Page 55 of Angel's Smoke

Anna inhaled softly. “You don’t have to say anything more. I can imagine what?—”

“No, you can’t,” he growled, hissing at the memory as much as his former self. “I couldn’t reach her in time. My fire had already been drained in the earlier fighting. The bastard knew this. I flew toward him anyway, my flaming ax held high, but he was quicker. The knife he slid across her throat just finished its arc as my weapon came down on his shoulder, cleaving his arm from his body.”

“Oh, god.”

“All three of us hit the ground at the same time. I scrambled for Abigail, screaming as her soul’s light left her body and was slowly released into the smoky air above. I waited for it to come and find me, certain that my soul’s own light would finally be revealed and join with hers so I might save her. But her light never reached for mine, never even attempted to make a connection. It was then I realized that she’d never been my soul bond, despite the trust and love I’d shown her.” Iron expected the anguish to pinch his vocal cords the way it always did whenever he thought of Abigail, but this time, the tension didn’t come. Without that roadblock, he no longer had an excuse to bow out of shining a light on the ball and chain of his consequences.

“I was careless to assume the apex had promptly perished after my ax had struck him. Oh, don’t get me wrong, he was well on his way to dying. My fire was doing its thing but nowhere near fast enough, and amid my grief, I didn’t check on the bastard’s progress. That was when the apex lifted its other hand and held out a glowing orb I hadn’t seen before. Later, I learned it contained all sorts of nasty dark magic laced with acid and mages knew what. It exploded in my face. I threw my hands up and punched out my fire, but I wasn’t fast enough to block all of the spray. My gloved hands were spared, but my wrists and lower forearms weren’t. That shit coated my skin and would have eaten through my flesh entirely if Chrome hadn’t been nearby, healing me as best he could with his power. Likewise, when the blast hit, my fire mingled with the dark magic, temporarily blinding me in one eye. I eventually regained my full vision, but the jumble of colors in that eye remained.”

Anna’s warm arms wrapped around his ribs. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I know it’s a stupid thing to do to apologize for something you had no part in, but it’s all I can think to say. I’m so sorry, Iron.”

He hugged her back, letting the feel of her soft skin drag him away from terrors that had dug their claws into him for far too long. “After Abigail, a lot of things I had always believed as truth started looking a little grimier. I didn’t care how I killed, so long as I took down every single fucking charmer within sniffing distance. I realigned myself with my purpose, turning far more ruthless than any of my brothers thought healthy. I craved the routine and became a devoted student of it. A killer without a conscience. I focused on my duty to the celestial mages, rather than any trust I might have still had in them. I letthatbe my guide.”

Iron breathed deeply, holding hard to Anna’s sweet scent. “It took me a long time to realize I had no true love for Abigail, nor she for me, but she still didn’t deserve to die the way she had. For centuries, I thought the fault lay in her and her sex. That there was something innately untrustworthy about women and their judgment, that perhaps they were just like the celestial mages. Creatures I should have a duty toward, but nothing further.”

“Not all women are bad, just like not all men are. And believe me, it took a hell of a lot of bottomless bowls of M&Ms for me to get to a point where I could admit that and believe it.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “I know that now. You’ve helped me realize that my concerns with trust stem from issues with my own judgment, not the judgment of others.”

“But you trust your family, your brothers, right?”

“With my life.”

“Let me ask you a question,” Anna said, shifting slightly so she could look at him. “If you could do anything in the world that would bring you joy, what would it be? Andno, don’t give me that look. For the purposes of this conversation, I’m taking myself off the table. I mean foryou, Iron. What would make you happy if Cyro wasn’t a factor and you weren’t beholden to anyone? What would Iron want for Iron’s sake?”

“No one’s ever asked me that before.”

“Well, I’m not no one, and I’m asking. What would you want?”

He thought for a minute, then moved his hand lower, cupping the rounded softness of her lower belly. “This,” he breathed. “I want this.”

His answer flew across the small bedroom, lighting up every corner until there was no place for his deepest desires to hide. “I want a home. Atruehome. With space for all of us, my brothers, their mates, you and your baby. Everyone. I want to see your child born and cared for. I want to give you a family and have that baby passed around from uncle to uncle while I take care of you properly. I want to have so many damn buildings, we’d need our own zip code. As we are, half of us are scattered. Our den is underground, but we’re all over the place. Bridget and Steel are in Boston once a month, Rose and Tammy have their apartment with all their shit still there, and Clara and Bronze spend most of their time in lycan territory. We’re about as far-flung as possible, to the point that I doubt we could even call ourselves a real family anymore.” Iron sat up and gripped the side of Anna’s face. “I want a home, and I want you and your baby in it.”

Anna’s eyes turned liquid as she gripped his wrist, the one part of him he never let another soul touch. “I want that, too.”

Iron kissed her, fiercely, furiously. He kissed her with a punishing precision that had erupted inside him from the single spark of her curiosity.Home. He’d never allowed himself to dream of it before.

And as Anna parted her legs and welcomed him into the warmth of her body, a new unshakable truth emboldened his frame, filling his muscles with a conviction there was no going back from.

He would give Anna and his family a proper home, even if it meant he’d never get to see it.

Chapter27

The beginning of spring was always a doozy of a deception in New England. It either served up the ultimate omen of good things to come or plopped down the cruelest twist of climate trickery. Some years, several of the shops and restaurants in Aurora would offer special treats for tourists brave enough to bet their vacation dollars that the quaint little town would have been thawed out by then. Between the piles of unmelted snow and the curious crocuses, it wasn’t uncommon to find offerings of free ice cream cones or iced coffees during those early days of the season. Whether the springtime celebrations actually held any sway over Mother Nature was anyone’s guess, but it didn’t stop Anna from bundling up in her puffer coat and nabbing a free waffle cone with soft serve mint and chocolate sprinkles every time.

The only difference on this occasion was the angel holding her hand while he escorted her to a park bench where they could enjoy their ice cream.

The past several days had been a whirlwind of emotions Iron had forced Anna to dredge up from her sentiment basement, dust off, and wrap around her with all the luster of a new pair of patent-leather shoes and ultra-glossy lipstick. Under hisverypersuasive encouragement, he’d gotten her out of the house almost every single day for a lunch date. And on the days when the weather decided to show its ass, as it often did in the weeks leading up to spring, he was at her door, takeout in hand, and his metallic power humming itsyou power down or I’ll do it for youwarning around the finer workings of her laptop. She’d learned the hard way early on that if she didn’t start enforcing her time limit boundaries with her clients and let those calls bleed into her lunch hour, she’d have an apology e-mail to send later that afternoon explaining how her laptop mysteriously shut down mid-call.

Yeah . . . it’d taken only two of those e-mails before she, and her clients, got the literal memo going forward.

One by one, Iron had begun breaking down walls Anna had never even realized she’d put up. Things like mostly nutritionally balanced freezer meals and granola bars had been replaced with home-cooked spreads andreally damn goodgranola bars. Like, the soft and chewy kind made by one of the bakeries in town that loaded each bar up with just the right amount of maple syrup, nuts, and chocolate morsels.

The kind of food with an expiration date that wasn’t measured in months or years but days.

And her body freaking loved it.

At some point, Anna forgot to apologize for her pregnancy cravings, regardless of whether they were food or sex related. For a woman who had lived her entire life expressing regret for her natural inclinations, whether they be nonreciprocal kindness, her sweet tooth, or occasionally wanting sex anywhere other than the bedroom, it was a whole new world.

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