Page 41 of Angel's Smoke

“My sixteen-week checkup. Not my favorite thing to do, but kind of necessary.” Around her, tables were beginning to clear as guests shrugged into coats and paid their bills.

“Are you nervous that something might be wrong?” he asked, standing and holding out her coat for her to slide into.

“No, not at all. It’s just a very couple-y experience. In the beginning, it wasn’t so terrible because I could just pretend I was there for a regular pap smear or something, but now that I’m starting to show a bit more, it’s clear I’m pregnant and flying solo. Again, not a problem, but it just feels a bit . . .”

“Inconvenient.”

Anna hadn’t expected Iron to finish her thought or remember Travis’s adjectival weapon of choice that the bastard would fling at her heart. “Sometimes, yeah.”

Anna shrugged on her coat and worked at the buttons. When she finally got them all to line up correctly—a frequent problem most days—she lifted her chin and was nearly struck dumb by the expression staring back at her.

It was Iron, but . . . not. He was silent and enigmatic like always, but a look of consternation warred across his strong features in a way she hadn’t seen before. Then he held out his palm to her, and knowing there was some significance to his offering, she placed her hand in his.

“How would you feel if I joined you?”

Her world stalled on his axis. “What?”

“At your appointment tomorrow. How would you feel if I went with you?”

“I-I’d feel . . . like you’d be needlessly subjecting yourself to an abnormally large number of hormonal pregnant women.”

He chuckled softly, massaging the fleshy pad between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s not needless if you don’t want to be alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as anything.”

She didn’t know what to say, but thankfully, she didn’t need to. Her body took it from there. Anna threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Right there, in front of his brothers, their mates, and whoever else decided to take their sweet-ass time leaving the bar to gawk at strangers. Let them. If this was a show to be put on, she’d do it a thousand times over if she got to feel the strength and warmth of his arms banding around her, lifting her off the floor like a treasure to be secured.

Iron brought her impossibly closer, and her breath hitched as, even through their coats, her body remembered how the hard planes of his muscles felt against a softness she was so afraid to show anyone. She angled her head, and an appreciative greedy moan vibrated from his lips into hers. Anna had no problems with greedy. She could be greedy. She could be?—

“Ow!” Neela’s startled shout broke Anna and Iron from their embrace. Someone, a man, must have bumped into Rhode’s soul bond and knocked her into the server behind her, sending a tray of drinking glasses and beer bottles clamoring to the floor.

“Easy, lady. Just had to reach for my keys. You’re fine.” A muscled man with long hair tied back in a low ponytail had righted himself after leaning around Neela to grab a rusted key ring complete with two keys and a bottle opener from a nearby table. A large stain bloomed across his white T-shirt, accompanied by the stinging bite of hard alcohol that, in high doses up close, always made Anna’s nose tingle.

Rhode was moving before Neela had a chance to regain her balance. The fool hadn’t even pieced together just what was happening to him when the seraph had his hands on the drunk man’s shirt collar and dragged him on his toes out the door.

While Anna watched the impressive display of waste removal, a few other men stood from a table near the door and walked out right after Rhode. Iron’s grip shifted to her hips and tightened. Then his eyes flashed that brilliant fiery topaz, and he quickly pulled her behind his back.

“Iron, what is it? What’s going on?”

Around them, the other angels had stood as well, flames dancing high in each of their eyes, painting their features in hard brutal shadows that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Charmers.”

Chapter20

Tung stepped forward while Titan quickly gathered the women behind them.

The prime sentinel then jerked his chin at Chrome and Steel. “We split up. You two stay with Titan and me. Get everyone to safety back in the den.” That pewter gaze high with fire and barely leashed rage slashed to Iron, who’d already begun to make his way out the door with Brass and Bronze. “Find Rhode. Ensure the charmers are dealt with quickly and quietly.”

“Understood.”

Like any sort of confirmation was needed on that, though? Just the sight of a demon this close to Anna had already made Iron’s fire dance at the tips of his fingers.

He snuffed his flames into his fists, then pushed through the sparse dining room, with his brothers trailing as silent harbingers of their lethality. His boot was barely over the threshold when a jarring sensation halted his stride. Tucked into the corner of the dining room was a round wooden table adjacent to the door. A foul hum of dark magic coated the tight area, slinking over his skin like an oily caress. It was concentrated. The bastards had been there awhile, sitting, observing. Learning.

“Shit,” Iron ground out.

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