Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Adam found Icarus by the window in Cormac’s study, the vampire’s attention shifting between the early morning dark outside and the phone in his hand.
No one had slept since returning from the city, Icarus included, and that phone had stayed in reach the entire time, through his change of clothes into sweats and a tee, through their debrief and an express meal, through the walk he’d taken around the reflecting pool.
He hadn’t taken a shower yet, but Adam bet Icarus would find a way to take the phone in there with him too.
He was clutching the damn thing like a lifeline.
To whom? Adam had two guesses; he started with the less likely.
“Are you afraid Nate is going to change his mind?”
“No.” Icarus stepped away from the window and sank into Cormac’s battered office chair. “I’m afraid we put him in the line of fire.”
Adam circled the desk and rested back against its edge. “You may not believe it”—he nudged Icarus’s knee with his—“but you’re a good person too.”
He tossed the phone on the desk, then slumped back in the chair. Eyes closed, he tilted his face to the ceiling and sighed. “Keep lying to yourself.”
It wasn’t easy tearing his gaze from the long smooth column of Icarus’s throat, the sharp line of his jaw, the weariness beneath the vibrating tension he rarely let anyone see, but the answer to Adam’s earlier question—the guess he’d figured more likely—was right beside his hip.
An encrypted chat was open on the phone screen: You’re late, from Icarus, the only message from four hours ago, and Are you okay?
the only one within the past hour. “Is that your chat with her?”
“Should’ve been, but she missed check-in.”
“Would you expect her to answer at midnight or four in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to send someone?”
“If we don’t hear from her by daybreak.” He righted his head and opened his eyes. “Neither of us are the most reliable.”
“You obviously care about her more than anyone.”
Icarus shrugged, the nonchalance fake as hell.
Adam pressed, hoping Icarus’s weariness would create an opening for another question that had lingered since they’d first discussed his sister. “Why did you leave her?”
Icarus leaned forward, retrieved his phone, and tapped at the screen a few times.
He handed it back to Adam, open to an encrypted picture of a blue-haired Icarus in combat boots, jeans, and a leather halter, a young woman with tan skin like Cormac’s, long green hair, a nose ring, and hazel eyes lined in kohl, and another young man who looked nothing like the alternakids beside him.
He was white with rich chestnut hair, sky blue eyes, and everything about him—from his pressed dress shirt and khakis to his neatly trimmed hair with its perfectly coifed wave—shouted wholesome boy next door.
But the way the three of them had their arms over each other’s shoulders, together with the smiles on their faces and the obvious affection in their eyes, led Adam to the obvious conclusion. “Another sibling?”
“We lost him in the Rift.” And yet the pain that streaked across Icarus’s face looked as fresh as any Adam had ever seen on the face of a victim’s loved ones left behind. As fresh as the pain reflected in the mirror each morning.
“That was thirty years ago,” Adam said. “What happened nine months ago to make you leave Portola?”
“I never said that was the first time I’d left. Or the last.”
“What—”
CAW. CAW.
KRAA!
Adam locked eyes with Icarus—just half a second—before they were both in motion, Adam shoving off the desk and lunging for the window, Icarus spinning the desk chair to do the same.
Both of them looked out to survey the chaos erupting below, only to have purple orbs of magic sail in their direction, slicing through the murder of crows that had taken flight, shattering the study’s glass window and singeing the hair on the back of Adam’s neck as a fanged, hissing Icarus dragged him to the floor.
Magic pummeled the study’s walls, sending books and files flying, creating divots in the centuries-old wood and stone, replacing the soft light of the shattered desk lamp with an eerie purple glow.
More glass broke a room over, followed by the howls and thundering rumble of the pack in motion. Adam needed to join them; his place was with his family. He reached toward the desk, only to have his arm slammed to the ground, Icarus pinning him in place.
“Stay the fuck down.”
“Weapons!” Adam shouted. “Bottom desk drawer!”
“Well, why the fuck didn’t you say so?”
Adam would’ve rolled his eyes if he wasn’t busy scoping their surroundings and monitoring the windows and door.
Icarus twisted for the weapons, grabbing the drawer handle and yanking, dislodging the entire drawer.
Stakes and throwing stars, guns and ammo scattered across the wood floor, a lined box popping open from the force; silver caught Adam’s eye, making his heart race as two gleaming bullets rolled toward where Icarus’s bent knee was planted.
Summoning his own strength, loosening the leash a careful measure, he shoved a blast of heat at Icarus, causing the vampire to teeter off-balance, giving Adam time to snatch the bullets up before they harmed Icarus.
Icarus whipped around, eyes wide. “What the fuck was that?”
Adam opened his fist, a puddle of silver evaporating in the glass-scratched palm of his hand. “Me saving a fighter we can’t afford to lose right now.”
