Page 56 of Vanish Into Light

Since Gavin and Morgan still looked dead on their feet, Beck decreed it a morning of library research, and donned his long, black coat, so much like his old one, but retrofitted to account for his wings.

“Where are you going?” Lance asked, and Rose could hear a new note in his voice: less frustrated commander losing ground, more worried friend. His frown was different, too, edged faintly with distress.

Beck could sense this, if the brief softening of his expression was anything to go by; it was the same swift grace he’d always offered her, that glimpse of the care that lay beneath the surface. “I won’t be long, but I need to speak to Damien again.” He cocked a single brow. “I’m assuming you don’t want to be led into temptation again, Lieutenant.”

Lance blushed, and turned his face away, muttering.

Beck grinned, then turned and kissed Rose. “I won’t be long.”

She watched from the library window as he leaped from the top of the front steps, unfurled his wings, and lifted up into the streaking rain, tail whipping behind him like a rudder.

Then she went to pull books along with the others.

They were using the room’s central table as a kind of hub, where useful passages had been marked and stacked for a group discussion, later. But there were lots of little nooks along the edges of the room, and that was where Rose settled in a moth-eaten chair, beside a small, inlaid table, with a stack of mildewed texts.

The king of hell, Beck had said, and, with an image of the painting he’d shown them yesterday fresh in her mind, she scanned the pages for talk of Lucifer.

Booted footfalls heralded Lance’s arrival. He snagged the nearest chair and dragged it over, its feet scraping and squealing across the tile. He winced at the noise, and then dropped down beside her, casting a quick glance toward the others, spread out on the opposite side of the library.

“You don’t seem that worried,” he observed, in an undertone.

Rose shrugged. “Beck can take care of himself. If he wants or needs help, he’ll ask for it.”

Lance snorted. “Pretty glib coming from you of all people.”

She marked her place with a finger, and fixed him with a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her tone had him stiffening, and turning toward her slowly, expression guilty. “Nothing.”

Rose bit back a smile. A rather mean one, she knew. “Look at you.”

“What?”

“You spent five years trying to talk me into forgetting him, and after one night you’re fretting like a schoolgirl.”

The quip didn’t land. He frowned. “I never wanted you to forget him. I just didn’t want you to get yourself killed in an effort to join him.”

She sobered. “I know.”

“Besides: you wouldn’t have ended up in hell even if you did.”

“Your problem,” she said, feeling another, truer smile threaten, “is that you have too much faith in people.”

His brows lifted. “You think you would have wound up in hell?”

Her throat ached, suddenly; her belly tightened unpleasantly on breakfast. “Yes.” It was the truth; she’d always thought that, and it wasn’t even something that had worried her.

For his part, Lance looked shocked. Startled, even. “Rose.”

She shrugged to keep from squirming. It was so easy, face-to-face with him like this, to see exactly what Beck meant when he called Lance good, and noble, and honest. He was all those things, simple as that. “It doesn’t matter, now,” she said. “Beck’s here.”

“Beck’s here,” he echoed, gaze withdrawing, becoming reflective. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hands flexing in his lap. Was he thinking of Beck’s head pressed back into the pillow, his throat taut, his whole body clenched as he’d come between them, release splashing his own stomach, and Lance’s too? That’s what Rose thought of, now. Thought of the way Lance’s thumbs had dug into Beck’s sharp hipbones, how he’d moaned, low and broken, as his hips ground forward, and he came inside of him.

She thought, too, of how Lance had nearly fallen, after, spent and overcome – but how he’d caught himself on his hands, and nudged at Beck’s nose with his own, until their mouths could fit together: a kiss full of gratitude and tenderness, just as Lance’s touch had been, as he’d pulled out, and urged Beck over onto his side, stroking his arm, his ribs, while Rose gathered him close and buried her face in his black hair. Beck had been shaking.

Lance tipped his head toward the rest of their Company, and said, “Do you think they know? About…” He chewed at his lip, tongue flicking over the scab where Beck’s fang had nipped him.

She cast a glance toward the others. All but Gavin were bent over a book; he was staring at them, expression caught somewhere between a glare and something like fear. He’d never looked on her with anything like affection; this was about Lance, she knew, with a sympathetic pang for him. Gavin had thought he knew Lance, but this turn of events had left him flummoxed, clearly.

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