Page 42 of Icarus and the Devil

“I’m sorry about what I said yesterday.”

Robin’s uncharacteristic apology drew Adam out of his thoughts. “Which part?”

“I know you never wanted to be like us.”

“I’m not like you.”

Robin rolled his eyes. “Your body temp isn’t ninety-eight point six anymore.” He propped an elbow on the open window and rested his chin in his hand, golden eyes anywhere but on Adam. “It’s just...”

“Just what?”

“If you die, if what Deb and David did to keep you alive is for naught, then it makes what I didn’t do even worse.”

“Robin, you were halfway around the world—”

His gaze shot back to Adam, hard and angry, the emotions directed one hundred percent at himself. “She called the pack, and I didn’t answer.”

Adam didn’t make an excuse for the truth. That same truth had taken Adam a year to come to terms with before he spoke to Robin again. It had taken Jenn longer.

“I can’t imagine what it must feel like,” Robin said. “To be torn from your soulmates.”

Like someone with claws fiercer than Icarus’s had dug into his chest, ripped out his heart, and left a raging inferno in the hollow space. The Devil moniker wasn’t only about the trouble he caused Vincent. He rubbed a hand over his chest. “Imagine if someone tore the coyote out of you. The heart of you gone. That was what it felt like. What it still feels like.”

Robin gulped, the jagged swallow loud in the quiet car. “I’d want to die too.” His gaze drifted back outside, and silence settled in the car, heavy and full of regret. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

“She knows.”

“Yes, but she’ll believe it from you.” Another truth, but this one made Adam chuckle. Robin smiled, and the melancholy that had filled the car lightened a measure. “How does he make your soul feel?”

Adam didn’t have to ask who Robin was referring to. “I don’t have one left to feel anything.”

Kraa.

Robin laughed. “Even Mac knows you’re lying.”

The light outside the tasting room flicked on.

“Or,” Adam said, “Mac heard Icarus on the move.”

He grabbed the bulging folder off the dash, shoved out of the car, and hustled to the door Icarus had left unlocked, Robin close on his heels. Adam pushed aside the heavy velvet entry curtain just as Nate lurched to his feet from a nearby chaise, blinding Adam with his pale white ass.

“You didn’t come,” the cop said, voice plaintive. His attention was locked on Icarus, who was pulling down his dress and slipping back into his heels—until Robin forced the curtain the rest of the way back, rings clattering on the rod, a blast of cool night air gusting in around them. Nate spun in their direction. “Fuck! Who are you? What’s going on?”

“This is my company,” Icarus said. “From yesterday.”

“But that was—”

Robin growled. “Pull your fucking pants up.”

Nate scurried to comply, fumbling his belt, never taking his wide eyes off Robin. “You’re not human.”

“Neither is your fuck buddy.”

His gaze whipped back to Icarus, who’d gone preternaturally still. “We need you to do us a favor, Nate.”

Nate began backing up. Instinct, Adam presumed, as the only thing behind the cop was a corner. But with him and Robin blocking the door, Icarus the other exit, and Nate’s service weapon on the floor by the chaise, back was the only option for creating more space between him and the threats to his life until Icarus erased that distance in half a breath, zipping across the room. Nate backed the rest of the way into the corner, trembling. “Fuck,” he gasped between short, thin breaths. “You’re a vampire.”

“Who generally doesn’t eat people.” He planted a hand on the wall over Nate’s shoulder, crowding into his space. “I like you, Nate. Please don’t be the exception.”

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