Page 54 of Paris and the Reaper

“You just what?”

“Want to be respected,” he said with a shrug, casting his gaze aside.

Mac closed the distance between them once again, physically and through their bond, sending admiration and affection through it. Finger curled under Paris’s chin, he lifted his face and stared into his eyes, wanting Paris to see—to believe—the truth in his. “I respect you. You are smart, caring, andgood.”

A beautiful blush warmed his pale cheeks, heat flickering in his eyes too. “You’re not exactly impartial.”

He didn’t take the tempting bait. Gliding his hand lower, he cupped the side of Paris’s neck. “Everyone here respects you.”

“Except Robin.”

“Robin doesn’t respect anyone.”

Paris’s watery laugh under his palm felt like victory. He wanted more of those laughs—Paris needed more of those laughs after the day he’d had—and Mac knew just where to get them.

“Put the stuff back in the fridge,” he told Paris.

“I was going to make us dinner. I’ll find not gross stuff.”

Mac shook his head. “There’s something else I want to do instead.”

“What’s that?”

“Introduce you to my parents.”

Adam and Icarus had graciously surrendered their meadow for the family Samhain gathering. A pavilion stood in the middle of the clearing, round tables and chairs scattered underneath, a long buffet table at one end that in a few days would be overflowing with the bounty of their harvest. Mac leaned against a pole, eavesdropping as his mother animatedly explained to Paris how everything would be set up, what all would be served. Paris oohed and aahed in all the right places, asking about recipes and offering some of his own. All of it genuine, his mother taking to him right away, and when the topic of bread came up, Paris won a mega fan in his father too. Just as Mac had suspected he would. Same as Paris had won Liam over from the start, then Rena and the kids; even Declan had warmed up to him over the past hour as they’d helped with the setup.

Because as Mac had told Paris in the kitchen, he was good. Caring and smart, a kind soul who was loyal to his friends, who’d made sure they were protected, who still carried guilt over the one he’d betrayed, and who’d helped save the pregnant then-stranger now laughing at a table with Mary and Kai. Even if Mac had saved Paris’s soul out of some selfish instinct, it had been the right call, because he hadn’t truly known then what Paris’s soul deserved. Not like he did now.

“You’re in love with him,” Adam said, the truth not startling, nor the man, his footsteps heavier now that he was human again. He leaned against the next pole over, arms crossed, gaze tracking Icarus as he and Jason chased Cherry and Abernathy around the tables with the gingham cloths they were supposed to be spreading on each, not trying to wrap the kids up in them.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Mac said. “When you told me how you felt about Icarus. I get it now.”

“In fairness, you took a few days longer.”

Mac shook his head, a small resigned smile—fate—making his lips curve. “He grabbed hold that night at the altar, and I didn’t deliver him.”

Gasping, Adam shot off the pole. “He’s on your list?”

“Has been since that night.”

Adam clasped his shoulder. “Mac?—”

“There may be a way around it,” he said, cutting off the sympathy that threatened in his friend’s voice. He didn’t need condolences. He needed a miracle, the same kind that had held his family together once before. “My father was on my mother’s list. That’s the real reason they retired.”

Adam’s gaze drifted back out under the tent, to where Paris stood chatting with his parents. “They’re still here. Happy and healthy.”

Mac’s attention drifted elsewhere, to his brother snatching up his kids midrun, hauling them under his arms, all of them laughing, free and easy, unburdened. His gut churned. “I don’t know if I can do it to him.”

“Liam wants it, Mac. He’s ready.”

“But Rena and the kids . . .”

“Will keep him grounded. And when it’s Declan’s turn or one of the kids’, it’ll pass to them. No one expects you to do this forever, except you.”

He swung his gaze back to Adam. “So Paris and I just go off to our happily ever after?”

Adam chuckled. “You two would fail at that as badly as me and Icarus. Paris has a gift, and so do you, as a detective and as a raven with acute observation skills. Those won’t go away just because you give up the reaper. And we’ll all help Liam because that’s what family does.” He squeezed his shoulder and gifted Mac one of his rare smiles, though thanks to Icarus, they were coming more frequently again these days.

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