“With any luck, it’ll be over soon,” Alex said. “Has he mentioned, uh, what his plans are after that? We all know dating a demon and working for the guild never works.”
“He knows he’ll have to decide eventually. His time with them is limited, and when he’s ready to leave, he’ll come live with me. We talked about it a little already.” Storm couldn’t hide his smile. “I’m just glad he’s choosing me.”
Wolf smirked, looking at Ira and gesturing at Storm. “Do we all sound so smitten?”
“Yes,” Ira and Alex said in unison.
Talon strolled over, draping an arm around Alex’s shoulders. “What are we talking about?”
“How head over heels all you demons are for us,” Alex said, leaning in to peck a kiss to Talon’s sharp jaw. The simple gesture made Nathan’s absence feel more pointed.
“I’m only head over heels forone,” Talon said.
“AndI’mnot head over heels foranyone,” Shadrach added, stopping between Ira and Storm.
“Yet,” Ira said with a teasing smirk.
“You’re a cruel, cruel man,” Shadrach said. “You say that, but you won’t tell me who.”
“You’ll find out in time,” Ira replied. “I don’t trust you not to ruin things if I tell you too much.”
“Ruin things how?”
“Like… kill him before you’ve met just to avoid messy feelings.”
Storm had to admit, at least to himself, that that was likely. Shadrach was cold-blooded, and as far as Storm could tell, he liked not being beholden to anyone. Even Talon nodded as though this made perfect sense.
“Well, if the future you see always truly happens, that won’t be possible,” Shadrach said. “Free will is just an illusion. Isn’t that right?”
Ira scowled. “I never said free will is an illusion.”
“But if your visions always come true, then it is. There’s nothing any of us can do to change our own futures. These guys were all destined to meet the one they ended up with. Even if I tried to kill my own human, it wouldn’t work. If it did, the entire future you’ve seen would be undone.”
Storm rolled his eyes. These were exactly the kind of circular arguments Shadrach always pulled Ira into. They could go on for hours, because both of them were too stubborn to know when to let it rest. Storm mostly blamed Shadrach, because he was the one who usually started it. Ira was just too confident in his own visions to let Shadrach have the last word.
Ira took a breath to reply—but froze instead, his gaze going distant. A hush fell over the rest of them as Ira was drawn into a new vision.
“Ooh, this should be interesting,” Shadrach murmured softly.
Storm didn’t know if Ira’s visions could be interrupted, but they all tended to wait in silence until they were over, just in case. He suspected they were overly cautious, since Wolf once said Ira fell over and banged his head during a vision and still didn’t come back to himself until the vision was over. If that didn’t bring him out of it prematurely, he doubted a conversation happening around him would be enough to do it. Still, he waited in silence along with the others, wondering what Ira would say when he came back to himself and found them all waiting.
But Ira didn’t calmly come back to himself like he usually did. He sucked down a sharp breath, closed his eyes, and hung his head. His shoulders shook, and he covered his eyes with one hand.
“Oh, God, all those people,” he whispered. “There’s not—enough time.”
“Ira,” Wolf said, reaching across the countertop and taking his hand.
Ira raised his head, his brown eyes shining with tears. He looked around at all of them, and finally, his gaze settled onStorm.
“We need weapons,” he said. “Everybody get a weapon. Alex, Luke, get the holy water. It’s already starting.”
“What’s starting?” Storm asked as Alex and Luke rushed to the weapons table across the room.
Ira sniffled hard. “The guild is under attack.”
Storm’s heart lurched. It took him far too long to identify the emotion asfear.
“Nathan,” he croaked.
