Page 32

Thirty-Two

Finding Cyrus took the rest of the day and the better part of the night. And the only reason they’d found him was because Paris had stepped in and called Lila’s soul to him.

Mac had nearly had a coronary over the idea, which had been his husband’s.

After a day and night of police and tracking work turned up nothing, Paris had offered an alternative.

If Cyrus had gone to his mother’s house last time, was there another place that held meaning to them?

And would Lila tell them? Mac had delivered enough evil souls to be extinguished, including Paris’s own father, that he’d refused to believe Atlas when the warlock had assured them that the Lila who Paris might reach would be different, that it had been Chaos who’d infected her soul.

Mac wouldn’t hear it, refusing to put his soulmate at risk.

Robin couldn’t say that if it was Atlas offering to do the same, that he wouldn’t put up as fierce a fight.

Atlas, of course, would tell him to fuck right off, and Paris was, lest anyone forget, Atlas’s pupil.

His delivery, though, was much gentler than Atlas’s would have been, the medium reminding his husband that the clock was ticking.

Solstice was two days away, and the future of peace was missing.

The raven had finally relented, but only with Liam, Mary, Jason, and Atlas on standby to channel the soul if it proved hostile.

Unnecessary, it turned out; Atlas hadn’t lied.

Lila had only been doing what she thought was best for her son, what Atlas’s father had encouraged her to do, what he made her.

Based on the timing, Atlas had determined channeling Chaos into Lila had been the last spell his father ever cast before he’d turned to religion.

Nearly fifty years of Hail Marys to assuage his guilt.

Atlas had simmered with anger, the knowledge that his father was an even bigger asshole than he’d already thought rage-making, but he’d stashed the fury in a mental box somewhere and cooled down while Paris had finished painting the small coastal cottage Lila had shown him.

An hour later, Robin was hiding in the shadows of a cypress grove near said cottage with Atlas and Brock and Adam and Mac. “How do you want to handle this?” he asked Adam.

“Ambush,” he replied. “Atlas snaps us all in together.”

Atlas propped himself against the closest tree trunk. “You’re assuming he doesn’t already know we’re out here.”

“Can you put a shield around us?” Mac asked.

“As soon as we land, but not a second sooner, if we don’t want to end up out there,” he said with a jut of his chin toward the rough-and-tumble ocean, another storm moving in.

“Got it,” Adam said. “That’ll have to be soon enough.”

“Smash and grab?” Brock asked.

“No,” Robin said, and everyone’s gaze shot to him. “He’ll just keep coming. We’re two days out. We can’t afford another swerve like this. And if Pati’s working with him?—”

“She’ll just try it again,” Atlas finished.

“All right,” Adam said. “Brock, you take perimeter. You two”—he gestured at him and Atlas—“neutralize Cyrus. Mac and I will talk to Pati.” That division made sense: a warlock lookout, the two heavies on the threat, the interrogators on the unknown.

There was another variable Robin needed to know how to handle.

“And if we have to kill Cyrus?” he said, gaze landing on Atlas.

They’d both lost family to this war, so many, Robin most recently, and he was still tender, no time to grieve.

And now Atlas’s was in the crosshairs again.

Recently discovered, and an enemy, but family, nonetheless.

Not a problem for Atlas. “Then we kill him.”

Robin didn’t buy it. “Atlas?—”

“Don’t,” he said with a sharp shake of his head. “We share a sperm donor. That’s it.”

“But after we defeat Evan?—”

“There will be only one Shaw left, assuming I survive.”

Robin growled. That was not an outcome he would entertain.

“We need to go,” Adam said. “Brock, you’re up first.”

The warlock snapped to the roof, landing silently, then after a moment, signaled them all clear. They positioned themselves so Adam, the human among them, was shielded, then, each with a hand on Atlas, rode his snap into the cabin.

And froze, the sight that greeted them catching them all off guard.

