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He pushed off the pillar and followed the sandy path along the reflecting pool’s edge, scattering the crows there. He approached behind Icarus, wound his arms around his waist, and drew him close, back against his front.
Icarus melted, hands covering Adam’s where they rested at his waist. “This is the outparcel?” he asked, bemused.
“They could never get anything to grow up here for all the crows.” He pressed his lips to Icarus’s sun-warmed shoulder, and Icarus shivered. “Hence the name.”
“Hence the name.” His shiver lengthened into a roll, aligning their bodies closer but taking it no further, no doubt attuned to Cormac moving around in the house, moving in their direction. “Why does Cormac live up here alone? At least one of his parents is also a shifter.”
“Both are, and as are his siblings. But once Cormac was old enough, his parents chose to create life instead of ferrying it elsewhere. The burden fell to the oldest.” To the man approaching behind them, steps heavy, scuffing in the dirt, as if they needed the warning. As if his tossing peanuts on the ground for the crows didn’t cause a loud enough flurry.
“I get that,” Icarus said, voice full of familiar melancholy. Adam held him tighter, not loosening his embrace even as Cormac joined them under the pergola.
“Jennifer and Abigail called,” he said. “They got out safely with your Camaro.”
Icarus dropped his head back. “Thank fuck for that.”
Adam chuckled, a cover for his own relief, not about the car, but about two of his best soldiers surviving today’s shitstorm. Abigail had been instrumental in two rescues this week after months of undercover work inside the Cirillo organization. She was a wealth of information and skill they couldn’t afford to lose. And Jennifer... well, Jenn was a professional—and family. “Tell them to go by the house and grab what they can. Weapons are the priority. What about Robin?”
“A few hours out. On his way back from a job.”
Icarus righted his head and shifted in Adam’s arms, enough to split a glance between him and Cormac. “The growly coyote?”
Adam nodded.
“He took a job elsewhere?” Icarus scoffed. “In the middle of all this?”
Adam appreciated the affront on his behalf, but this wasn’t even the biggest shitstorm Robin had missed. Robin would carry the guilt of not being there the day his sister had died until he met the same fate. But that particular absence hadn’t made him any more attentive to matters at home. If anything, his perceived failure only pushed him further into his ill-advised quest. “Robin does what Robin does.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Let it go,” Adam gently chided.
There was nothing gentle about the strength Icarus used to shove out of his arms. No longer hiding what he was, Icarus took a giant step forward and spun on his heel. “Also, how is this hiding?” He spread his arms and circled in place. “We’re in a villa on top of a bald hill.” He gestured between Adam and Cormac. “And you two are ex-work partners and still tight. They’ve seen you”—he pointed directly at Cormac—“at both incidents. And the name of this fucking hill isCrowMountain. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but even I can figure this shit out. Won’t Vincent and company figure out the same?”
Adam eyed the crows that had reassembled along the water’s edge, none of them startled by their raised voices or Icarus’s erratic movements. “Good luck getting through them to us.”
“And I can have more here in an instant,” Cormac added.
Icarus snapped shut his lips, but lingering doubts danced across his furrowed brow. Adam stepped forward, only to have Icarus move in the opposite direction. “I need to make a phone call,” he said, then asked Cormac, “Can I use your study?”
Cormac nodded, and Icarus trudged toward the house, his combat boots kicking up enough dirt to clear a narrow path among the crows who were busy picking apart peanut shells.
“What is this?” Cormac asked as he pointed at Adam, then at the door where Icarus had disappeared into the house. “What’s between you two?”
“I don’t know,” Adam replied. “I’m just...” He tore his gaze from the house. “I’m drawn to him.”
“That’s not you.” Cormac sank sideways onto one of the loungers, elbows braced on his knees. “That’s the thing inside you.”
Adam had considered that, of course—his heat drawn to Icarus’s cold, the promise of rebirth drawn to walking death. The thing inside him was sparked by certain situations, by certain emotions, by certain instincts, all of which Icarus fired. But Adam was practiced with keeping the Devil buried for everyone’s sake, that kid the other night an example of what could happen if he ever let the thing inside him loose. But the Devil wasn’t the only part of him that Icarus appealed to. There was also the cop who recognized someone in need of protection and the submissive in need of someone to handle him the way Icarus had so expertly done. Adam lowered himself onto the lounger across from Cormac. “It’s some of me too. More of me than it’s been in a long time.”
“You’ve known him less than a week.”
“I slept with Deb and David the night I met them. The two feds I was supposed to be working a case with. I married them a month later.”
“For a cop, some of your instincts are shit.”
“When you fall in love, then we’ll talk.” Adam instantly regretted his words, Cormac’s immediate flinch as good as any punch. He’d been on the cusp of love once and had had it so cruelly snatched away that he’d sworn to never tempt that fate again. He’d only told Adam about it one night after too much bourbon, after a ferry that had hit too close to his own heartache decades before. “Shit, Mac, I’m sorry.”
Cormac wiped away the pain the next second, face blank again. “You’re right. I don’t know. I can’t risk that. But it doesn’t mean I don’t worry about the risks you take.” He closed his eyes and hung his head, hands clasped behind his neck. “Vincent Cirillo sent Icarus after you. How do we know he’s not still working for him?”
