Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Free fall.
Countless seconds where Adam’s only tether to reality was Icarus’s hand clasped around his wrist, his nails—his vampire’s claws—digging into Adam’s skin.
Despite his law enforcement training, despite the sun poking through the fog, despite the “death wish” his ex-partner had correctly called, Adam couldn’t stop the bile from rushing up his throat as he struggled to catch his breath and take in the crumbling landscape racing past his eyes.
Cliffs splitting in two and exposing pre-Rift foundations, rusted metal piles, and broken wires. A new canyon forming, mystical green sparks emanating from its core, a deep dark crevice the fog and water rushed into.
All of it flashed by too fast for Adam to fully comprehend.
And then he was yanked up and flung into the air.
Icarus released his wrist, and the free fall from before was nothing compared to floating on fear, on the certainty that he would hit the water at any moment, break his back, and that would be the end.
He’d only felt such fear once before as fiery walls had collapsed around him and his family.
Loved ones he’d see again soon. And while yes, he did have a death wish and no, he didn’t fear the after, he dreaded the impending moment of death.
Been there. Done that. Didn’t look forward to the repeat.
Not like this. At least this time, death would be quick.
At the rate he was falling again, he’d hit the water any—
Pink flashed by him, Icarus diving, and the next thing Adam knew, he landed in Icarus’s arms just as the spray of crashing waves soaked his back.
The water never touched him again.
They were flying. There was no other way to describe it.
It wasn’t exactly like Cormac sailing above in raven form, but the vampire carrying him was practically walking on water, pushing off this or that shoal, leaping miles at a time.
Two leaps to the peak of Pelican Island.
Four leaps to the Huimen Enclave. A giant leap over the swaying light rail bridge that spanned the Bay.
On and on Icarus skipped, banking right as Cormac did overhead, toward the more stable ground across the Bay, but never too far inland.
He stayed to the shoreline, heading north into the giant estuary and on farther, the fog breaking over the fields of Talahalusi, the fall colors showing off on the rows of vines and packed late harvest fields.
With the threat of death passed, Adam kicked his brain into tactical mode.
They were exposed, unlikely to be perceived by human eyes, but other paranormals would notice them.
They would wonder where they were headed in such a hurry and why.
And if they realized Icarus was a vampire, traipsing through Talahalusi in broad daylight, they’d either consider him a threat or consider how to steal his supply of Daylight.
How large a dose had Icarus ingested? Enough to make it to Monte Corvo at the north end of the valley?
Would the bullet Icarus had taken for him dampen the magic’s effect?
Until Adam had the answers to those questions, they needed to take cover.
He shifted in Icarus’s arms, enough to survey the surrounding area.
Familiar with the environs, he knew exactly where they could hide while they assessed maneuverability.
He stretched an arm toward the east. “Two vineyards over, at the foot of the ridge, there’s a farm.
Head for the sunchoke fields. Should be tall enough to hide us. ”
Nodding, Icarus veered right, and Cormac screeched in protest overhead. It was clear the shifter’s primary focus was getting Adam to the mountain. Adam, however, was focused on the man who’d saved his life. “Ignore the angry bird,” he added, and Icarus’s chuckle rumbled against his side.
Adam remembered the way that laughter had felt against his front last night, right before Icarus had slapped his ass and told him to bend over the couch. His ass still ached from how hard and rough Icarus had fucked him. He’d desperately missed that ache, the good kind.
They reached the edge of the Deere farm, and Icarus shortened his strides, slowing as they neared the plot of eight-foot-tall stalks.
His last leap landed them three rows in, and Icarus covered him in a protective crouch.
Cormac made two circular passes overhead to scout the area before descending several rows beyond them.
Adam patted Icarus’s chest. “You can let me down now. We’re safe.”
Icarus lowered him to the ground feetfirst. “We’re gonna have a conversation about your definition of safe.”
Cormac came crashing through the stalks, naked as the day he was born. “Have it once we get to the mountain. Why the fuck did we stop?”
Icarus’s gaze shot to Cormac’s uncovered bits. Adam laughed at his savior’s perfectly arched brow, louder still at his teasing. “Impressive, raven.”
Cormac wasn’t in the mood. “Shut it, vampire.” Angry bird was right.
