Chapter 39
The roof deck spanned half a football field in length.
A hidden oasis beneath the churning chaos of the Veil sky.
Glowing moss, populated with a fairy-tale amount of mushrooms, carpeted the space in bioluminescent light.
For a dizzying second, I felt like I’d tumbled down the rabbit hole, but with Angel’s hand in mine, Wonderland felt less like a trap and more like our next adventure.
An impossibly large pool of clear water reflected the turquoise bottom near one edge.
Not an infinity pool, thankfully, as that would have been terrifying as it dangled over the edge of the building, hanging into the pulsing dark heart of the otherworld.
Beside it was a small set of deck chairs, tables, and even a cooler.
The chilly evening air gave rise to steam wafting off the top of the water.
A heated rooftop pool? How was that even possible on this side of the Veil?
“Wow,” I said, dumbstruck by how eerily beautiful the space was. And while the static buzz of the world across the Veil never completely vanished, the silence of the space rolled over me in a wave of something unnatural, and yet calm, a ward.
“Luca spends a lot of time up here with his husband, Skye,” Angel said. “Skye’s an oceanid. He was swimming at the community center that first time we went in to play.”
I blinked at him, sorting through the memories and having registered that I’d seen a fin. “Is he a merman?”
“Something like that,” Angel agreed. “Do you want to swim?” The question was simple, but the look in his eyes was anything but. It was an invitation and a promise all at once. My breath caught in my throat as he reached for the hem of his shirt.
I’d do a lot to see him naked. Was it love that made me stupid?
Or my default setting unlocked? I worried it was the latter as he pulled his shirt over his head in one fluid motion, and the air left my lungs in a silent rush.
The churning Veil light played over the planes of his chest and the sleek, powerful muscles of his shoulders and back.
My gaze, as if dragged by a magnet, dropped to the sprawl of ink across his skin.
Some new, he had said, to break the old binding spells, but beneath the blaze of the bruise-colored sky, the threads said otherwise.
Without trying, the clarification of the weave solidified, showing me every strand.
I gasped, hand up, reaching for him, half horrified and half fascinated.
He paused, waiting for my touch, unwilling to turn away, even as I sensed he feared my reaction to the scars he’d worked hard to hide.
A thousand tiny knots formed in the threads leading to the old runes.
As if burying them beneath roadblocks could slow down the pull, and maybe they did.
“What are you seeing?” he asked softly.
“You said the new ink stopped anyone from controlling you.”
“I don’t think anything is foolproof.”
The knots represented trauma, a roadmap of pain to reduce further pain, and I hated it.
Snags muted the vibrant colors, as if dampening his power to keep anyone else from getting hold of it.
The threads were soul deep and ran off into the distance as if something, or someone, could once again latch onto them and make him dance like an unwilling marionette.
My breath caught at the horror of that realization. “Angel…”
“Tell me,” he said.
“Could Nat have fixed any of this?” I wondered, studying the layout of strands, finding some of the worst, one of which felt like a death knell, binding his body to rise and fight even after his soul left this plane.
How I knew? I could only say it was instinct.
In fact, I could look at every thread and read not only their intent but the steps to activate them.
“Holy fuck,” I cursed, finding a half-dozen nightmarish rune patterns woven into his soul.
“Most Reapers are more a hammer and nail solution. They can do minor weaving,” Angel said, “but most of the time they cut threads and see the soul beyond.”
My hand rested over the zombie sigil. The name felt right for that cold, dead knot in his weave.
I traced its edges with my thumb, wondering if I could follow its path back to the caster, unravel its purpose, or simply snap it.
Was the caster even alive? If they were dead, why did the thread still feel like it was stretching into a hungry, waiting darkness?
What would happen if I cut that thread? My gut flipped over, instinct telling me it was dangerous.
Why?
I knew in general a cut thread left a snarl and a loose weave. What did that mean for a living being? A pulse of warmth bloomed between my shoulder blades, and a small, familiar weight settled around my neck. Nox.
“Ah, the little dragon finally shows himself,” Angel said, a soft smile in his voice.
Nox was too close for me to see much, but I caught a glimpse of a tiny, scaled snout, now shaded in deep amethyst and smoky gray, a far cry from the hairless pink creature I’d pulled from that jar.
“Can shifters have familiars?” I asked, the thought striking me as I felt Nox’s presence grounding me, much like Angel’s did, but through a different kind of bond.
“I’ve never heard of it. But if you’d asked me a month ago if a human variant could, I’d have said no.”
“Lucky me,” I grumbled. “I’m special.”
“Maybe we just don’t know enough. Our kind hasn’t been around that long. You and Ivan could be something new. An evolution.” Angel’s voice was steady.
An evolution. The word hung in the air, heavy with possibility and fear.
“Can I try something?” I asked, the idea crystallizing.
“Okay.” The trust in that single word was a tangible thing.
“Tell me if it hurts, or if anything feels wrong.” I closed my eyes, my palm flat against the rune.
In my mind’s eye, I reached for the bond connecting me to Nox and found a cord of pure, liquid silver, thrumming with power.
It was a two-way flow, my chaos stabilized by his calm, and his form fueled by my wild energy.
