Any thought Grayson had of joining in the party when he got home from school disappears in a baby-scented puff of smoke. He wouldn’t change a minute of being a parent, but Nix makes it so hard.
Rowan snorts at what must be Grayson’s look of disappointment before kissing him hard on the mouth. The taste of spiced rum and vanilla is hot and heavy in his mouth as Rowan leads with his tongue and finishes with his teeth in Grayson’s lower lip.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
It takes a minute for him to remember he’s supposed to be in his Air Affinity class in less than ten minutes. It’s a twenty-minute drive.
“Dammit. Yes.”
“Better catch up, then?”
Rowan had him so distracted that he’d missed Nix and Finn going out the door.
“Yeah, yeah.” He grabs his messenger bag and slips his loafers on.
“Gray?”
“Mmm?”
Rowan frowns before stepping closer. He looks uncharacteristically serious. “You do what you have to do today, and I’ll see you tonight. Right?”
It’s Rowan’s way of telling him to be strong, and telling him in his own Rowan way that his mate believes in him and that he wants him to be safe—that he wants to see him later, happy, and in one piece.
It puts a silly grin on his face, which makes Rowan roll his eyes and run away when Grayson pretends he might hug him goodbye.
Grayson shouts, “I love you,” and waits to hear Luca and Rowan shout it back. But it’s the small, “Bye, Hei-Hei,” that makes him stop like an idiot on the front porch, fighting back tears of joy and forgetting for a minute that he’s headed into yet another fight he’s determined to win.
Nix
“Only ten minutes late. You’re a superstar, Finn.” Nix leans through the two front seats and smacks a big, wet kiss on his mate’s cheek for driving his Rover like it’s Formula One to get them there almost on time.
“Yeah, thanks. You coming through on your way home later, or…” Grayson asks, twisting the strap of his leather bag in his hand.
“I have office hours and a C-section in an hour, but I can be here to pick you up after class.” He sounds like his usual self, but his scent is a bit sour, and there’s a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I don’t want you to go in without me. I feel like something big is going on, and there’s power in numbers.”
Nix understands that feeling perfectly. Professor Kirwan hadn’t felt like the big bad, but the guy on the phone? He was scary. If there’s one thing Nix has learned at Sentinel or even from the last few years, it’s that the big bad very rarely did their own dirty work.
“I think we’ll be okay today. It’s not like whatever Kirwan has planned is going to go down in a school filled with children,” Grayson says with a shrug.
Finn’s head swings around. “That’s not at all reassuring, but…yeah, okay. Call me. I will reschedule on my end.” He wraps his hand around the back of Grayson’s neck and kisses him so hard their teeth clack. “Keep your wits about you.”
“Will do.” Grayson gets out and opens the back door for Nix.
“Nix?” Finn calls him back before he can slide out.
“Yeah?”
“Just…do what you have to do today. Whatever it takes, okay?” Finn must really have a bad feeling if he’s suggesting violence. He taps his forehead, “Let me know what’s going on?”
“Will do. See you this afternoon. Love you.”
Finn watches them slip through the magical gate, and once they’re on this side and the blue Rover is out of sight, Grayson grabs him around the waist. “Hang on, Angel, and close your eyes.”
Nix slams his eyes closed, and the world slips sideways. Fractals of light ping behind his lids, and thewhooshof air moving at a speed Nix can’t fathom tosses his hair around his head.
The first time Grayson had teleported with him pressed close, Nix had thrown up immediately after. Eyes closed was the only way to survive what Nix can only describe as being reduced to pure Plain and then reconstituted in a different location. Atomized and rebuilt in seconds, and the inertia was a serious bitch.
They end up outside a tall wooden door on the second floor. It’s closed already, with a class in session, the sign hanging above swaying in the lightest of breezes. The slight opening under the door whistles, too.