Me saving the person I can’t bear to lose right now.
“How?”
Robin’s appearance saved Adam from answering. Still in human form, Robin, arms over his head, ducked into the room and stayed low, scurrying over to join them.
“Sitrep,” Adam demanded as he wiped his hands on his jeans, then began loading the lead ammo into pistols. It was dark out; lead would be safer, would slow instead of potentially killing one of their own.
“Two warlocks, two vamps, and half a dozen shifters.”
Icarus swept up the stakes and handed those to Adam too. “Atlas?” he asked Robin.
The assassin shook his head. “No sign of him. No sign of Vincent either.”
“They’re not letting up,” Adam said. “They took a loss, but they don’t want us to know it.”
“They’re not going to let up until you’re dead.”
A howl reverberated down the hall. Jenn was calling for backup.
“We need you out there,” Robin said.
Adam shoved the last of the stakes in his waistband and moved to stand, only to be held down again, this time by Robin. “Not you. Him,” he said with a nod to Icarus. “He’s a weapon we didn’t have before.”
“I’m not staying here,” Adam protested. He needed to be out there too, not hiding inside while everyone else fought to protect him. That was how he’d lost the loves of his life last time.
“He’s right,” Icarus said.
Adam turned to say thank you, but one look and he knew Icarus was agreeing with Robin, not him. “Fuck you.”
“I can’t let you die.”
“And we can’t afford to let Vincent capture you and find out what you are,” Robin added. “Go to the roof and provide cover. Be the backstop.” He didn’t give Adam a chance to argue further, turning and moving out, joints cracking, the shift complete by the time he crossed the threshold.
Icarus’s departure was even more abrupt. A rough, hard kiss, the cell phone shoved into his hand, a “Don’t fucking die” mumbled against his lips, and then he was gone, disappearing after Robin.
Everything in Adam screamed to follow, a physical pull the likes of which he’d never felt before.
An almost painful amplification of the tug he’d felt that night in Club Sutro when Icarus had first approached him, when confusion, desire, and betrayal had converged to spark an awareness inside him that he’d been unable to ignore.
At the time, he’d glared over his shoulder, trying and failing to back fate off, but Icarus had sauntered right into his space, right into places Adam had held reserved for others.
He wasn’t supposed to feel this way about anyone else.
He was supposed to take what Deborah and David had given him and use it to end Vincent.
Burn in the process so he could join them.
None of that was going to happen if he stayed there, if those fighting for him outside, including Icarus, lost this battle.
And fuck, they were too close to ending this to lose now.
Adam checked his weapons were secure, then staying low, he dodged more magic on his way out of the study, down the hall, and up the stairs, emerging two flights later onto the roof and slinking across the narrow widow’s walk on hands and knees.
He reached the edge, hidden in a dark corner out of the moonlight, and lifted his head enough to peek between the rails, raising one pistol enough to be at the ready.
Jenn in coyote form, Abigail in mountain lion, and the rest of the pack were handling the shifters.
Cormac and his corvid brethren had one of the warlocks virtually walled off, which left the two vampires and the purple-orb-wielding wizard to Robin and Icarus.
Off the field of battle, they were practically enemies, but faced with a common foe, Robin and Icarus were an impressive pair.
Two incredibly powerful beings, two creatures with unrivaled attack instincts and training.
Adam knew Robin had it and had glimpsed a hint of Icarus’s at the Canyon Lands, but seeing both in action now, Icarus held his own beside Robin, the two of them working together to dismantle one vampire, to swiftly stake the second, and to dodge and deflect the warlock’s magic as they closed in on him.
Movement to their left caught Adam’s eye. A bobcat broke through Jenn and Abigail’s line and charged in Icarus and Robin’s direction, leaping for Icarus’s blind side.
Adam fired and instantly knew the lead bullet wouldn’t reach the cat before the cat reached Icarus. He let more of the leash go, fire and heat licking off his fingertips, forming an invisible mire between the cat and Icarus and slowing the former’s speed enough for the bullet to catch up.
The bobcat fell and howled at Icarus’s feet.
The warlock ceased his spell casting long enough to see where the other had come from, zeroing in on Adam’s location.
He got as far as raising his arm before Cormac slammed into his face talons first. Robin crashed into his body and took him the rest of the way to the ground, and Icarus finished it, ripping the warlock’s head clean off with one twist of his hands.
Victory vibrated through him, through the heated stare he shared with Icarus, until Adam realized something on his person was actually vibrating.
It took a second to breach the fog of adrenaline and realize what it was.
Icarus’s phone in his pocket. He shoved a hand in, withdrew it, and glanced at the screen.
At the picture that appeared in the encrypted chat.
Vibrations of a different sort took over, and he followed his sinking heart to his knees.