Page 62 of Angel's Smoke

Anna kicked and sobbed and screamed, and Iron just held her through it all, until, finally, she lifted her head away from his chest just long enough to confirm what she dreaded. “We have two days, right? We still have that, don’t we?”

He squeezed her tighter and nodded. “Two days.”

They had two days until he and his brothers would meet to decide how they would proceed. Two days to cram a timeless future into. Two days to pretend they could be happy while simultaneously watching the clock call bullshit on the endeavor.

Two days to live a life she’d only begun to realize had been finally worth living.

Chapter30

Iron stared down at the text string between him and his brothers confirming the time they’d agreed to meet the day after tomorrow. Molly had insisted on hosting the event at her restaurant, as if the fate of the realm and the rest of their lives was a formal affair that needed proper catering and tablescapes.

He loved Molly, he really did. In the short time he’d come to know her and the other women welcomed into his brothers’ lives, he’d begun to realize what a band of cantankerous assholes the sentinels had devolved into before the soul bond had saved them all. It was an amazing thing to see the toll that such a brutal grind of an eternal routine had taken reflected back through the eyes of someone with no experience of the suffering but adoration for the hard work regardless. The familial ties that had sprouted between all of them had grown so thick, interweaving in and around each other like an unbreakable mesh, that Iron couldn’t help but smile at the little network they’d created.

And that was why he wouldn’t be attending the meeting to discuss the angels’ next steps.

He’d already decided what needed to be done.

Iron tapped back a quick thumbs-up to the meeting time and closed a group chat that had served as a lifeline with his brothers for mages knew how many years. He’d never deleted the thing, and thanks to Chrome’s tech storage wizardry, he never had to. Which meant he was never far from pulling up any of Bronze’s rude jokes, all of which had been crafted pre-Clara, one of Steel’s coffee experiments, or Brass’s ridiculous high Wordle scores. His participation had been limited to a handful of monosyllabic responses comprised mostly ofKorCoolorAsshole, sometimes with a variation of all three.

Even though he never said much, he savored the connection all the same. So it was just another trouble stone to add to his stack when he finally shut his phone off and placed it in the mahogany-colored ceramic teapot on his dresser. It was one of his favorite artifacts he’d picked up in the Jiangsu province during his time in China some years ago. He guessed mortals referred to that time period as the Qing Dynasty, but he just called it a great vacation with kick-ass food and excellent kung fu training excursions.

Iron placed the lid on the pot and smiled as he remembered the way Anna appreciated the bit of stoneware also. If all went according to plan, soon it’d be hers, along with everything else he owned, as he’d outlined in the instructions he left for his brothers to carry out.

He hadn’t been able to look at Anna too closely before he left her sleeping an hour ago. It took everything he fucking had to pry himself away from her body, which she’d managed to wrap around his trunk like a greedy barnacle intent on capsizing the ship and happily going down with it if it meant more alone time together. And while he’d never actually confirmed anything to her, that brilliant mind of hers had worked out a likelihood that didn’t end with them holding hands and shopping for strollers or installing a car seat in her Subaru. (He’d made a special note in his instructions for Titan to handle that last one and for Rose to handle the former.) And just the fact that he had to put pen to paper on that subject was the only motivation fueling his actions.

If he dwelled on what he was leaving behind, he’d never move forward, and that would be as unforgivable as his selfish heart that screamed at him to take to the skies and get back in bed with Anna so he might finish out the moonlight with her draped around him and the two of them beneath it.

But he couldn’t, because the moment he turned around and flew right up that mountain of hers, it would take an act of the prime mages themselves to pry him from her arms.

Throwing back his shoulders, he tightened the cords on his leather bracers, rolled down his sleeves, and plucked the relic’s shard from his breast pocket. Not only had the thing never stopped glowing since they’d infused their combined fire into it but it now had the nerve to wink at him as though it approved of his conspiracy to abandon his family so that they might have the chance to remain as one.

He took it out of its test tube prison, placed it on the granite floor of his living quarters, then retreated a few healthy steps. He supposed there should have been more fanfare when a sentinel returned to the Empyrean after being away from it for so long. A finely pressed uniform and shoe polish seemed like they belonged in that scenario. But he’d never been one for dramatics. Instead, he kept to his usual combination of boots, jeans, and flannel shirt that he’d freshen up and buy in bulk at the outdoor apparel store once a quarter century or so.

Weapons were a different story. That shit he loaded up on.

Thigh and ankle holsters held a variety of blades while guns lined every usable inch of his waist, chest, and underarms, starting behind his back and snaking around to the front. Then he picked up his mace in one hand and his battle ax in the other and sank into the weight of the metal surrounding him. Combinations of iron, steel, titanium, chrome, all of it melded, calibrated, and perfect for his grips and preferences.

All of it was infused with boatloads of his full angel fire.

Without another thought, he pointed his mace and ax at the shard and released his flames through the metal. The shard danced and flared brighter under his power’s onslaught. He gritted his teeth, pushing more of himself into the tiny thing, willing it to show him that which he had not seen in eons.

Then he felt it, that hum of a forgotten resonance thickening through the air. It coated his skin and wrapped him in a hug that vibrated celestial energy through every cell.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. His eyes winged open, and his body shook against its soothing assault.

The room around him faded into nothingness as his form at long last dissolved from the mortal plane.

A great crywrenched through him as Iron materialized in a barren landscape of scorched earth that was nothing like the Empyrean he remembered. Parched terrain beaten down by a dark and dusty orange mist stretched out before him and was accented by craggy rock structures that looked as pained as he felt.

His hand flew to his chest, checking that all vital organs were present and accounted for, when something strange abraded his palm. A carpet of charcoal-gray scales, which, individually, were no larger than his fingernails, enmeshed around his frame to form an armor he’d been so long without. Thickly ridged plates snapped over his shoulders, elbows, and other joints, all knitted together by the innate power of his celestial makeup.

My battle skin.

Iron tested the fit and strength of his old armor, twisting and flexing with a familiar grace that rushed into him with every breath he took.

“I don’t believe it.”

Then he patted his suit, searching for his weapons before remembering they were part of him now, melded into his battle skin and ready to be called upon whenever he desired.

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