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“When we were partners, what was the one instinct of mine that was always right?”
Cormac eyed him through his dark lashes, conceding. “Who to trust.”
“I’m not discounting what you’re saying. Vincent knew who to send to me and knew enough about Icarus to figure he wouldn’t take no for an answer. But Vincent miscalculated. The connection between us was immediate, Mac. Same way it was with Deb and David. And just like with them, I knew from the start I could trust Icarus.Me.” Adam tapped his temple. “Not the thing inside me.”
Cormac lifted his face and pinned him with a glare. “You didn’t see what I did out there today.”
If Cormac relied on Adam’s instincts about who to trust, Adam relied on Cormac’s powers of observation. The raven saw everything. “Okay, tell me what you saw.”
Cormac reached between his own spread knees and flattened his palm on the ground. “He put a hand to the ground like this, closed his eyes, and asked Nature to help him. And it did. I fucking felt it, Adam.” He righted himself and mimicked Adam’s earlier motion, except he tapped the center of his chest. “The raven felt it.”
If Cormac saw it, heard it, felt it, then Adam had no reason to doubt it. But he also needed to understand the why and how of it. “I’ll find out.”
“Find out what?” Icarus called behind them.
Adam twisted on the lounger and was struck breathless again by the sight of him. Exiting the house, he strutted toward them, his long limbs, blue eyes, and magenta hair all glowing in the sun. Adam wanted to see more of him in the daylight, assuming Icarus had enough of the other sort in his system to last. “You sure that Daylight will hold?”
“I’m sure.”
He stood and met Icarus at the edge of the pergola. “How do you feel about some time in the sun?”
“You can’t—” Cormac started.
Adam silenced him with a raised hand. “I’m not planning to leave the property. Come find us when the others get here.” He didn’t wait for Cormac’s reply. He grasped Icarus’s hand and tugged him toward the steps that cut into the terraced hill and led toward the northwest sector of the property. He ignored Cormac’s gasp behind them as they continued on the path he hadn’t traversed in a decade.
Icarus stuttered. “Adam, what... where...”
He smiled over his shoulder at the intriguing man both he and the thing inside him wanted. “That conversation I promised you.”
TWENTY
Adam stoodat the bottom of the terraced hill’s steps, the third time he’d had to stop and wait for Icarus to catch up. Not that he minded. Watching Icarus step to the edge of each terrace, close his eyes, and lift his face to the sun was its own kind of joy. Light filtered through his long, burnished lashes, fell across the sharp lines of his cheekbones, and kissed his full pink lips, as if the sun was as happy to spend an afternoon with him as Icarus was with it.
As Adam was with both of them. Joy had been absent from his life for so long.
Icarus lowered his chin, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “You’re staring again.”
“When’s the last time you were out in the daylight?”
“A few months ago.” Ignoring the rest of the steps, Icarus leapt off his present terrace and landed next to Adam.
“Around here?” Adam asked as he started them along the gravel path that bisected two of the vineyard’s lots.
“Portola.”
Where Icarus had lived. In a prior conversation, Icarus had diverted Adam’s follow-up about whether he still had family there. Would he divert again today? “Family visit?”
“Something like that.” He held up a hand, fingers spread. “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been out in the sun since I was turned. You don’t realize how used to the feel of it you are until you can’t bask in it any longer.”
Adam let the diversion go—family clearly not a topic Icarus wanted to get into—and tried another. “How long ago were you turned?”
“Detective Kelley didn’t tell you?”
“He tried multiple times. I wouldn’t let him.”
Icarus drew up short, gravel crunching beneath his boots. “Why’s that?”
“I didn’t need to know then.”
