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“He sent me alone this time.”
Icarus pushed off the end of the counter and peeked inside the bedroom. Sniffed. No one else that he could detect, assuming the warlock—thelyingwarlock—hadn’t disguised their presence. Icarus made a swift lap around the room, checking the other side of the bed, under the bed, in the closet, and in the bathroom. All clear.
Icarus returned to the living area and rested back against the wall opposite Atlas. “You can understand how I don’t trust you.”
“You can understand how I can snap my fingers”—he rotated the hand hanging off the armrest, fingers at the ready—“and he’d be here.”
“Hmm.” Icarus caught the corner of his mouth with a fang. “I don’t think so.”
Their stare down lasted a good half minute before Atlas shifted forward, elbows braced on his knees. “He’s overseeing a healing. There was an altercation with a coyote last night.”
Icarus jolted. “Thatwasyou who followed me.”
“Wasn’t that your intent?”
The opposite was on the tip of Icarus’s tongue. He bit his lip, silencing his too-truthful reply.
“That’s what I thought.” Grinning, Atlas pushed to his feet, brushed down his slacks, and made no effort to disguise that he was still half hard. “We’ll give you another chance.”
Icarus lifted his chin, defiant. “I led you to him. Not my fault he got away.”
Atlas stalked the edge of the plush white rug that lay between the couch and where Icarus stood. “Maybe we found him because of that burning building and not by following you, in which case, your debts are not repaid.”
“What if I could get you the money?”
“From the Devil?”
“Does it matter?”
Atlas stopped directly in front of him. “You know as well as I do that this isn’t about the money.”
“What does Vincent want with him?”
“He’s the last thing standing in Vincent’s way. Time’s short. Vincent’s done fucking with him.”
That explained the five-million-dollar bounty on Adam’s head. But if Vincent had the means to hire assassins... “Why do you need me?”
“Covering all our bases.”
“Why would the Devil be interested in me?”
Atlas’s gaze skipped over Icarus’s shoulder, out of this space and time it seemed, but only for a second before returning to the present. “Everyone has a weakness.”
“He doesn’t know me. I can’t be a weakness.”
The warlock chuckled darkly, a curious mixture of condescension, amusement, and beleaguered resignation. “You’ve got three days, Icarus. Deliver the Devil back to the Canyon Lands by Friday night, and we’ll take care of him. For good.”
Atlas turned toward the door, and Icarus shot out a hand, grabbing his biceps. The warlock’s green gaze snapped back to his—anger, surprise, and something more hiding in the forest. “What does Vincent have over you? You were in his thrall last night, but he’s a human. Their kind can’t—”
“Not everything is about magic.”
“Are you in love with him?”
If the warlock’s earlier laugh had been dark, this one was well past midnight. And so cold, like the frozen tundra way up north with its thinned-out trees and utter desolation. “Do your job, Icarus.” He wrenched his arm free. “Leave me to mine.”
EIGHT
Once he got the stinky,horny warlock out of his apartment, Icarus helped himself to the vodka Atlas had suggested. He poured himself a generous shot and sipped it slowly, savoring the freezer-chilled liquor, letting it cool and calm him after a long, strange night and morning. He needed to be steady—focused—for the hours of work ahead of him.