Pati was asleep on the couch beneath a colorful quilt, and in the rocking chair by the fire, under a similar quilt, Cyrus sat cradling Pax against his chest. His other hand rested on his knee, gripping a pistol.

“No one fucking move,” he said, voice as rough as his appearance, then with a flick of his brown gaze to Atlas, added, “And no spells either, brother.”

“We’re not here for you,” Adam said, human to human.

“I know. You’re here for Pati and this little eaglet.” He gently patted the snoring baby’s back.

“Do you know what you’re holding?” Mac said, his voice calm and even. He had the skills of a trained investigator, combined with the empathy of a reaper. Made him a hell of a negotiator.

Usually.

Cyrus wasn’t so easy a sell. “I know he’s important. He has something to do with my mother’s death.” His gaze drifted back to Atlas. “At your mother’s hands. I kill this baby, and my mother will be avenged.”

“Or,” Atlas said, “I can give you our father instead. A win for both of us.”

Cyrus smirked, and for the first time, Robin saw the resemblance between brothers.

There wasn’t much else they shared in common—Atlas was a pretty pale package in a compact body; Cyrus was on the grizzled side of handsome, with dark hair and eyes and a scar that bisected his tan face, and a body that was almost too big for the rocker, Pax a small bean on his massive chest—but that twist of their lips, that shared arrogance was strikingly familiar.

Until Pax muttered a soft mewl, his little fingers curling in Cyrus’s T-shirt, and the big man’s smirk morphed into a soft, affectionate smile that Robin couldn’t ever remember seeing on Atlas’s face.

Mac saw it too. “You have no intention of harming that child, do you?”

“Of course not,” Cyrus said. “He’s innocent, just like his mother, like mine was too.”

“Why have you been hunting Atlas?” Robin asked.

“Not just Atlas, all of them, so they couldn’t do to another person what was done to my mother.” His brown eyes glanced at Adam. “Your redhead saved me the trouble with the first one.”

“The first one?” Atlas said, taking a step forward.

He would’ve taken another if Robin hadn’t grabbed the back of his shirt, Cyrus’s finger curling around the trigger, the truth he threatened to spill, sending twin bolts of fear through him.

Now was not the time for another fucking swerve, and this one would send Atlas veering off the road. “He’s baiting you,” Robin said.

Atlas kept his foot on the gas. “You mean Canton? Brown hair, blue eyes, preppy clothes.”

“That’s the one. A few nights after he turned Icarus into a vampire and the girl with him into whatever she is.”

Atlas moved again, but not forward. He dug his wallet out of his pocket and withdrew a folded photo. Two actually, another fluttering to the floor with the wallet Atlas tossed aside, too busy shoving the photo in his hand toward Cyrus. “This night?”

Robin ignored the photo on the floor, ignored his own safety, and moved between Atlas and his half brother. “He’s got it wrong.”

“Look at this picture.” He practically shoved it in Robin’s face.

Canton was squared off with a snarling Icarus, Mary standing off to the side, the photo clearly taken from someplace close, a surveillance angle.

Like Cyrus said, the job being done for him, but the picture failed to capture what happened next.

“Atlas, it wasn’t him.”

His eyes widened, a spark of yellow—betrayal—exploding in them.

“You knew?” He lifted his other hand to snap, but Robin, well familiar with the action by now, stopped him short, shoving his fingers through Atlas’s and threading them together.

He held his mate to this awful reality, racing around the bend and off the road with him because he could no longer afford to lose him.

None of them could. “She did it,” he told Atlas. “So Icarus wouldn’t have to.”

Yellow spiraled through the green, and it fucking terrified Robin, made him fear he was about to lose Atlas to the other side, but his mate’s hand gripping his back, holding on to him like a lifeline, meant Atlas was fighting to stay with him too.

Robin kept hold of his hand while he lifted his other, gripping Atlas’s face, keeping his focus solely on him, fighting together, just the two of them.

