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His eyes flew open. “No!” He made a slow show of moving his hands toward Adam’s face. Adam remained still, his grip on the gun firm. He could pull the trigger, lodge a silver bullet in Icarus’s chest, and end him just as fast as Icarus could snap his neck. But he didn’t, and Icarus lightly clasped his face. “I answered the door tonight because I knew the only hope for either of us was to convince you not to run into the fire again.”
“But Vincent sent you to me?”
“Yes, but I’m trying to make sure they never catch either of us again.” Icarus hoped to hell and back that he’d said enough to convince Adam to let this go. That maybe for once he hadn’t made a complete fucking disaster of the situation.
But his name was Icarus for a reason.
Adam lowered the pistol, wrenched his face free, and turned away. He withdrew his phone with his other hand, tapped at the screen, and brought it to his ear. “Meet me at the pier in twenty,” he told whoever answered on the other end of the line.
“Adam, don’t!” Icarus grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “Please don’t! We can leave together. We can just go.”
Heartbreaking sadness and aching loneliness stared back at him. Adam hung up the phone and tucked it in his pocket. “My name isn’t Adam.”
Icarus skated his hand down Adam’s shoulder, gripping him by the biceps and pulling him closer. “It is to me.”
As gently as Icarus had held his face earlier, Adam returned the gesture, using it to draw Icarus the rest of the way in, forehead to forehead. “Go back to your apartment and wait for that man.”
“Like hell.”
“I can’t protect both of us.”
“You don’t—”
“I don’t know how to turn it off, Icarus. It’s who I am.”
He remembered back to that first night in the bar, how Adam had sensed his approach, how the cop instincts just wouldn’t turn off. Was that what had happened to Deborah and David? Could Icarus bear to put more of that guilt on Adam’s shoulders? “How do I know you’ll come back? That it won’t be someone else knocking on my door?”
Adam shoved the butt end of the gun against Icarus’s chest, forcing him to take it.
Icarus flailed. He didn’t need it, and he sure as fuck shouldn’t handle it if those were silver bullets in the chamber. “I don’t—”
“They’re real bullets, not silver,” Adam said. “In case it’s not me at the door.”
The hole in Icarus’s chest grew wider, and he closed his eyes, leaning more of his weight against Adam. “My name isn’t Icarus.”
“You’ve told me that before.” Adam’s lips brushed his. “But you’re Icarus to me.”
FOURTEEN
It tookevery ounce of willpower Icarus had to not flash his fangs and pin Adam to the ground, to not chase after the Camaro as it disappeared into the fog, to not follow the scent of whiskey and gasoline to wherever Adam was headed. Turning the opposite direction and making his way across town, back to his apartment, was one of the hardest things Icarus had ever done.
Once inside his four walls, staying there wasn’t any easier. Conflicting instincts tore at him—run after Adam or run the fuck out of town. She had lobbied hard for the latter. Icarus had called her on his way home and explained he needed to stay. She hadn’t bought his explanation. She might still win. His bag was packed and ready, or rather repacked for the third time, a fruitless exercise in passing the minutes.
He considered logging on and initiating a live stream or snagging a client for a solo performance, anything to whittle away the hours, but his focus was tenuous at best, and there was a damn good chance Adam’s name would fall from his lips when he came. And Icarus only wanted that to happen once Adam was there and Icarus was buried to the hilt inside him.
An express meal and a long, hot shower finally began to settle him. Steadying his hands so he could pull on his sheer black stockings and the delicate lace jockstrap and garters he’d laid out earlier settled him further. He slid his feet into his favorite heels, wrapped himself in the terrycloth robe, and took his first steady breath since Adam had left him standing behind Benton’s, gun in hand.
He leaned against the bedroom doorjamb, eyeing the weapon on the end of the kitchen counter. It was then he realized the significance he’d missed—or had been too distracted—to comprehend outside the restaurant. Adam had been packing regular bullets, not silver ones. Either Adam didn’t know what he was, or more likely, given his pointed assurance that they were not silver bullets, he did and trusted him enough not to carry silver. Trusted Icarus enough to protect him if other paranormals had attacked them in public.
Icarus pushed off the doorjamb and circled the living room rug, lowering himself onto the far end of the couch. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not unless a coyote or raven showed up on his doorstep and told him Adam was dead. He tossed his phone onto the cushion beside him, braced his elbows on his knees, and scrubbed his hands over his face. Fuck, he hoped that wasn’t how this night ended. He peeked at the time on his phone. He could give Adam a few more hours. He just had to leave himself enough time to get to Portola on foot before the sun came up. It was doable in the dark and would be necessary, as the trains stopped running at midnight.
Hopefully the trek would be unnecessary.
But Icarus’s hope waned, his stomach sank, and his steadiness faltered with each passing hour. He forced himself to stay on the couch but only by the grace of his crochet hooks, yarn, and a half-knitted sweater he’d pulled from his go bag.
The bag sat by the balcony door, taunting him. Screaming silently that he needed to run, and that he needed to run now, screaming louder and louder until hope was a whisper on the cusp of dawn. Sunrise the opposite of the widening black hole in Icarus’s chest, sorrow and sadness for a man—the Devil—he would’ve liked to know better. Whatever fate Adam had met, Icarus was almost certain he didn’t deserve it; no one should die with that much pain and loneliness on their shoulders. It was not a fate Icarus wanted for Adam, but one he had to assume by now had likely befallen him. A similar fate would befall Icarus a second time if he didn’t get the fuck out of there.
Forcing himself to his feet, he retrieved his jeans, a sweater, and his combat boots from his bag, stuffed his knitting inside the outer pocket, and was halfway to the bedroom when a knock sounded against the door.