Detective Kelley was usually the most levelheaded of their crew, restrained and deliberate to the point of frustrating.
Unless someone he cared about was in danger .
. . or on his list of souls. Both were currently in play; his patience was shot.
Adam stepped between him and Icarus. “This valley is crawling with paranormals,” he said to Cormac. “If we’d kept traveling like we were, we wouldn’t have made it to Monte Corvo unnoticed.”
Cormac ignored him, attention fixed on Icarus. “How’d you do it?”
“You saw me take the Daylight.”
“Not that.”
But now that Icarus had mentioned it, Adam’s most pressing questions throttled back to the front of his mind. “How long will it hold?” he asked Icarus. “Will the bullet dampen the effect?”
Icarus pulled down the collar of his sweater that was already half off his shoulder.
There was a tiny pink scar the size of a quarter—a dime a blink later—where a wound should have been.
“Bullet’s a nonissue.” He righted the collar and pushed up a sleeve, turning his hand over in the shafts of sunlight filtering through the stalks.
“And the Daylight will hold at least until nightfall.”
“You put that hand”—Cormac pointed at Icarus’s flitting hand—“to the ground and made the earth shake.”
“I can’t make earthquakes happen.”
“You’re lying.”
“Have this conversation once we get to the mountain,” Adam said, throwing Cormac’s words back at him. “We need wheels.”
Cormac spread his arms. “I don’t exactly have my badge on me.”
“Please,” Adam scoffed. “Old man Deere knows who you are.”
“Not this well.”
Icarus stifled a laugh behind a cough. “I hardly know you, and yet . . .”
Cormac’s violet glare intensified. Adam needed to get them out of not just other paranormals’ paths, but out of each other’s.
He dug his wallet out of his pocket and withdrew a wad of cash.
“I spotted a clothesline on the other side of the bean patch,” he told Cormac.
“Go get what you need. I’ll settle up with Deere”—he flashed the cash—“for that and some wheels.”
Cormac held his gaze a long moment, then flicked it over his shoulder to Icarus. “If you hurt him—”
“One, you came to me.” Feet planted shoulder-width apart, Icarus folded his arms and lifted his chin. Defensive, a low-key flex of strength. “Two, I didn’t carry his ass all the way up here to bite him now.” One corner of his sinful mouth ticked up, exposing a fang. “Unless he asks me to.”
“Adam, we don’t—”
Adam cut off the debate before it continued needlessly longer. “Go.” With a huff, Cormac spun on his heel and disappeared into the stalks. Adam waited for them to stop swaying before turning back to the vamp. “You’re trouble.”
Icarus held his arms out, same as Cormac had. “Not hiding it.”
But he had been hiding what he was, up until an hour ago.
Adam wondered what Icarus’s excuse was. Anything like his own?
Icarus wasn’t hiding now, though, at least not from Adam, who closed the distance between them and ran his hands up Icarus’s torso.
“Thank you for getting me out of there.” He ached—the good kind—to sneak his fingers under the soft knit sweater, to glide his hands over Icarus’s cool skin and firm muscles.
To watch the scar disappear for good. But that wouldn’t get them out of there any faster.
He inched one hand higher, cupping Icarus’s neck, and settled the other over his too-slowly beating heart.
Icarus curled his fingers into the hem of Adam’s shirt. “You knew?”
“The second you clocked your step to my heartbeat at Club Sutro.”
“What are you?”
Adam could tell Icarus knew he was hiding parts of himself too; that reckoning was coming for all of them.
But not yet. “Add it to the list of conversations.” Adam rose the couple of inches needed to press their lips together, teasing the vampire’s mouth open with a swipe of his tongue, diving in and stealing a taste.
He couldn’t let this go on either, but on his long list of regrets was leaving Icarus’s apartment earlier without a goodbye kiss.
He erased that regret with his tongue, his lips, and the groan he freely surrendered.
Smiling, Icarus clasped Adam’s ass and held him close, rutting through layers of denim. “So many conversations.” He sighed dramatically.
Adam smiled wider, unable to contain the laughter that bubbled up and out of him. That was something else he’d missed. Something he could hardly remember doing the past ten years until a certain vampire courtesan had marked him as his own.