I borrowed that stability, letting it pool in my palm like molten light. Then, with an exhale, I began to stitch.
A violent cut could unravel parts of Angel it was tangled with, not his life, but perhaps aspects of his personality or experience.
Removing trauma was one thing, but rerouting his history felt like an undeserved intrusion.
There had to be a more delicate way to fix the snarl and remove someone else’s power from his soul.
I guided Nox’s silvery thread in an array of tiny, precise stitches, a painstaking embroidery on the fabric of his soul to replace the knot and keep the design tight, while slowly unwinding the power of the previous spell.
I didn’t break the old magic; I repurposed it.
The stinging bite of zombie magic faded, replaced by a low, steady hum of potential.
Nox’s power with Angel’s, creating a blazing construct of healing waves.
“What is it?” Angel whispered, barely breathing.
“A boss level spell,” I murmured, my focus split between the weave and my words as I anchored the final stitch. It was a two-way circuit now. Their natural energy would slowly charge a reservoir of power tucked into the ether between them. “Like in a video game. You ever seen a revive spell?”
“Bringing the dead back to life?” he asked, a note of understandable alarm in his voice.
“Not like that. More like a second wind.” I pulled my hand back, the vision fading. “If one of you is near death, it will pull from that shared well. It’s a safety net. It will take a while to charge. Maybe a few days? Can you feel Nox?”
Angel tilted his head slightly, his gaze turning inward. “It’s a warmth. Like having a cat on your lap, resting and being unwilling to disturb them because it brings you peace.” He looked at the dragon curled on my shoulder. “But also no. It’s not a presence, not like you. How do you sense him?”
“He gives me tingles of warmth up my back sometimes, or I mentally hear something that might be him. Like his name.”
Angel shook his head, a slow, wondering smile gracing his lips.
“Nothing that clear. For me, it’s just a certainty.
An anchor. It’s strong, and it’s tied to you.
” He reached out, his fingers gently caressing my jaw.
“I didn’t realize how much that old spell weighed until it was gone.
It’s like you removed a thorn from my chest I’d learned to breathe around. ”
The last of my tension bled away, leaving only a profound, aching tenderness in its wake. My breath hitched, not from fear, but from the overwhelming rightness of his touch, of his trust, of us.
I leaned into his palm, my eyes never leaving his.
“Good,” I whispered, the word a soft exhalation.
My gaze flickered to the other snags in his weave, a fresh pang of protectiveness striking me.
“Maybe I can fix the rest? Slowly. One by one?” Even as I said it, I felt the familiar drain of energy from that single, careful reweaving.
Angel slid his arm around me, pulling me against the solid warmth of his chest until our foreheads rested together. “Okay,” he murmured, his breath a soft caress. “But you don’t have to.”
“I want to be strong enough to do it all right now,” I confessed, the words tumbling out.
“I hate that anyone else ever had this kind of power over you.” The sentiment hung in the air for a second before the implication hit me.
Crap. It sounded just as bad out loud as it did in my head—possessive, arrogant—as if I’d appointed myself the god of his personal trauma.
“Forget I said that,” I muttered, trying to pull back. “That came out way more territorial creep than caring partner.”
But Angel’s hand slid from my jaw to cup the back of my neck, holding me gently in place. “There you go, borrowing trouble again,” he chided softly, amusement in his tone. “You’re not building a cage, Jude. You’re changing the locks on one that was already there. You gave me Nox.”
“You mean, your new co-anchor is my not-so-invisible friend with a weird book fetish,” I groaned. “I probably should have warned you. Now you’ll really have to guard any sweets.”
“And never be truly alone,” Angel agreed, his voice warm. “Best upgrade ever, since it ties me closer to you.”
“So, not a territorial creep?” I asked, my voice embarrassingly hopeful.
“Not even a little,” he promised.
“Good. Because my god complex is strictly amateur hour.” I never asked for that sort of power, but if it saved him pain, I’d use every last ounce of my strength.
Angel’s gaze softened. “I know,” he murmured, his voice impossibly gentle.
“That’s why I trust you with it.” He stroked my jaw with his thumb in a slow, grounding rhythm.
“And for the record,” he added, leaning in until his breath ghosted across my lips, “your amateur hour feels an awful lot like a miracle to me.” He closed the last inch between us.
A low growl rumbled in his chest; the sound purely primal.
The gentle hand on my neck tightened, fingers tangling in my hair as he pulled me to him, and his mouth crashed down on mine.
All the fear, the relief, the terrifying, binding love exploded into a desperate, consuming hunger.
His kiss was claiming as I surrendered to it completely.
This was what we needed, this raw, proof that we were both here, alive and irrevocably tied together.
When he finally broke for air, we were both breathing in ragged pants.
“The swim can wait,” he said, his voice dark with promise.
And I nodded, breathless, cock achingly hard, and desperate to feel him against me, in me. I wanted to climb him like a tree.
A soft chirp from my shoulder reminded us we had an audience.
Before I could react, Nox launched himself into the air in a flutter of amethyst scales, landing on a low, obsidian wall a half-dozen yards away.
He curled into a tight, dragon roll, deliberately turning his back to us while his head remained slightly cocked, a tiny, scaled sentinel granting us the illusion of privacy while steadfastly guarding our backs.