4
“Anyone know what this is about?”Julia asked curiously as they headed inside the elevator.
Morgan shook his head.
It was the morning after Lilaia’s baby shower. Strickland had called them an hour ago and requested his team’s presence at Argonaut. He’d refused to tell them why, except to state that they should get there ASAP.
Morgan could not stop the twinge that tightened his chest when he glanced at Cassius. The demigod had hardly slept last night, Loki’s words weighing heavily on his mind once more after they’d finished making love. Instead, he’d lain quietly in Morgan’s arms, his fingers hot where he’d tucked Morgan’s hands against his heart, his steady breaths warming Morgan’s throat. He’d woken Morgan at dawn, his touch and his kisses carrying a hint of desperation that had tugged at Morgan’s soul, his hips undulating sensuously as he’d ridden Morgan and claimed the pleasure only he could give him.
They both knew not to take Loki’s foreboding lightly.
Unfortunately, the imp hadn’t been able to elaborate further on the vision he’d had when they’d questioned him that morning before they’d left the apartment. All he could say for certain was that he had sensed Cassius’s despair and Morgan’s pain deep within it.
There hadn’t been any sign of Elios since London.
Could the darkness Loki saw be Elios himself?He clenched his jaw.Is he finally preparing to attack Earth, like Regina foresaw?
He was distracted from his grim thoughts by Cassius stroking his knuckles lightly across the back of his hand. Morgan turned his palm over, clasped his lover’s fingers, and flashed him a comforting smile. Cassius’s worried expression smoothed out.
The elevator door opened on the tenth floor of the building that housed the San Francisco branch of Argonaut, bringing with it a drone of voices. The bullpen was starting to fill up with agents on the day shift.
“Hey,” Zakir Singh said morosely when he spotted them.
The Argonaut wizard looked like he had something weighing on his mind.
“What’s wrong?” Zach asked.
“You tell me.” Singh cocked a thumb in the direction of Strickland’s office. “I haven’t seen that many VIPs in his office since, well—never.”
Morgan traded a troubled glance with Cassius and the others. They headed briskly for the director’s room. Cassius slowed as they approached the door.
His face brightened. “Oh.”
Morgan’s pulse accelerated when he sensed what his demigod lover had felt a heartbeat before him.
Cassius entered Strickland’s office ahead of them. His gaze found the man his soul core had recognized. “Theo!”
Theophile Serrano turned where he sat on a couch next to Victor Sloan. A smile as bright as the sun lit his handsome features. Gold sparked in his pupils. He jumped to his feet and met Cassius halfway across the room.
“Cassius!”
They hugged each other fiercely, their faces full of affection.
Theo wasn’t just the new South Star. He also carried a fragment of the soul of Rohengar, Cassius’s older brother and the demigod who had been destined to rule Rain Vale. Though he had been born in the human realm and was not of divine descent, Theo had been chosen by a mysterious Fate yet to be revealed to become the fourth Guardian of the Nether.
Victor cocked an eyebrow at Morgan. “You look like shit. Is the imp giving you a hard time?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Morgan grumbled.
Now that Loki had unburdened himself of his troubles, the imp was back to his sardonic self. A feeling of fellowship danced through Morgan as he beheld the demon who headed Cabalista. It was a sharp contrast to how he’d felt about him a few months ago, when he’d realized Victor had been the first to gain Cassius’s affections after the Fall.
Morgan had truly despised the demon at the time.
Cassius had been Morgan’s fated soulmate in their past life, just as he was in this one. The knowledge that Victor had claimed the demigod in intimate ways had ripped Morgan’s heart apart when he’d finally recalled their true identities as Ivmir and Icarus and the soul bond that linked them. Add to this the truth Victor had recently revealed, about being the one who had inflicted the scar on Morgan’s chest during the War in the Nether, when he’d fought by Elios’s side as the dark demigod Coraos, and it was a miracle Morgan could talk to the guy without wanting to stab a sword through his heart.
Whether it was because they now knew themselves to be brothers birthed from the same Goddess mother, or because of their shared experiences and the battles they had fought alongside one another since Cassius had come to San Francisco, the antagonism that had existed between them had faded. Morgan knew Victor had done everything he could to subconsciously atone for his sins ever since he fell to Earth. Sins that had almost rendered the demon mad with grief when he’d recalled them.
It had taken time and Theo’s arrival into their lives for Victor to start to forgive himself. Even then, a sad light occasionally darkened his gaze when he looked at Cassius, as if he were wishing he could undo all his past deeds and the many ways he had wronged the demigod who wielded Heaven’s Light.