Page 8

Eight

“I knew there had to be more to the calm than just vodka.”

Atlas took another puff on his joint, then glanced over his shoulder at his unwelcome visitor—who was still bare-chested despite the cool December night. “Are you allergic to shirts?”

“More like allergic to you.” He approached behind Atlas’s chair and plucked the joint from his fingers. “I don’t trust you. I may need to shift at any moment.”

“But you trust my weed?”

Robin circled the fire pit and lowered into the chair on the other side of the bistro table from Atlas.

“If it’s anything like your vodka, only the high-end shit for you.

” He took a long drag on the joint, then puffed smoke rings out of his nostrils like some kind of silly dragon.

“Yep, as I expected.” He handed the joint back across the table, then stretched his legs out in front of him, ankles propped on the fire pit ledge, hands folded on his abs that Atlas did not notice rippling.

“I hope you weren’t planning to sleep in the loft tonight.

Mary’s spread her shit all over the place. Never ends well.”

“How long have you two been traveling together?”

“About a month.”

“And Icarus hasn’t come after you yet?”

Mary’s brother had spent the last thirty years protecting her.

That devotion, apparent even when he and Mary were simple humans, was the reason Canton had identified Mary as a vessel for Nature, why he’d infiltrated their lives to make sure the transformations happened—Mary into Nature, Icarus into her vampire protector.

Why Canton had ultimately given his life for the effort, though the circumstances of his death remained a fuzzy mystery—a weighty guilt—that nagged at Atlas.

In any event, Icarus had been dutiful, staying far enough away from Mary to avoid detection but close enough to reach her in case of emergencies.

Atlas had made sure Paris always had enough Daylight to sell to him for such occasions.

And now, after all that effort, when Icarus was no longer a vampire but had a whole army at his back, he’d let his sister wander off. .. with Robin?

“Your pupil’s doing,” the coyote explained. “Paris told Mac that she’s safe with me. If he’d been lying, Mac would’ve felt it in their soul bond. Mac told the others. That and they’re probably still pissed at me for giving Paris’s location to the final giant.”

Atlas smiled around the joint. “He was ready.”

“You raised him well.”

“I didn’t?—”

“Did Vincent think you were Evan?”

The abrupt swerve saved Atlas from the pinch in his chest and the half-made deflection.

He thanked Robin for the small mercy with a small piece of the truth.

“He wanted Evan, but only Chaos would do for my brother. So I offered Vincent the next best thing, a look-alike and the second most powerful Shaw brother.”

“Is that why you don’t wear the suit anymore?”

“That, and I always preferred kilts.” He took another long puff on the joint before handing it back across the table.

Robin accepted it with narrowed eyes. “I can’t decide whether you’re good or evil.”

“Do you still want to kill me?”

“Yes,” he answered with zero hesitation.

Balance. “Then, does it matter?”

“I suppose not.” Robin sank back in his chair, joint to his lips.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Atlas wondered aloud after several annoyingly comfortable minutes of silence. He expected a smirking, joking response, not Robin’s well-reasoned explanation.

“Because it’s apparent you hold a good many of the cards on the table. You have power and information we need in this war with Chaos.”

“And when you get what you need from me?”

He mimicked a slash across his throat, added a snick for effect, then handed back the joint.

“You’re awfully serene about it all,” Atlas said.

This version of Robin was not the rabid dog he’d spent the better part of ten years running from, who just two months ago had had his muzzle around Atlas’s throat, ready to end him.

“I figure, I can spend the next two weeks driving myself crazy or driving you crazy...” His golden eyes danced. “Is it working yet?”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I know.” He grinned, then stretched out further in the chair, all that muscled body burnished in the firelight.

Atlas tore his gaze away, staring at the rows of swaying vines instead.

The grapes were long picked, only wilting leaves in shades of autumn left rustling in the breeze.

A quiet song as one day slipped to the next.

He didn’t mind that Mary had commandeered the loft.

Didn’t mind spending time out here, sleeping out here even, after being cooped up inside with Cole for weeks, after being trapped in Vincent’s compound for years.

