Page 85 of Vanish Into Light

When they reached the mansion, the first thing she noted was the dark windows. They didn’t leave many lights on, but usually a few in the library, and the sconces to either side of the front door. The house was dark, its windows black; the façade resembled a downturned, grieving face.

Beck didn’t bother with the door. He folded his wings, and dove down through the gaping hole in the atrium roof. Her stomach somersaulted as he righted them in midair, and landed lightly, feet-first on the tiles of the great hall. Rain poured in all around them, the splatter of it against the floor as deafening as a waterfall. Beck’s wing lifted, immediately, as a makeshift umbrella, and he towed her into the shelter of the hallway with an arm around her waist.

She was shaking – and not because she was cold and wet.

They hadn’t spoken, at least not since he’d pressed her back against the wall of his old bedroom and swallowed up every sound she made. He hadn’t made her any promises, save those he made with his body – hadn’t reassured her that there was a way to right things without falling on Michael’s sword. The light in his eyes was strange as she turned to him, now – resigned, but peaceful…peaceful in a way that left her heart leaping up into her throat.

Beck, don’t be a martyr. He’d never known how to give a damn about his own wellbeing. Only hers.

She had no idea what to say to him.Staysounded too desperate, too selfish – but she was drowning. Her lungs hurt, and herhearthurt, and she had to saysomething, had to try again.

She opened her mouth without a clear plan, only a tight, hot ball of emotion in her chest–

And Gallo came running toward them, carrying one of the battery lanterns, soles of his boots slapping on the hardwood. “Guys. Shit.” He was panting when he pulled up in front of them, his forehead creased with worry. “We’ve got a problem.”

The radar screen Tris showed them, when they arrived in the library, looked like nothing she’d ever seen before. “Shit,” she said on instinct, stomach twisting.

“We’ve been trying to get in contact with Bedlam for the past twenty minutes, ever since the radio and all our comms died,” Gallo explained. They’d lit candles in various ornate sticks and set them up on the table, their flames wavering and smoking; the smell of hot wax tickled her nose unpleasantly. “We’ve got thirty-percent power left on Tris’s tablet, and more than that on our phones, but we’re not able to get hold of anyone at base.”

“Conduits have been attacking them,” Tris said. His face was even more of a granite slab than usual, his mouth a thin, grim line. “There’s been casualties, she said, right before the transmission got cut off.”

“She wants us to abort the mission,” Gavin said. His expression was wooden, his tone flat and unhappy. He’d reached some kind of breaking point, Rose thought, distantly. Sue her, she didn’t really care. He was alive thanks to Morgan and Beck’s combined efforts. If he wanted to act like a child about it all now, fuck him.

“We couldn’t get back to base right now even if we wanted to,” Gallo reasoned. “If we got on the road now, we’d be right in the thick of that storm.”

“We’re not going,” Rose said, firmly.

Three pairs of brows lifted in response – Gavin’s the highest.

“Cap said to abort, the storm of the century’s bearing down on us, but, nah, let’s just stay.”

“Where do you want to go, Gavin?” she countered. “We’ve got no backup, no air support, there’s no power – probably not in the whole city. What should we do?”

“We have to – to do something!” His voice went high and desperate, pulse flickering visibly in his throat.

“And we will,” Beck said, low and soothing. “But I think it’s best to hold steady here and ride out the storm. If we get attacked on the streets by conduits in this sort of weather” – an awful crash of thunder punctuated the words – “I don’t think it’ll go well.”

“And Morgan – er, Michael? – is still asleep,” Gallo said.

“Well, see?” Beck said, with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “We’ll definitely need our archangel if we want to get out of the city in one piece. So we wait. For the storm to pass, or for Morgan to wake: whichever happens first.”

~*~

Lance woke to the cracking boom of thunder – and to the dip of the mattress beneath him.

The room was so dark, it took him a moment to realize that his eyes were in fact open, and that the lamps he’d had on before had been doused. A brilliant flash of lightning lit up the figure seated beside him – Rose, wrapped in a robe – before the room fell dark again, and her small, warm hand settled on the back of his neck. He knew the pattern of calluses on her palm – smooth spots from the hilts of her knives; they shined in lamplight, firm as river pebbles against his skin, now.

The mattress shifted again, behind him. He was lying on his stomach, arms braced beneath his head, legs slightly spread – and that was where he felt the weight of someone kneeling. Hands landed on his back; pricks of sharpness dug through his shirt. Claws. Beck.

Between one flash and the next, and the resulting growl of thunder, he heard a different sort of growl, low and animal, as Beck leaned down, and settled most of his weight over Lance’s back.

Warm breath, and then warmer lips brushed his ear, and Lance shivered, even before Beck’s voice, warm and soft as velvet, murmured, “Hello, my Lancelot.”

Lance shivered again, and resisted the urge to lift upward, to push himself back against Beck’s body heat.

Rose stroked up the back of his head, digging her blunt, trimmed nails against his scalp – and then down again, back to his neck, rubbing little firm circles with her fingertips.

Beck’s fangs trailed delicately over the shell of his ear. His hands smoothed out across the width of Lance’s shoulders, down his arms, down his spine. They settled over Lance’s ass, and squeezed. “You remember what I said that first night? In the shower?”

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