trail again, hoping there would be enough of his brother’s magic left to track.

He made it as far as the corner of the main house when Mister Doesn’t Make a Sound caught up with him again.

Robin hauled him into the shadows and shoved him back against the stone wall, the picture falling from Atlas’s grasp and clattering to the ground.

Mister Also Allergic to Clothes paid it no mind, crunching the frame under his bare foot.

He pinned Atlas’s wrists above his head and loomed over him, invading every inch of his space.

Chests pressed together, Robin shoved his thick thigh between his legs and, leaving one rough hand around his pinned wrists, circled his throat with the other.

“What are you doing?” Atlas rasped out against the painful, obnoxiously perfect hold.

“Making sure you’re really you.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“You and Evan were dressed just alike. You look just alike. And I left that room.”

“For two minutes, at most. And as soon as you were back, you saw my magic.”

“How do I know you didn’t fake that?” Robin said, voice louder, body pressing impossibly closer. “Didn’t make it another color?”

Atlas matched him in resistance and volume, fighting the hold and shouting, “Look at my eyes!”

“Same answer!” the coyote roared back.

With a flick of his fingers, Atlas cast a sparkling green dome around them, from the wall above their hands to the ground beneath their feet, blanketing them in the energy he balanced daily, magic that the man pressed against him could either destroy or fortify, even if he didn’t realize it yet. “You know what my magic feels like.”

Robin’s deep-throated growl was a menacing almost-purr that sent goose bumps racing across Atlas’s skin. Robin’s voice, when he spoke again, sounded as strained as Atlas’s cock felt. “What was he talking about fate?”

Atlas tossed another grenade into the conflict; what was one more explosion today? “It’s what we do, me and you. We run from fate.”

Robin rolled his hips, digging his own stiff cock against Atlas’s hip. “Does this feel like running?”

Atlas groaned, his Adam’s apple bobbing wildly against the hand still clasped around his throat. This felt like the furthest thing from running, which was what they both should be doing, for their own sakes and humanity’s, but fuck if Atlas didn’t want to feel more of him.

As if hearing his deepest, darkest desire, Robin released his wrists so he could shove a hand between them, palming Atlas’s cock through his pants.

“I know what you smell like too.” He curled his fingers around his length and stroked, long and slow and hard, eliciting another groan from Atlas.

“The real you. Not the decaying stench of dark warlock you put on like you do these fucking suits.” He released his cock, and Atlas nearly snapped at him to put his goddamn hand back where it belonged, but caught his words when Robin ripped open his fly instead.

That was more like it, and Robin’s grin when he found him bare underneath only made Atlas’s dick harder.

But then the fucking coyote had to go and be a menace, putting impossible conditions on an already agonizing predicament. “Make the stench go away.”

“No.”

The grip on his throat tightened. “Drop the shield, Atlas.”

He shook his head. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he’d wanted Robin’s hands on him like this for longer than he could remember.

He’d allow himself this much, a quick hate fuck to get their frustrations out, but nothing more.

Not the other side of the coin that would destroy them both in the end, the fate he’d spent a lifetime running from.

Dropping the scent shield, letting Robin all the way in, was a line Atlas wouldn’t—couldn’t—cross, for all their sakes.

Robin took him in hand, the rough friction of his calloused fingers making Atlas’s eyes flutter closed.

But then Robin shifted the hold around his neck, sliding his hand up to clasp the side of his face, fingers digging painfully against this skin.

“If you’re not going to drop the smell, then keep these open.

” He tapped his fingers at the corner of Atlas’s eye. “So I know it’s you.”

Atlas opened his eyes and met the burning gold ones mere inches from his. “You believe me now?”

Robin stroked his length. “You’re not faking this.”

No, he wasn’t. For all the times he had while playing this or that role, he wasn’t playing any role today.

He was just a needy man being expertly handled by the one person he’d wanted to handle him most. He thrust his hips, shoving his dick into Robin’s fist, tunneling through the tight, rough grip.

When Robin took his hand away again, Atlas’s anger flared.

“Don’t you dare leave me hanging again, asshole.

” The coyote’s smirk made his anger flare hotter and the shield around them grow brighter.

But then anger ignited into something else searing when Robin clasped his own cock with Atlas’s in his fist, the two of them hot and hard together. “Oh, fuck.”

“Tell me, Atlas...” He added a twist to his stroke, and Atlas thanked all the deities for the thigh holding him up. “Who did this better? Me or that priest in the club the other night?”

Fire tripped through Atlas’s veins. “You were watching?”

“Fuck yes,” Robin purred, his cock like steel against Atlas’s. “And for the record, I like you better in the kilts.”

“So do I.” Fighting Robin’s grip on his face, Atlas dipped his chin enough to spit on Robin’s fist, adding the extra bit of slick and filthy he needed.

“Did you do that the other night?” Robin added his own, the glide of his fist easy now, the only friction each other.

“Did you go home, spit in your fist, and fuck it like this?” He thrust hard against him, the stone wall behind Atlas digging against his back.

“Were you thinking about me and that bet you’ve lost? ”

Atlas glared at the irresistible menace, and Robin’s answering laugh was as sexy as it was irritating.

And when he released his face to brace his forearm on the wall behind Atlas, to cushion Atlas’s head from the hard stone, Atlas didn’t want to think about the pinch in his chest. An obnoxious ache that intensified when Robin pressed their temples together, grunting in Atlas’s ear with each stroke toward their climax.

That damn near exploded when they spilled together over Robin’s fingers, and Robin spilled the sweetest, most terrifying words in his ear. “I’m done letting you hide from me.”

Fuck, what would that mean for them, for their allies and enemies, for Nature and Chaos? Robin didn’t know the half of it. And he never could. It was easier—and safer—to keep up the not altogether difficult pretense of hate.

To keep running.

Atlas dropped the magic around them and let the cool December air dissipate the heat that had built between them. Let it harden his voice and spine as he rebuilt his walls. “I still hate you.”

“I know you do.” Robin pushed off the wall, then had the fucking gall to lick his fingers clean. “And you still hate yourself more, same as me.”

Thank fuck for the wall holding Atlas up, the sight and the verbal shot taking his already wobbly knees out completely. And thank fuck Robin had already turned back toward the cottage, tossing a dismissive “Meet us at the mountain” over his shoulder.

Atlas lowered his arms that he’d left above his head against the wall, his fingers free the entire time. Not once during that entire encounter had he ever considered snapping himself out of the coyote’s hold.

They were so fucked.