Page 67 of Forbidden

Ira pressed closer, tucking his nose by Wolf’s neck, his hands roaming the broad plane of Wolf’s back. “Yeah. I’d love that.”

Wolf told the others they were heading home and ushered Ira toward the door. When the pale dawn sky was visible through the glass doors, Ira paused, glancing back at Shadrach.

“Thank you for coming. I won’t forget it.”

Shadrach smirked, looking pleased with himself, and inclined his head.

Outside in the brisk morning air, Wolf said, “You know that’s probably exactly why he did it, to get on a prophet’s good side.”

“I know. He doesn’t know he’s moving in exactly the direction he’s supposed to.”

Wolf glanced down at him slyly. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

Ira grinned. “Can’t spoil everything for you, can I?”

He laughed, dragging Ira tighter against his side. “I’m so glad you’re back, seidhr. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.” His lips pressed to Ira’s temple.

Ira’s eyes burned, and he hugged Wolf tight. “Me, too. This is where I want to be from now on, no matter what. Right here with you.”

Beside his car, Wolf swooped down and claimed Ira’s mouth in a deep, searing kiss.

“You’re mine,” he growled. “They’ll never take you away again.”

Ira nodded, curling his fingers around either side of Wolf’s neck. “Iam. And no they won’t.”

Epilogue

In the weeksfollowing the attack, Ira threw himself into helping the others clean up the Rink and get it ready for business, and with nothing else to occupy his time, Wolf tagged along for most of it. He helped them paint and install new toilets and sinks in the bathroom. They added a handful of shower stalls for nights when patrolling got messy. There were a few cots in the old storage room in case anyone needed a place to rest or administer emergency first-aid. They’d eventually get the equipment to turn it into an actual med room. Zachary and Angela’s cousins did a great job fixing the water damage over the office, and they hired them again to put on a new roof. Wolf was grateful to be doing something other than pouring drinks for a change, and it meant he got to spend plenty of time with Ira. He didn’t like letting the man out of his sight these days, and it was fortunate that Ira found his possessiveness endearing rather than suffocating.

Ira’s visions no longer knocked him off his feet like they used to, and one night, lying in bed together, Ira confessedthat he thought it was because he was eating and sleeping more regularly.

“I don’t know how the guild came to think that fasting helped with the visions, but I think they’re wrong,” he whispered, his warm breath ghosting across Wolf’s chest. “I hope I get a chance to share what I’ve learned with other prophets one day. It seems like they’re all suffering for nothing.”

Ira didn’t have to set aside time to sit and meditate for the visions to happen anymore. He could be in the middle of a meal and he would suddenly pause, fork halfway to his mouth, his gaze distant as all his attention turned inward toward something only he could see. It happened occasionally while he was sparring with the others, too, but they’d all come to recognize that faraway look in his eyes. They’d just wait until he came out of it, sometimes taking his practice sword from his hands if needed. Sometimes he shared what he saw, and sometimes he didn’t. No one ever pushed him for more—except Shadrach, but he and Ira had some sort of antagonistic sibling-energy relationship, anyway. Ira had no problem deflecting his questions, so Wolf didn’t worry about it. In fact, he’d never seen Shadrach defer so easily to someone else, not even Talon. Ira had a way about him that put both humans and demons at ease.

Now, Wolf parked in the Rink’s overgrown parking lot and lifted the stack of pizza boxes from the passenger seat. The sunset cast a shock of volcanic orange and luminescent pinks and purples across the sky as he made his way across the broken pavement, hip-checking the door open and going inside. It smelled strongly of paint, so he set the pizza boxes down on the air hockey table and returned to prop the door open with the standing ashtray the humans had set outside for the vice-loving demons.

By the time he returned inside, the humans had swarmed the pizza. They’d been painting the main room all afternoon. Largely, they were keeping a lot of the Rink intact. The skating floor was their sparring and weapons training space now. Ira insisted that the air hockey table and disco ball should stay. The space, the air hockey table, the Rink as a whole—it would all put people at ease when they saw it, he’d explained. It was nostalgic and fun. As demon hunters, a little fun would go a long way toward reminding them of why they were doing this. It wasn’t out of some solemn, noble martyrdom. They weren’t the Paladin Guild. They were humans and demons coming together to make the world a space that could be inhabited by all, regardless of origin.

It all sounded idealistic to Wolf, but if there was one thing he’d learned since meeting Ira, it was that he shouldn’t ever doubt him.

Malachi and Talon, while ever-present when their humans were around, hadn’t been helping paint. Wolf pointed a finger between the two of them as he stopped beside Ira.

“You two haven’t been helping?”

“Ira claimed Luke and Alex would be distracted by us if we tried to help,” Malachi said, smirking. “Which is fair. I had intentions.”

“Intentions?” Wolf repeated, snorting.

“To be crude,” Luke said, flipping open one of the pizza boxes, “watching him bend over repeatedly in those tight jeans of his would’ve made me workmuchslower.”

Alex nodded sagely. “Same. I mean, but with Talon.”

“You could’ve hired our cousins to do this, you know,” Angela said, perched on the table with her legs crossedunder her. She was barefoot, and a streak of cream-colored paint was dried to her brown knee.

Ira blew a stray lock of hair out of his face. “Yeah, but we’re trying to avoid unnecessary expenses.”

“That reminds me,” Alex said, “Luke, did you contact that Tate woman about the photos you took?”

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