Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Adam couldn’t say exactly how long he’d been dozing when the sun-warmed body nestled against his side tensed, Icarus instantly on alert.
A second later, growling echoed from the direction of the tree line.
The second after that, Icarus was crouched above him, claws digging into the ground on either side of his head, lips pulled back in a snarl around fully extended fangs.
The growls grew louder—and more familiar. Adam tilted back his head to see what Icarus had locked onto. A large honey-blond coyote prowled the edge of the field, hackles up, canines bared. No immediate danger, then, assuming two apex predators posturing didn’t kill them all.
Adam reached up and patted the side of Icarus’s face. “That’s my second, Jenn. You know her.”
The coyote snapped and gnashed its teeth. Icarus seethed through his.
“Jenn!” Adam shouted as he rolled onto his side under Icarus. “That’s enough.”
Abigail, in human form, strolled out from among the trees and ran her fingers through Jennifer’s scruff.
“Back off, baby.” A little more coaxing—a scratch behind the ears, a hand flattened between her shoulder blades—and Jenn finally lowered her hackles.
Abigail turned her dark eyes back to them.
“You need to get to the mansion,” she said, expression grim and foreboding.
Granted, Yerba Buena earlier had all gone to shit, but he’d figured Abigail being back with her lover would at least take the edge off, might blunt the reality of the trouble they were in. Apparently not.
He tapped at Icarus’s hip, and the vampire must have seen enough to believe the threat had passed.
He moved from atop Adam, standing, then offering him a hand up.
“What’s happened?” Adam asked Abigail as he and Icarus dressed, the latter commando in his jeans.
Not thinking about that. Not if he wanted to get his own jeans zipped.
Abigail approached, and the waft of smoke that tickled Adam’s nose pushed all other thoughts away. “Where’s the fire?”
“Your house.” Abigail reached into her back pocket, and by the size and shape of the item she withdrew, Adam knew what it was even before she unfolded the photo and held it out to him.
“They torched the place. We were able to rescue some weapons from the armory, but upstairs . . . This was all that was left.”
Icarus approached behind him, his hand appearing in Adam’s periphery, an arm on its way to wrapping around Adam’s waist, but Adam put out his own, holding Icarus off.
The man in the picture, smiling on his wedding day, his husband and wife kissing his cheeks, had no business in this world, no matter how close to resurfacing he’d been with Icarus.
That man was gone, Adam was here, and the Devil was so close to getting what he’d been after the past ten years.
And once vengeance was had, that man in the photo could join his husband and wife like he should have done that day ten years ago.
That was the future and fate that awaited him, no matter how much he enjoyed the present escape with Icarus. “Let’s get back to the house.”
As if sensing Adam’s mental shift, Icarus kept his physical distance the entire walk back, but he remained emotionally close, timing his steps to Adam’s heartbeats, making his claim clear to Abigail and Jenn.
Adam didn’t tell him to do otherwise, didn’t want to cut that tether completely, and besides, he was certain Abigail and Jenn could smell the come on both of them.
So could the other coyote whose head whipped their direction the second Adam and Icarus stepped through the door. Even in human form, Robin’s growl shook the windows.
“Let it go,” Adam said as he dropped onto the couch across from him.
“Dog,” Icarus sniped from the armrest he claimed beside Adam.
“Bloodsucker,” Robin sniped right back.
Cormac, in the chair at the end of the couches, was his usual droll self. “Now that introductions are out of the way.”
Jenn reappeared from the bathroom in human form, dressed in jeans and a tee. “Why is he here?” She jutted her chin in Icarus’s direction as she sank into the couch next to her cousin. “If you haven’t noticed, shit goes sideways whenever he’s involved.”
“Shit is going sideways, with or without him,” Adam replied. “At least with him, I’m still alive. Without him, I’d be dead.”
“Vincent’s unhappy you’re not.” Robin—a slight drawl in his voice, lingering from whatever job he’d returned from—tossed his phone onto the table between them, screen open on an encrypted app. “Raised the bounty to ten million.”
“Fuck.” Icarus stretched an arm behind Adam across the top of the couch cushions. “This is more than a thorn in his side. Why does he want you dead?”
