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“We?” he croaked as he gathered Adam closer, protecting him from all possible threats.
She flattened a hand on the green dome, and the magical shield shone so bright Icarus had to slam shut his eyes, stars sparkling behind his lids. “He’ll help me channel the power. Back into the life force, back into Nature.”
A gentle hand on Icarus’s shoulder urged his eyes back open and drew his gaze to the violet one by his side. Sanity in the swirling storm, an ally like he’d been that day in the Canyon Lands. The man in Icarus’s arms was his only concern too. “I’ll stay with his soul,” Cormac said. “Whichever way he chooses.”
Fear gripped Icarus’s insides and twisted his gut in a stark reminder of that awful feeling from the day he was turned, that awful, heavy emptiness that had invaded his soul and that had only begun to lighten when Adam Devlin crossed his path. No, not only Adam—the Devil and Gabriel too. Especially Gabriel, who had already lost so much. Icarus would not curse that man or any part of the man he loved to more emptiness. Not when it was the antithesis of what he wanted. “What if I turn him?” He’d never bit anyone before. He didn’t know how this fucking worked. Never wanted to. “This, me, eternal life, it’s not what he wants. You know that as well as I do. He wants peace. He fucking deserves it.”
“So do you.” Cormac squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll stay with yours too.”
Icarus gulped. “Which direction?” The same question he’d posed just days ago. He hadn’t imagined they’d be revisiting it so soon.
“Whichever direction the two of you choose.”
He flicked his gaze to Mary. Nature was driving the show, but misery shone from his sister’s hazel eyes. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too, always.” He turned his eyes back to the raven, the too-gentle reaper. “Is back here an option?”
Adam shifted in his arms, his lips moving against the underside of Icarus’s jaw. “Icarus, it’s okay. I’m not afraid anymore. Not with you. Never with you.”
“I can’t,” he choked out on a sob. “I can’t hurt you.” He pressed their foreheads together again. “Your soul has hurt enough already.”
“Not hurt. Free.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Wherever you are, that’s free.”
Icarus drew back enough to meet his eyes, the phoenix there glowing red, only a thin ring of blue-gray left at the edge of his fiery irises. Enough of him left for Icarus to beg and plead with, to confess the only truth that mattered. “I love you. I need you to come back to me.”
“You come back to me too.” One final kiss, his breath searing hot, the phoenix rising, before he leaned his head back and bared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing around a last whispered “I love you.”
Instincts Icarus had ignored the past however many minutes, the past week, the past thirty years rushed to the surface. And for the first time since he’d been turned, he gave in to them. Gave in to the hope of love. Of peace and a place that was free of emptiness. A place for Michael at Gabriel’s side, forever.
Icarus sank his fangs into the Devil’s neck and flew into the sun.
FORTY-ONE
Michael loved fuckingin the sun. Loved the heat on his skin, the sweat dripping down his spine, the slick glide of his body against Gabriel’s flushed and equally sweaty one beneath him.
Correction: Michael loved fucking Gabriel in the sun.
Loved Gabriel, period.
The handsome man beneath him chuckled. “You’re drifting again.”
Michael smirked. “As long as I drift while riding your dick, do you care?”
“Not a damn bit.” Gabriel grasped his hips and thrust up. “But I’m close.”
Michael groaned and tipped back his head, savoring every degree of warmth, every inch of fullness, every racing beat of his pulse, and every second of the second chance he and Gabriel had been given.
They had earned it.
Gabriel bent his knees and bumped him forward, chest to chest as they picked up the pace, rocking their hips faster, Gabriel thrusting deeper. “I need to come, baby.”
Michael pushed back on him harder, driving him deeper, as he flattened his palms on either side of his head, wild mustard under his palms and fresh dirt under his short blunt nails, the smell of earth only adding to the intoxicating moment. He buried his face in his lover’s neck, adding sweat and lingering whiskey to the scent cocktail, as he kissed and sucked a path to Gabriel’s ear. “We come together.”
Gabriel snaked his arms around him, sliding one hand down to palm his ass and plowing the other into his hair, fingers curling in the magenta and ginger strands, holding him close from top and bottom. “We burn together.”
Michael exploded, spilling hot, sticky come between them, moaning as he rode back onto Gabriel’s cock and watched the body beneath his arch so beautifully. Gabriel came soon after with a shout, filling Michael up. Filling his heart and life with so much warmth and love.
Love that had held their souls connected and guided them back to this world together.