He idly wondered how Vincent’s other captive was adjusting to life among the vineyards. “How is Paris, truly?”

“Alive, somehow, like Adam too, when they both weren’t for a time.”

Atlas shivered around the memory of Adam bleeding out on that bridge in YB. Then shivered again at what Paris must have gone through, being sacrificed by giants, twice. He was stronger than any of them had ever given him credit for.

“He’s pretty remarkable,” Robin said, words mirroring Atlas’s thoughts. “Whether you had a hand in that or not, I wouldn’t be here if not for him.”

“He rescued you?”

“He gave me a purpose,” he said, tone lightening, words lengthening, like maybe he wouldn’t mind sleeping out here among the vines either. “Pushed the guilt aside, at least for a while.”

It never truly went away. Atlas had decades on Robin in that regard. But at least the freshest guilt was somewhat assuaged. “I’m glad he’s doing well. He deserved better than Vincent, better than me.”

“You were him, weren’t you? The way you grew up?”

Perceptive fucker. “In a lot of ways,” he admitted. “My brothers and I had a mother, where Paris didn’t, but our father... He was a different sort of man than Vincent but no less malicious.”

“And yet Evan became the evil one?”

“Who says I wasn’t too at one point?”

Robin lolled his head on his neck, face angled toward him, even as his eyelids drooped. “Is that how you faked it so well? It couldn’t have just been the suit. Or the belief it was all for a higher good.”

Atlas took a final drag of the joint, then snuffed it out in the dirt under his heel. “No, it was the guilt.”

“Or your soul.”

“Same difference.”

Two sides of the same coin.

Like him and the coyote across the table whose body sank deeper into the chair, whose chest rose and fell with the steady, even breaths of sleep. Atlas added jealousy to his mental box labeled Robin Whelan.

He stood slowly, careful not to wake the slumbering shifter, careful not to hover too close as he paused at Robin’s side, hand over his chest, basking in the heat that lapped against his palm.

He was so warm, and Atlas would bet those whorls of red-gold hair on his chest were soft too, same as the copper and blond strands on his head.

He ached to find out.

He fisted his hand instead, capturing a fleeting tendril of warmth before walking away from roaring temptation and unproductive fantasy, from a fate that would only end in more guilt and misery.

He turned to the bleak reality of the here and now.

Inside, he climbed the stairs to the loft where Mary had, indeed, spread her shit out all over. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, computer open on her lap, a half dozen other devices and countless cords scattered around her. “Did you get a location?” he asked her.

“I think so. Dyami has a meeting tomorrow at the bed and breakfast in downtown LP. Two of his guards are checked in there tonight.”

“But not him?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Advance team,” he speculated.

“Most likely, especially as a person fitting the hunter’s description is staying there too.”

“Do you have a list of all the registered guests?” Maybe he’d recognize an alias.

She held a tablet out to him. He got as far as the third name, then passed it back to her. “I’ll leave tonight so I’m in position if Evan shows tomorrow. If he doesn’t, I’ll recon the meet.”

“I can be packed and ready in twenty.”

“You can’t be there.”

Red streaked across her tan cheeks, and she tossed her laptop aside, rising on her knees to protest. “You can’t?—”

“I can.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, just in case the coyote was feigning sleep.

“Canton died for you. Cole died for you.” He angled closer, voice hardened, as he threw an arm out the direction of where he’d left Robin.

“He doesn’t know it yet, but his sister and brother-in-law did too.

Quinn and countless others. Your own brother, plus, Adam and Paris.

Magic brought the latter few back to life, but it will run out at some point.

You will exhaust the phoenixes. You are a temporary vessel, like all the vessels before this one, and the eagle is not ready yet for what he has to do.

” He waited for her to lower back to her haunches.

“You have to quit putting yourself and others in jeopardy. Not as long as the deity is in there. Do you understand?”

The smile that tipped up her lips made him want to scream. “I was right about you.”

He wasn’t so sure. “We’ll see.”