Page 50 of Angel's Smoke

“Here’s your souvenir. Enjoy, you two, and I’ll see you in four weeks.”

A square slip of photo paper danced in Anna’s periphery, held out between Dr. Li’s fingertips, but before Anna cleared her thoughts enough to realize what it was and take it, Iron had already accepted the offering.

“We’ll be back,” he said, never lifting his eyes from the image of her baby.

That image, the one she mentally snapped and stored of Iron holding what he could of their unlikely future together, would have to be enough to last her for however long until his conviction finally caught up with his character.

Until then, she was happy living in a fantasy, the one that all started with whimsical dreams and wings.

Chapter24

Iron wanted to punch something, which wasn’t the usual reaction one should have when staring at an ultrasound printout that his soul bond had propped up against his dashboard while he drove her home. Never, in all his years, had he thought that something so grainy and nondescript could hold such a significant place behind his breastbone. When the doctor first pulled the image up on the monitor and he saw this white blob starting to look less like an amorphous mass and more like a tiny human bobbing to the groove of its mother’s heartbeat, it twisted a perspective he’d never had the luxury of examining too closely.

What if I stayed?

And even more concerning . . .

What would that future look like if I did?

Iron gripped the steering wheel more tightly as he turned onto the road that led to Anna’s house. Beside him, she was cheerfully playing with his sound system, making damn sure he knew how much of a crime it was that he still listened toterrestrialradio, whatever the hell that meant. She could have chastised him for anything, the color of his leather seats, the angle at which he kept his heating vents, his complete lack of fast food containers littering his back seat—which, yeah, he could totally see her complaining about. He would have happily listened to all of it if it kept her smiling and stroking that picture while she sat next to him, dreaming in safety of the wonders that would soon come her way.

Fuck if he didn’t want to experience every single one of those wonders with her, even if they were never really possibilities for long. At best, he could promise a few months, and at worst, well, he and his brothers had lived lifetimes with mortals never knowing about their existence. It wouldn’t be that hard to get gone for good, especially when a golden ribbon had been decked across the finish line at the end of the exit ramp they’d all been falling over themselves to reach for years.

Too bad for him he’d seen that exit ramp before, and there had already been a time long ago when he’d been tempted to turn off it prematurely. Abandon his brothers, his mission, all of it, and just opt out of a duty he’d lost faith in ever being able to fulfill.

That ended about as well as a nuclear bomb detonation, one he still hadn’t recovered from.

Then why the fuck was his mind drifting toward those promises again?

Iron pulled his truck up to Anna’s house and killed the engine. She’d already plucked the ultrasound picture off his dash and had begun hopping down out of his truck, which must have felt like falling from a pole vault jump given how small she was in comparison to his vehicle’s lift. Jesus Christ, couldn’t she wait for him to at least come around to her side and help her down? Did the womanwanta twisted ankle?

“You know, I normally would have just tacked it up in my office next to my window, but that just doesn’t feel welcoming enough. Work is work, and for the most part, I don’t like to go into my office when I’m not on the clock, so maybe I could hang it in the kitchen? I would like to see the thing regularly. Though I worry steam and aerosolized food grease would wreak havoc on the picture. That is, if I ever decide to actually use the cast-iron pans above my stove for anything other than decoration at this point.”

Anna bounced up her front steps with all the exuberance and, to Iron’s great frustration, lack of care similar to a puppy who didn’t know its bones weren’t connected yet because its growth plates were still too soft. Oh, he’d cleared a good path for her after the snowstorm, but that didn’t mean things didn’t ice over in the mornings, especially at those higher altitudes. He’d even put a bucket of salt out for her next to her front door—a bucket whose lid still sat askew at the exact fucking angle he’d left it five days ago.

He shoved his fists into his pockets, muttered some choice curses, and followed her into the house. He had to kick a sizable chunk of ice out of the way before he walked through the front door, hating how his gaze kept landing on a million and one things he could improve for her if his options weren’t tied up in his duty to his family. There was a small water spot on the living room ceiling that had grown slightly since he’d been there last, the pilot light ports on her stoves needed a good cleaning, and don’t get him started on that fucking shed out back.

Iron shook his head and tried to unclench his fingers before the indentations they left in his palms became permanent. This wasn’t his place, even if the mages had thrown the two of them together for some reason. His place was, and always had been, by his brothers’ sides, defending the actions and intelligence of celestial mages who’d, lately, occupied his mind far more than he suspected he ever did for them. If he had, he wouldn’t have had to lose pieces of his soul when?—

“You seem awfully far away for someone who’s only ten feet from me.”

He looked up to see Anna standing in front of the hallway, her jubilant features from a moment ago now sagging with a frown that looked all kinds of wrong on her face, not the least of which because he was likely the asshole who’d put it there. She’d already changed into her standard uniform of comfy lounge pants, thick cozy socks, and an oversized T-shirt that practically swallowed her whole. On any other day, he would have thought how she dressed around him was a testament to how comfortable he made her feel. Now, all he saw was someone that much more in need of a protective outer shell.

“You have any clients this afternoon?”

“No. I took off today because of my doctor’s appointment. Figured I wouldn’t be in the mood to remind people about good nutritional choices when I’ve just been measured and weighed like a 4-H heifer and am thinking of diving spoon-first into some ice cream.”

“Ice cream? It’s, like, two degrees outside.”

A single razor-sharp brow lifted toward her hairline with a resolute speed that gave him just enough time to rethink the next words out of his mouth. “And?”

“And . . . if you tell me the flavor you want, I’d be happy to excavate it from your freezer for you before I head out. That icebox you’ve got is one Tetris brick away from collapsing. You sure there aren’t any body parts in there I should be worried about finding?” He meant it as a joke, a small quip set to diffuse and deflect any of that prying gaze Anna was so good at throwing his way.

But, like goddamn always, his efforts fell short when it came to her.

“Why would you head out?” The question speared him through his core hard enough to send his fire scuttling to safety inside him.

“Figured you’d want some space after your appointment.”

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