Page 72 of Angel's Smoke

“Because I know you. My entire being knows you. It was the reason I was able to come back at all, instead of offering myself up on a gruesome battlefield.”

“What do you mean?”

“Cyro fucking tricked me, and I fell for it. He made me think you were dead so I wouldn’t have anything to fight for. It almost worked, too, until it didn’t.” The corner of his mouth ticked up, and some of that cocky charm she’d missed so much touched his lips. “I remembered the glasses I gave you, how I insisted you needed to see your life clearly because everything I saw in you was the one home I had to make damn sure I came back to. I remembered how beautiful you looked clutching your ultrasound photo and how there were some connections not even Cyro was strong enough to sever. It helped me finally see through the mirage of his bullshit and remember what I was really fighting for.”

Anna sifted her fingers through his thick hair, smiling at the way the sun lifted the bits of red to greet her. God, she’d forgotten about this. His hair, the color. The sharpness of this detail had already faded from her memory, and she was so grateful to have it back. “You were gone for so long.”

He leaned into her touch. “Time works differently outside the mortal realm. It felt like an hour to me. And then, when I came back, I had some errands to run before I could see you.”

Her back stiffened. She was unsure whether to be curious or offended that she wasn’t his first stop while she was going mad with grief over him. “Errands?”

A bit of mischief flashed in his eyes. And mirth. “I took Titan and Chrome on a little trip out to California after Titan shared what you’d told Rose about a certain phone call with Travis.”

“Oh no. What did you do?”

“Nothing I didn’t mind handling in person. Turns out, when you shake a palm tree, all sorts of shit falls out of it, including evidence of undocumented earnings and below-board investment dealings under the guise ofinfotainmentandbeing a newspreneur, whatever the fuck that means, as if that didn’t require one to be held accountable for their shady business practices. After that, we left a few choice tips with the right people, and I came back to find you as fast as I could.”

“I told Rose about Travis’s phone call only because it seemed like the right thing to do after she’d spent so much time chauffeuring me around and making sure I saw the sun regularly. I never meant for it to turn into a huge thing.”

Iron lifted his hands to the sides of her ribs and pulled her as close as the tight space would allow. “You’re family. You’remyfamily, and that’s what this family does. Secrets go out the window when it comes to taking care of each other.” His fingers drifted over her rounded abdomen. “This is my family. My home. My heart. Not the Empyrean. When I was up there, after I pried open the gates, I didn’t even enter, because I no longer recognized myself as having a home base that didn’t include you at the center of it. I love you, Anna. My soul, my body, all of it is nothing if I don’t have you to return to each day.” Then a startling blush crept up his cheeks, and he looked away quickly before returning his soft gaze to hers. “I want to care for you, to keep your heart . . . and your child, if you’ll let me.”

A tender pang tapped out a wonderful rhythm beneath her breast. She thought about letting this man dangle on the hook a bit longer while she ran someerrandsof her own, but she was just as powerless to stop the onslaught of her feelings as he was.

She kissed him fully, tenderly. “Then I guess you have us both, because I love you, too.” Eager happiness chased away the last vestiges of the morning’s fear and trepidation, but one final thought still managed to dig its heels in. “Wait! What about Titan and everyone else? Are they all returning to the Empyrean?”

Iron scoffed. “Are you kidding? And miss out on the opportunity to become aunts and uncles?” He shook his head as if Anna had just swallowed a boatload of crazy pills. And maybe she had, because she wasn’t hating any of it, even though the result had been the exact opposite of what the angels had been fighting for all along. Then he explained further. “I thought they might have had a harder decision to make originally, but turns out, it was a no-brainer. Our lives and loves are here. Plus, the moment I showed Rhode and the others the larger property plans I’d been working on for the homestead, it was unanimously decided.”

She laughed and settled her arms around his shoulders. “A celestial compound?”

“Damn right. Bronze is already looking at what’s involved in getting a water slide installed for one of the pools.”

“Oneof the pools? How many are you planning on having?”

“As many as we want. Zoning kind of goes out the window when you’ve got a team of angels who can move metal and earth around to ensure there’s no water table or preserved wetlands issues.”

“You’re absolutely?—”

“Crazy?”

“I was going to say mine. And I can’t wait for me and my little bell pepper to go home with you. To your family.”

“Sounds fucking perfect.”

Epilogue

Five Months Later

Anna fidgeted in her deceptively comfortable Adirondack chair, trying to reposition the pillow beneath her lower back. It was far too easy to fall asleep in those things and, apparently, her entire right side, and her daughter, knew it as well.

Olive’s little rosebud mouth stretched wide on a yawn, and Anna’s body tensed as if she were playing a giant game of freeze tag.

Please go back to sleep. Please go back to sleep.

As if already realizing the importance of listening to one’s mother at that early age, all the muscles in the baby’s tiny cherubic face scrunched up, then relaxed as her little body molded back into the crook of Anna’s arm.

Anna held her breath for a moment. Once it was clear the barely twenty-minute nap had been given approval by the CEO to continue, she breathed a sigh of relief and tried to resume her own rest, but the happy sight stretching out over the field before her was far more interesting than chasing the undisturbed sleep that would come later. (Iron always made sure of that last part.)

For the past month, she’d been content to take in the pleasure of her soul bond putting stakes in the ground and marking out where he and his brothers would install the utilities for their new homestead.

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