Adam flicked his gaze to his concerned one. “Because I want him dead.”
“That can’t be the entire story.”
“It’s not.” Cormac dropped a file onto the table beside Robin’s phone. “Only file I have that’s thicker than yours,” he said to Icarus. “Vincent Cirillo has become a billionaire by enslaving other people’s magic.”
“What does that mean?” Icarus asked.
“That kid you saw me and Abigail rescue the other night?” Adam waited for Icarus’s nod, then continued. “He’d been kidnapped by Vincent’s crew and nearly drained dry.”
“Okay, but that’s not enslaving. That’s flat-out stealing.”
“He was a runaway,” Abigail said. “No one noticed him missing. Since I’d been inside, I knew he was stashed there and about to flame out.”
Icarus opened his mouth, no doubt to ask what that meant too, which Adam was not getting into today.
He picked up where Abigail left off before Icarus could.
“In other cases, Vincent offers ‘private security’ to paranormals, and before they know it, they’re doing his bidding.
He takes their money, then uses their power to make more money. ”
“Say someone wants a soul stolen,” Cormac explained, “and would pay handsomely for it. Vincent finds a soul eater or a psychopomp—like my kind—in need of protection, strikes a deal with them, then uses all that magic he’s stolen from nobodies to turn his client into his tool, to convince them to steal that soul for Vincent, who turns around and sells it to the highest bidder. ”
“And the client can’t tell anyone because now they’re implicated too.” Icarus lowered his chin, features pinched in sympathy. “Just like a fucking dealer.”
“Only he’s dealing in magic,” Adam said.
Icarus jerked his head up, eyes wide. “Is that how he has a warlock in his thrall?”
Twin growls emanated from Robin and Jenn.
“Easy,” Adam said, appreciating the response, not appreciating the person it was directed at. Once Abigail moved into position on the armrest next to Jenn, positioned to pounce into referee mode as was often her role, Adam turned his attention back to Icarus, explaining, “Atlas has his own agenda.”
“To be even more powerful than his master,” Robin said.
“That’s not what it looked like to me,” Icarus said.
“He’s a warlock,” Adam said. “You can’t believe anything you see.” He expected Icarus to argue, but he backed off instead, contemplative and quiet.
Robin gave them more to think about. “He’s still not told Vincent what you are, assuming he’s figured it out. If he had, Vincent would be trying to take you, not kill you.”
“I still think we should take this to law enforcement,” Cormac said, then when they all looked his way with raised brows, added, “Officially. With Vincent’s operations escalating, there’s more incentive to do something.”
“There wasn’t incentive enough ten years ago?” Robin barked. “He had two cops and two feds on his ass, and he still got away with murder.”
Icarus rocketed back to attention beside Adam. “Wait! He’s been doing this for ten years?” Then split a glance between him and Cormac. “And you haven’t taken it to law enforcement yet officially?”
“We can’t trust them,” Adam said. “He’s got moles all in law enforcement.”
“Couldn’t trust them then, can’t now,” Robin said, then with a flick of his hand in Cormac’s direction, added, “Present company excluded.”
“What if I had a contact?” Icarus said, the last thing Adam expected. “Someone you could trust.”
Cormac scooted to the end of the chair. “How can you be sure?”
Icarus shrugged the single shoulder bared by his knit top. “He’s thirsty. And I have pics of his dick.”
Abigail’s hand on Jenn’s shoulder was the only thing that kept the coyote from leaping across the table. “Someone get him out of here before I rip his fucking throat out.”
Icarus grinned, a fang snagging his lip. “I’d like to see you try.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Cormac interrupted. “Not with a ten-million-dollar bounty on Adam’s head.”
A ten-million-dollar bounty and two leads. “What if we work both?” Adam said. “We continue to work our angle, Icarus works his. So long as one of them lands Vincent in jail, it’ll be a success.”
“Do you think jail is going to stop him?” Icarus said, equal parts doubtful and curious.
“No,” Adam admitted. “But I think jail is going to put him in a single place for at least a few hours where we can get to him.”
Across from them, Robin purred around a grin that was just this side of feral.