“Think, Atlas. You would have done the same for Cole. And if that had been me, if you’d turned me into a vampire and Deborah into Nature, or vice versa, either of us would have killed to spare the other from doing so in that state.

I love you, but I would have killed you for her. ”

Atlas’s gaze held his while the green pushed back against the yellow, his better self responding to the logic. Robin fed it more. “Put it in the same box as your father. We’ll deal with it later.”

Another endless moment passed as the yellow faded. Atlas jerked his face free and cut a glare Adam’s direction before he stepped over to the fire and threw the picture into the roaring flames.

“That’s what she is, Nature?” Cyrus said, as Atlas leaned against the hearth. “And what was my mother?”

“Chaos.”

He lifted his hand off Pax’s back and gestured around the room. “Does this look like Chaos?”

“No, it looks and feels like peace.” Everyone’s attention swung the direction of the couch to where Pati was now sitting up, awake.

She didn’t seem fearful, just cautious as she took in the brewing conflict around her.

Getting to her feet, she wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and stepped next to Cyrus’s chair, her fingers softly combing over her baby’s dark hair. “Which is what my son is.”

“He’s too young,” Cyrus said, glancing up at her. “For any of this.”

“Which is why we have to protect them,” Mac said in his even negotiator tone from earlier.

Cyrus chuffed. “Fat lot of good you all have done with that.”

“So you give it a try,” Robin said, calling an audible. “If Pati is good with that?” At her nod, he explained his reasoning to the rest of the group. “His identity is scrubbed, he’s a ghost, and no one knows about this place.”

“Then how’d you find it?” Cyrus asked.

“Your mother told us,” Atlas replied.

Cyrus was on his feet the next second, grizzled mug snarling at Atlas, the baby in his arms waking at the tension and letting out a wail.

Mac stepped between them. “Lila is good,” he said, somehow keeping that calm tone even as the situation deteriorated around them. “My husband is a medium. He spoke to her. After she told us about this place, my brother, our reaper, delivered her.”

“To?”

“Peace.”

The tension left Cyrus’s body, and he leaned into Pati beside them, their hands together on Pax’s back. There was a connection there already. “Did you two know each other, before today?” Robin asked.

“No,” Pati said, shaking her head. “But I knew right away that we could trust him.”

Shared experience, years apart, but both part of this world not by their choice but by fate, who had seen fit to put them together.

Adam had come to the same conclusion. “We have a guard on the roof. We’ll leave him here until we can get more of the pack in the area around you.”

Cyrus opened his mouth to no doubt protest, and Robin beat him to it. “Not enough to give away your location and they won’t bother you. Just backup, if you need it.”

Cyrus looked to Pati, and at her nod, acquiesced.

“Good,” Atlas said as he pushed off the hearth. “Since we’re done here...”

Robin was too far away this time to stop him from snapping away. “Shit.” He whipped his head to Adam. “Warn them.”

He lifted his phone, text thread with Icarus open onscreen. “Already done.”

“We need to get back—” He lost his words as his gaze caught on the other picture still on the floor.

Golden eyes he’d only ever seen in pictures stared up at him, his mother’s smiling face between two other blond women who were also smiling, their green eyes dancing.

One was a mirror image of Daphne, only older, and the other.

.. Now he knew where Atlas got his ethereal looks from—his mother.

Who, along with Daphne’s mother, clearly knew his.

And Atlas knew this too? Had a picture of the three of them together in his wallet?

Betrayal found a new home, burning in Robin’s gut as his head spun with the implications.

“Robin.”

“What?” he barked at Mac and that even fucking tone, unhappy to be on the receiving end of it. Calm was the antithesis of everything swirling inside him.

“He bit,” Mac said, holding the feline shifter’s phone out to him.

“Who? Dyami?”

“No, Evan.”

Robin glanced down at the screen, at the text thread open on it. The message Atlas had shot off to Dyami yesterday and a new reply. Sunrise, Matsun casino. E will be there.