Page 30 of Paris and the Reaper

“Not the ridge,” Mac said. “We’re going to Monte Corvo. In Talahalusi.”

SIXTEEN

Liam turnedoff Talahalusi’s main road and onto a paved drive blocked by iron gates, each adorned with a giant raven, their wings spread wide, and in the middle where the gates met, the letters MC molded in ornate script.

“Not hiding, are you?” Paris said.

“It was called Crow Mountain before our mother’s people settled it.” Liam reached out the window and pressed his thumb to a keypad. “No matter the language, that’s what it means.” The gates swung open, and Liam drove through. “In the light of day, you’ll understand why.”

In the light of the car’s high beams, Paris counted row after row of vines as the road snaked higher. Around one bend, a pair of long barn-like facilities appeared on either side of the road, stretching as far as Paris could see in the dark. Around the next one, a massive mansion—correction, castle—stood majestically on a clearing.

But they weren’t done climbing yet. Liam circled behind the castle and veered off the paved road onto a gravel one, and up, up, up they went, all the way to where the vegetation and trees thinned out and a smaller version of the mansion below set atopthe bluff. “This is the reaper’s perch,” Liam said as he parked in front of the stone steps that led to the front door.

Paris climbed out of the car and wandered to the edge of the bluff. Nothing but darkness below and starlight above. He rotated back to Liam and gestured at the relatively miniature castle. “If Mac lives in this monster, who lives in the bigger one down the hill?” The Cirillos were rich by YB standards, but the kind of wealth that built these structures, that cultivated this land was generational, far eclipsing Paris’s father’s ill-gotten gains. Hell, the real estate value alone dwarfed their compound of penthouse condos.

Liam chuckled. “Me and the rest of the family.”

“Are you sure they’re not all here?” Every light in Mac’s place was on, several other cars were parked in the circular drive, and music played from somewhere inside.

“This is also the team’s main base of operations.” Starting for the front door, his foot had barely hit the bottom step when the door swung open and two children came screaming through, yelling “Daddy!” at the top of their lungs.

“Daddy?” Paris squawked.

“Not that kind,” Liam said with a wink over his shoulder before he kneeled with his arms open for... his kids? “Hello, my tiny terrors.”

They barreled into him, all giggles, and Liam laughed along with them, that full-bellied one Paris had heard before. Now he understood where Liam’s wealth of happiness came from—these two children with the same sharp Kelley nose and black eyes, with skin that was several shades darker, and with brown hair that was coarse and curly. Close in age, if Paris had to guess, around five or six, and the both of them chatty, talking over each other as they told their father what all they’d been up to. Paris caught Icarus’s name several times, the mention of crocheting,and then as fast as they’d appeared, the siblings raced back inside.

Standing, Liam wiped the gravel off his knees, and without the cute distracting chatterboxes, Paris’s confusion retook center stage. “I had no idea you were a dad. Do you single parent, or do you have a partner?”

“That would be me,” came a new voice from the doorway, and Paris swung his gaze her direction. Tall, curvy, with dark skin, black eyes, and brown hair, and ripped biceps that gave away the fact she could probably kick both his and Liam’s asses.

That knowledge, unfortunately, did not reach Paris’s mouth before he said to Liam, “But you flirt with?—”

“Everyone,” Liam’s partner said, her smile belying her beleaguered groan. She sashayed down the steps, hands in the pockets of her patterned dress. “Thankfully, I married him first.”

“Because you’ve known since we were toddlers that I was yours.” He held out an arm, and the woman slid under it, nestled against his side. “Paris, my wife, Rena. Rena, this is Paris.”

“And those rug rats are our kids,” Rena said. “Cherry and Abernathy.”

Paris raised a brow, the contrast between the names stark.

“We let them choose,” Liam said. “And after some back-and-forth, that’s where we’ve landed.”

“For now,” Rena said, and by her tone, Paris fully expected the kids to have different names by tomorrow. Their prerogative.

“I’m sorry I’ve kept Liam away from you all lately,” Paris said as he followed the happy couple inside.

“My parents are winemakers,” Rena explained. “They came here to run the blending operation when I was a baby. I grew up with this one.” She elbowed Liam’s side. “I knew what I was signing up for.”

Liam hugged her close and plastered a sloppy, wet kiss on her cheek that they all laughed over. “The kids should be asleep,” he said as he drew back.

“You tell that to Icarus when he gets back. He bet them a cupcake each they couldn’t out-stitch him. Pretty sure he let them win.”

“That sounds like Icarus,” Paris said, the vampire one of the more mischievous beings he’d ever met. But he was also inherently good-natured; of course he’d let the kids beat him.

“You know him?” Rena asked.

“Quite well,” he replied, heat hitting his cheeks. Impossible for it not to given the very mischievous things, usually involving lace and blindfolds, he and Icarus had gotten up to since the courtesan had arrived in town nine months ago.

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