Page 2 of Should the Sky Fall

“Soon, you’ll be free. He won’t hurt you anymore. I promise you.”

He wills himself not to read anything into it when Dawson’s eyelids flutter and slide shut. Or into the ghost of a smile that tugs on his still bleeding lip, serenity smoothing out his features.

He drags his gaze over Dawson’s wounds and wants nothing more than to reach out and trace those nasty bruises and cuts until they're gone, like they were never there.

He doesn’t do that, of course. His touch doesn’t heal—it destroys.

He can’t heal Dawson, but he can take away what is hurting him. The wounds will close, the bruises will fade, until they're nothing but an ugly memory.

He just hopes that when his job is finished, when the threat is finally gone, it won’t be too late for Dawson’s soul to remember its light, to reclaim what Caledon has stolen from him.

He’d give anything to make sure Dawson’s soul shines again.

He’d give anything to show Dawson how much he deserves to be loved. Utterly, completely.

He’d give anything.

Chapter 1

“I’vemadeareservationfor 6.30.”

Dawson’s hands still, his shoelaces only halfway tied. A knot forming in his stomach, he looks up.

Cal’s expression is unreadable—or it would be to anyone else. He taps his fingers against the mug of coffee in his hand before bringing it up to his lips. There’s a hint of challenge in his eyes as he watches Dawson over the rim of the mug.

Gaze dropping to his shoes, Dawson finishes up with the laces and slowly rises to his feet.

“That sounds nice, but I’m not sure I’ll make it in time.” He grabs his jacket and throws it over his shoulders. Since September arrived, the weather’s been getting warmer, but the mornings are still a bit chilly for his tastes. Definitely no dipping into the ocean for at least another month.

A lump grows in Dawson’s throat when Cal doesn’t say anything. There used to be a time when he dreaded what Cal might say, but if the past six years taught him anything, it’s that silence is so much worse.

“What do you mean?” Cal asks, voice smooth and cool, like the edge of a knife.

Okay. So, they’re talking.

“I mean, it takes over two hours to drive to Toowoomba. I’d have to leave at four at the latest–”

“So do it.”

The lump turns into a giant rock, cutting off his voice. He glances at Cal, seeing his expression hasn’t changed.

Dawson makes a show of looking at his phone. “It’s ten o’clock already. It’s Olivia’s birthday, Cal. I haven’t seen her and the kids in months.” He resents how desperate he sounds. “I’d just like to spend more than a few hours together.”

A muscle in Cal’s cheek jumps. He hates canceling plans, hates steering away from routine.

This one is on Dawson. Stupidly, he’d thought that when Cal agreed to let him visit his sister, he wouldn’t make any other plans that day. Dawson shouldn’t have assumed. He knows better.

“We always dine out on Saturday,” Cal says, a ghost of darkness in his tone.

We eat out most of the time,Dawson almost points out, but his sense of self-preservation keeps his lips sealed. Sliding his hands into his pockets so they don’t shake, he summons a sheepish expression. Depending on the situation, that tends to do the trick.

“Maybe we could do Sunday this time?”

Cal watches him for a long moment, then finishes his coffee in one big gulp and turns away with a grimace, as if Dawson’s suggestion had been outrageous. Heading to the kitchen, he makes a beeline for the coffee machine and turns it on. It makes a churning sound as it heats.

“Cal?”

Fuck, he hates this. Being the center of Cal’s attention makes him uneasy, but being ignored isn’t much better. Maybe to other people silence equals agreement, but that’s not the case here. He can’t just up and leave until they’ve come to some kind of compromise. He’d never hear the end of it, and who knows how long he’d end up paying for this stunt.