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“Charming personality?”
“That’s it. That’s me,” he muttered. “Every night, I wake up and choose joy.”
“Ah, you’re not so bad. You just don’t have much patience. And you don’t suffer fools very well. And then there’s the hangry thing—”
“Okaaaaaay.” He put his dagger hand out, and a split second later felt Beth’s palm slide onto his. “I’m a peach.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure.” Her voice deepened. “If we’re talking fruit, you do like peaches.”
“Mmmm.” Doing a little purring of his own, he deliberately licked his lips. “I do.”
There was a tug on his arm, and then he felt his mate’s kiss on the inside of his wrist.
“Any more of that,” he murmured, “and I’ll be telling George to lie in the bathroom and you to put L.W. in his crib.”
“I think that’s a fine idea—”
The sound of a cell phone vibrating on the bedside table snapped Wrath’s head around. Baring his fangs, he hissed at the thing, curled up a fist, and—
“Nope,” his shellan said. “I’ll get it. At least that way, we won’t need to replace it because you broke the screen.”
As Beth stretched over him, he said, “Don’t feel like you have to.”
“What if it’s something important—”
He palmed the side of her throat and pulled her face into his. Finding her lips was not hard. He’d been doing it without vision for how many years now? And oh, fuck, her mouth was soft and warm and—
She broke off the kiss, and then a second later the ringing stopped. “Hello?”
George let out a chuffing sound, as if he too were interested in who was calling. Which made just the pair of them.
Wrath was not on that list.
“Hey, yes,” Beth said in a serious way, “he’s right here, hold on.”
“Who is it.”
“It’s—”
“Actually, I don’t care.” He put his hand out, and when the phone landed against his palm, he whipped it up to his ear. “What.”
Tohr was as unflappable as ever: “Are you coming to the Audience House tonight, or…? I mean, it’s fine either way, we’re just waiting for you. The civilians are arriving in about fifteen minutes.”
Wrath swallowed curses. “What time is it—”
“Oh, my God,” Beth exclaimed. “It’s nine! How is it nine? It can’t be n—”
“I’ll be there, ASAP,” Wrath said. Then he snapped, “No, don’t cancel anything. I’m fucking coming.”
As the call ended, like Tohr was in a hurry to stop being the messenger, Wrath was in the mood to chuck the Samsung across the room. But then he petted his dog, and replugged into the gratitude. Without Rahvyn, he wouldn’t be bitched about a forgotten schedule of civilian meetings.
He’d be heartbroken and staring off into space with his blind-ass eyes.
“Soon,” he vowed as he went in to kiss his mate again. “You and I are going to Manhattan together soon.”
* * *
Down in the training center’s clinic, Rahvyn awoke alone in a hospital bed—and for a split second, she was confused. Was this after she had saved Nate… or was this—had it been a dream that she had been called to see about the King’s dog?
Sitting up from the pillow, she turned to the door. Had Lassiter even been here—
The panel opened wide, and there the angel was, appearing in the jambs as if she’d summoned him. In his hands, he was holding a tray that was piled so high with snacks and drinks that the mountain nearly reached his chin.
She moved to get to her feet. “Let me help you—”
“Nope,” he said briskly. “You stay there. I’m coming to you.”
As he marched across and put the load down on a rolling tray, the carefully balanced order devolved into chaos, things falling everywhere—and she rushed her hands forward to try to keep the pile intact. There were so many little bags slipping off, however, and the more she attempted to corral them, the more determined they seemed to be to explore the virtues of the tiled floor.
And suddenly she was laughing because Lassiter was batting at them, too, the pair of them playing a silly slap game that turned into some kind of volleying as the chips and pretzels became like balls.
When a fragile equilibrium was finally reestablished, she collapsed back against the pillow, her hands flopping onto her chest as she giggled. “At least I know that I did not dream this.”
Lassiter’s eyes grew serious. “No, it all actually happened.”
As a curl of anxiety tightened her stomach, she resolved to focus on what she might like to eat, and as if the weight of her decision destabilized the forces of snack adherence, one of the bags fell to the floor.
The angel caught it before the Lay’s chips hit. “I may have gone overboard, but I was worried you haven’t eaten for a while.”
While he straightened, she found herself measuring him—and resisted the urge to reach out and touch his arm. Or his shoulder. This is real, she told herself. Her subconscious would not be so inventive as to edit this—what did they call them, again?—vending machine feast into a dreamscape.
