Page 21 of Forbidden

“No, you are! That’s what I’m getting at. I don’t want it to be like that with you.Butif I share what I know with you, you have to keep the secrets, too.” It was asking a lot, Ira knew. Maybe not themosthe’d asked of Wolf since they met last night, but being the keeper of knowledge like this was a heavy responsibility sometimes.

Wolf shrugged. “Okay.”

Ira wasn’t sure he understood the gravity of what he was saying, so he tossed out a scenario. “If I tell you about a vision where Talon dies, you can’t tell him.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You saw a vision where I was attacked and intervened.”

Ira hesitated. “Yes, but… the reality played out exactly as the vision showed me it would. I didn’t see the part where I showed up. I only saw what happened leading up to it. My interference didn’t actually change the vision itself. I’m… not sure wecanchange the visions themselves, actually. No one I know ever has.” There might’ve been a case in the guild’s history where a vision had been altered—to detrimental ends. Maybe that was why they had all those rules in place. Ira didn’t know, and it was too late to find out.

“So you’re not saying wecan’tchange things, just that you’ve never seen it done?”

Ira hesitated. Again. He didn’tknow. “I…”

Wolf smiled, leaning in to kiss him. “You don’t make decisions well.”

“Hey,” he protested, but it was weak. He couldn’t argue with the truth.

“It’s okay. How about you tell me things, and we’ll decide together? I’m a bartender. I’m used to people telling me things they don’t want others to know.”

Ira snorted. “Okay, well. In the vision I had just now, I was… in a dark building. It looked old, abandoned. I had asword—which is shocking, because I’m not a field guy—and Alex was there. There were these black demon things chasing us. Alex said something about kids waiting outside.” He frowned. “It looked kind of familiar…”

“The building?”

“Yeah.”

“Describe it to me.”

He did, remembering the open space with the wooden floor, the sectioned-off corner in the distance.

“It almost sounds like a bar,” Wolf mused. “Like a dance floor.”

Ira frowned thoughtfully. “Not a bar, I don’t think. There was this partition… like a waist-high wall separating it from the other side of the room. And there were these square cubbies against the wall like—oh my God it was the Rink.” He stood, adrenaline flooding his body. He’d seen the Rink many times in his visions. It was important, but he’d never seen how they found it before. He’d thought maybe Alex and Luke would find it on their own.

“Oh your god it was the what?” Wolf repeated.

“The Rink! The Rink! It’s a…” He deflated, recalling how bad it looked in this new vision. “It’s ashithole.” He sat down hard, bouncing on the cushion. He’d seen the finished product, after they’d fixed it up and turned it into what itcouldbe—what itwouldbe.

Wolf sputtered out a laugh. “I’ve never heard you cuss before.”

“It’s gonna take so muchwork. It’sall—” He sighed, carding his fingers through his messy hair. “It’s all going to be so much work. Finding it, clearing it out, cleaning it up, setting up the new operation.” He keeled over, using Wolf’s thigh as a pillow. “We must be getting started soon.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying right now. We’re taking over a skating rink?”

Ira rolled onto his back, peering up at Wolf hopefully. “We?”

Wolf combed his fingers through Ira’s hair. “Of course. Where you go, I go. We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

Ira smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

After a slice of pizza,Ira borrowed Wolf’s phone and went to the bedroom to call Nathan. He didn’t think it was safe enough to meet in-person, so a phone call would have to do. If it were anyone else, he wouldn’t trust them with Wolf’s phone number, but Nathan was different. Nathan was trustworthy.

He sat on the foot of the bed and dialed the number, glancing back at the mussed blankets with a curl of warmth in his chest.

“Hello?” Nathan sounded confused. Ira was surprised he’d answered an unknown number at all.

“Captain, it’s Ira Faer. Are you in a secure location?”

“Um—one moment.” Ira heard the distant clacking of wood meeting wood. He must’ve been out on the training yard. Right, it was almost noon. He’d been up past dawn and slept far later than usual. “Okay, I can talk. What’s up? This isn’t the number you gave us yesterday.”

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