Chapter 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

The rising sun did little to cut through the naturally occurring fog at the Stick. It painted Mac's windshield with a heavy, windswept mist that would've required wipers if they'd been moving instead of parked. As it were, he could barely make out Liam's raven-shaped form standing sentry on the car's hood as they waited for Jenn's advance team to confirm the giant was nowhere near the altar.

"Tell me why Robin hates Atlas so much." Paris shifted in the passenger seat, angling toward him and pulling up a leg, propping his chin on his knee. "Did Atlas really kill his sister?"

"His twin sister. And her husband."

"I don't follow."

Of course he didn't; he'd only heard bits and pieces of the story, usually in the midst of a heated argument. "Deborah and David were feds," Mac explained. "Adam and I were assigned as their local department contacts. Adam fell in love with them at first sight and married them a month later, conflict of interest be damned." He couldn't help but smile, remembering the Adam—then, Gabriel—of those days. Lighter, hopeful, his heart on his sleeve; a lot like Paris. After their deaths, he'd adopted the name Adam as a cover and drawn into himself, using the phoenix—his Devil—as a boogeyman against Vincent and as a shield to keep others at bay too. Until Icarus had bullied his way past the Devil and into his heart, bringing out a little more of Gabriel every day.

"Was David a coyote too?"

Mac shook his head. "David was a phoenix."

"Fuck." Paris lowered his chin, forehead on his knee, correctly anticipating the worst. "What did my father do?"

"We were building a case against him, were close to nailing him, when he sent an army after us, including Atlas. Deborah got hit with a blast of his magic." Staring out the windshield into the gray mist, Mac recalled that sunny morning ten years ago like it was yesterday. "David overtaxed himself. He was about to flame out, and he carried his wife back to the safe house where they'd left Adam. But Adam wouldn't leave them. David's flameout brought the entire structure down and started a fire that took weeks to put out. Adam was the only survivor."

Paris laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry for your loss." The warmth of his touch dissolved the knot of emotion in his throat, allowing him to tell the most critical part of the story, at least where Robin was concerned.

"Robin wasn't there when it happened. He's a merc, and he was halfway around the world on a job when Deb called the pack. He didn't answer."

"Oh shit."

Mac nodded, the sentiment spot-on. "Robin's as angry at himself as he is at Atlas."

Paris laced his hands around the front of his shin, then rested his temple on his knee, staring out the windshield. "So, if Robin wasn't there, who saw Atlas? You? Adam or Jenn? Someone else?"

"We all saw him."

"And you saw him kill Deb?"

"Me, no," Mac said. "But plenty of others did."

"I don't buy it."

"He was your father's henchman. He was in Vincent's thrall."

Paris righted his gaze, chin propped on his knee. "Then why did he make sure I had the best tutors? Why did he make sure I had the history lessons to understand the context of what's happened to me? Why did he help me help others that worked for my father? Why did he save me from my father's wrath more times than I can count?"

"Why didn't he save you that night we did?"

Paris lowered his knee and raked a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends, frustration bubbling over. "It doesn't add up, Mac."

Mac knew the feeling well. "For the record," he said, "I don't disagree with you." Paris whipped his gaze back to him. "He helped us save Adam and Icarus the night your father was killed. And she knows something she's not telling anyone, about Atlas and all this."

"Maybe you should trust her."

Blind trust didn't come easy, though. Not for a cop and not for someone who'd witnessed allegiances shift and sway through the years. She was Nature, the highest power in their world, but to what end she used that power, and how she moved them all around her chessboard in her game with Chaos, was still a mystery. As someone who solved those for a living, Mac didn't like being kept in the dark. And as someone who found himself miraculously bonded again, falling more in love with the person—the human—in the car beside him each day, he liked it even less. He had too much at stake now; he needed to know the rules and the players, all of them.

His phone beeped with a text, interrupting his darkening thoughts. He read the text from Jenn aloud. "All clear." Paris inhaled deep and straightened in his seat, steeling himself, but the fear in his eyes was unmistakable. Mac cupped the side of his neck. "You don't have to do this."

"I want to," he replied with zero hesitation.

Fuck, he was amazing. Mac hadn't been bluffing when he'd told Robin he'd end him if he laid a hand on Paris. He would go to war for this man, against anyone. He drew Paris closer and kissed him deep, pouring all his affection into the kiss and their bond. "Then I'm with you every step of the way." Exiting the car, they met at the edge of the sandy path that snaked through the sea grass. Mac laced their fingers together, giving Paris's a squeeze. "I didn't get to say it before, but I'm proud of you. For making a stand, for the way you handled your father's assets, and for the way you handled Robin."

"I could do that because of you. My father snuffed it out all my life, but you helped bring it back. Bring me back." Paris returned the earlier kiss, and then they followed Liam's lead through the fog, wind whipping the sea grass and fog around them, soaking them through by the time they reached the clearing where Jenn and Abigail waited. The pack had spread out along the peninsula's land edges, while Liam and the flock of corvids were scattered along the rocky beach behind the remnants of the giant's altar.

As Paris gravitated toward the altar, Mac surveyed the rest of the scene. The charred mounds of flesh and bone in a semicircle, the burnt sea grass around the edges of the scene, the deep stains in the earth. All familiar, reminding him of the ridge, except for the silence.

He joined Paris by the altar, a broken mess of rock and driftwood, the pile of bones from the picture Mary had received gone. "A reaper's been here already," Mac said, and Paris nodded.

But as Paris stepped around the altar, he froze midstride and swung his wide-eyed gaze back to Mac. "Out there," he said with a nod toward the Bay, and as Mac drew closer, he heard it too, a whisper on the edge of the waves.

Paris took off running, scattering crows and ravens as he tripped and slipped over slick rocks. Mac grabbed the back of his jacket, helping him stay upright, but as they hit the edge of the water, there was no stopping Paris from sinking to his knees and plunging his hands into the cold, dark water.

Liam jumped into the air, squawking in alarm.

"I know," Mac said. "I know." His worry ratcheted higher with each passing second, the water lapping at their knees too cold for Paris to withstand, but he was gone from his plane, lost in whatever vision the voice on the waves was sharing with him. In human form, the best Mac could do was curl around his body and keep him warm, then be there for him when he returned.

Which he did after another minute, shivering and pale, and with a purple hue to his brown eyes. Mac gasped. What was happening to him? But before that question could occupy more of his thoughts, Paris stuttered through chattering teeth, "I saw him. The giant who did this."

Mac bundled him in his arms and lifted him out of the water, Jenn and Abigail steadying him as he crossed the rocks back to stable ground. "Can you paint him?"

"I don't need to," Paris said, voice fraught with agony—and terror. "I know who he is."

Mac stumbled. Would've hit the dirt if not for Jenn and Abigail holding them up. "How?"

"He worked for my father."