“I know,” I repeated.
Darby crept forward, tail thrashing in a display of indignation I couldn’t help but admire. He was brimming with spitfire and sass, and something quieter too. Struggle. I saw it knitted between his snow-white brows.
“Zeph’s a sweet kid. He’s still trying to find his place here, and I introduced you because I thought…” He blinked hard enough to flinch when he registered my words at last. “Youknow?”
“Yes.”
The tension binding Darby’s narrow shoulders seemed to loosen. “Well, good,” he muttered. “That’s a start.”
The twins exchanged a look while I drew my first easy breath since the climb.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Darby waved me off. “Save it for Zephyr.”
I nodded. “I’d like to. Where is he?”
Colt crossed his arms. “Not here.”
“What?” I squawked. “You mean you let me…” I flung my arm toward the sheet rope draped over the window ledge. “Youmademe do that, and he’s not even here? Where is he?”
Smolder scratched one of his horns. “Probably at the Basilica.”
“The Basilica?” I echoed. “Why?”
“Mazzy plays cards there,” Smolder replied. “With the angels. It’s a regular thing, but this… wasn’t regular.”
Colt scowled. “He just went last week. It ain’t time yet.”
Darby spoke quieter now. “He brought some clothes for Zephyr to wear. Had me do his makeup.”
“To go to a card game?” I couldn’t keep the grit out of my voice.
Darby looked down at the flowers cradled in his arms, leaving Smolder to fill the silence.
“We ain’t usually invited. Angels don’t like…” He flicked a glance around our group, then bounced his shoulders. “You know.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I know.”
Maslow couldn’t be up to anything good. Dragging Zephyr across the Strip’s invisible dividing line and into enemy territory wasn’t a casual outing. It was strategy. Provocation. Maybe punishment.
The Basilica was the last place in the world I wanted to go. Let the feathered fucks hold their holy ground. I’d never envied them their piety or their power. I knew my place, and I was comfortable in it. Too comfortable, apparently. Loitering in my stale office or lording over the city from my private suite, letting eternity pass me by.
Coming here had embarrassed me, but it also remindedme of things I should never have forgotten. Like how it felt to want something I wasn’t sure I could have. Like how easily people—youngpeople—got caught in the gears of things bigger than them. These three, trapped in this cell of a room, were all cogs in Maslow’s machine. Somehow, so was I.
I glanced at Darby, who looked deflated but firm, and wary enough to make it clear this was a test that I’d better not fail.
“You’re gonna work for this, Becky.”
I sure as hell was.
Stepping toward the window, I glanced down. The sheet rope dangled outside, swaying in the breeze. In the lot below, Colette had exited the limo and leaned against the driver’s door. Seeing me, she waved, and I sighed.
“The Basilica, huh?” I muttered, torn between dread and a growing sense of concern for my incubus. The idea of Maslow parading him into that gilded hell and auctioning him to the highest bidder made my body tighten with rage.
It was a fucking roadshow. The wraith had taken his act to the angels, where he would whore out my Beauty like some demonic delicacy. And Zephyr would be terrified. I knew it. I’dseenit in the distant, tense look he got when he talked about what Maslow did to him. About starving. About the room downstairs. He tried so hard to hold it together, but he wasn’t built for this. Not the way Maslow wanted him to be.
Darby’s voice broke through the storm in my head. “If you can get Zephyr out of this,” he said. “Please. Do.”
