Page 45 of Paris and the Reaper

“I woke up, and you weren’t there.” He covered Paris’s hand with his, holding it over the spot where their bond hummed. “I couldn’t feel you here.”

“I couldn’t risk it. Not until I firmed up control. And I couldn’t risk Pati and her child either.” He glanced away from the ocean and up at him, brown eyes searching. “They’re okay? She told Kai when they were on the phone, but I?—”

“Safe and sound,” Mac reassured him, carding his fingers through his hair. “And two other victims as well. You did good, Paris.”

“I can do more good.”

Sighing, Mac closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the same of the too good man in his arms.

“I’m here because of you, Mac,” Paris gently pressed. “You helped me find the confidence to own this, to use it for good.”

“You’re a target, Paris. For everyone who wants this, and for the giant who knows exactly where you are now.”

Paris shivered and lowered his head, resting back against Mac’s chest and looking out at the calming ocean. “It really wasn’t him?”

Mac coasted a hand up and down his spine. “It was the one from the ridge.”

“Why did I see the other one then?”

“He’d likely been there too. Maybe it was him when you saw them.”

A beat of comfortable silence later, Paris inhaled deep and straightened in his arms, lifting his chin and meeting his gaze. “Let me do this, Mac. There’s a wealth of information and connections here. We can use this for good, against the giants and Chaos.”

Like Mac could argue him anything when he blazed with such confidence and conviction. But he could lay down some ground rules for the sake of safety and the bond between them. “No running off without telling me the plan.”

“I’ll try.” Mac opened his mouth to object, but Paris’s raised hand stalled him again. “I act before I think sometimes. My heart gets ahead of my head, but that’s me, Mac. I’ll try to be better, but I can’t say I won’t ever do it again. And for the record, I did have a plan yesterday morning, hours to think about it as I painted, but then I saw you asleep so soundly, and you needed it so much. I couldn’t bear to wake you.”

Mac lightly grasped his chin, drawing him in for a kiss, to whisper against his lips, “Next time, wake me.” He drew back and brushed wavy brown strands off the pretty face that had become the center of his world. A world he had no choice but to bring Paris all the way into now. “All right, then,” he said. “But ifwe’re going to do this, we need to discuss it as part of the bigger plan, with everyone.”

TWENTY-SIX

Mac wassurprised it took Paris until they were halfway down the hall to ask, “What is this place?” Between the corner unit’s boarded-up windows, the steel back door they’d entered through, and the old barrels and stacked weapons crates that crowded the hallway, it was a confusing place for any uninitiated.

Mac chuckled. “Kai asked the same thing when he first came here. It used to be a distillery tasting room. We acquired it from the lender who was going to foreclose. It serves as our base of operations here in YB since?—”

“Since your father torched my house,” Adam said, and Mac cut a glare his direction. He sat beside Jenn at the bar, Icarus behind it pouring vodka into shot glasses.

“No,” Paris said, hand on his forearm. “That’s fair. I’ll make you whole,” he said to Adam. “As soon as I get access to the necessary accounts.”

“Don’t do that,” Icarus said. “Your father took a lot, from a lot of people. You’ll be broke before you know it.”

“Yes, but I betrayedyou,” Paris said to him, voice earnest. “One of the few people who was good to me, so when this is done, let me help you.”

The courtesan slid two shot glasses onto the bar for Adam and Jenn, then brought a third out from behind the bar and handed it to Paris. “He’s loaded,” he said with a head tilt toward Adam. “Being the Devil pays well. So you don’t need to help us but thank you. And you were always good to me too.” He pecked Paris’s cheek, then flitted over to sit on the corner of the table where his sister worked on her laptop, oblivious to the mounting tension of her surroundings.

Most pointedly coming from the coyote across the room, one booted foot propped against the wall, his flannel-covered arms crossed over his broad chest. “Can we get down to business?” Robin said. “I want to know how much longer I have to be here.”

“Atlas has outrun you this long,” Icarus said. “How much longer are you going to keep chasing him?”

“Until I catch him.”

“I told you,” Mary said, not looking up from her laptop. “You’ll get your turn.”

“Clocks tickin’, sweetheart.”

Mac cleared his throat. “I don’t believe you two have formally met. Robin, this is Paris. Paris, this is Robin.”

Paris stepped to the center of the room, hand outstretched, and Robin, predictably, didn’t move from his post on the wall. “Exactly how did you take control of your father’s operation in less than twenty-four hours?”

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