When he finally stopped, she was flushed, panting, and fully aroused. “Oh, my . . .” she said in a breathy way.

Well. Didn’t that make a male feel two feet taller.

“I really wish I didn’t have to go,” he growled.

“Yeah. Me, too,” she said with a laugh.

One more kiss and then he left the room walking backwards because he didn’t want to leave her. And yet he sometimes didn’t want to face her, either. After all the time they’d spent together, and the beautiful young they’d created, and all the love there was between them? Sometimes he disappeared even when he was standing in front of her.

Yet she understood him enough to let him go to the spaces he fell into, content to wait for his return.

“Later,” he vowed.

Bella smiled in a way that made him wonder how fast things could happen in Wrath’s little frickin’ meeting. “Later, my male. Maybe I’ll even run away a little just so you can catch me.”

The tips of Z’s fangs started to tingle, and his upper lip curled back. The animal in him loved when he got to chase her, and boy, she loved being caught.

He was still growling deep in the back of his throat as he stepped out into the Hall of Statues. Stalking his way to the open double doors of Wrath’s study, he was surprised to see everyone already crammed into the four-walls-and-a-ceiling.

He’d assumed it would just be him, filling the King and Tohr in on what had happened with the Qhuinn stabbing. But nope. It was standing room only, every fighter in their normal positions on and around the delicate antique French furniture, the big bodies and loud, deep voices sucking up all the air in the room. The King was likewise behind his sire’s giant desk as usual, sitting on his sire’s giant old throne, the golden retriever in his lap like a throw blanket with all that blond fur. George, Wrath’s guide dog, was looking at everyone and offering wags, even as he would never leave his master’s side. Whether he was on the lap, by the feet, or sitting pretty at the dagger hand of the King, George’s friendliness was pervasive, but his love and loyalty singular.

Z went over to the corner he usually stood in. Phury, his twin, was there, along with Xhex.

“How’s by you?” his brother asked quietly. “Do you know what this is about?”

Wrath spoke up around his dog. “Are we all here? What are we doing? I’m not getting any younger.”

The great Blind King, now democratically elected, was already frowning behind his wraparounds like he’d been waiting for twelve hours, his widow’s peak and long black hair making him look more than a little evil, especially as he clipped his words.

Then again, the male could work himself into a lather over the delay of a second and a half.

Tohr, who was at the King’s side, cleared his throat and spoke up over the din. “We’re all here.”

“Do your thing then, weatherman,” Wrath muttered as the chatter eased off its raucous boil.

Tohr nodded. “Thanks for coming, everybody. So it looks like we’ve got a serious snowstorm on the forecast tomorrow and—”

The double doors, which had been closed, were thrown open, and what was standing in between the jambs was a sight for no eyes. Like, absolutely, positively no eyes whatsoever. None.

Lassiter, the household and race’s favorite fallen angel—at least if you asked him, that was, and if you asked anybody else, you’d get the statistic that there was in fact only one known fallen angel on the planet—struck a pose, hands on hips, chest puffed out, feet planted like he was ready to get his legs judged by ANTM.

“What the fuck are you?” someone said.

“We’re still trying to figure that out,” V muttered as he lit up a hand-rolled. “I volunteer to start the list with moron.”

Lassiter sauntered in and did a little turn. “Mr. Freeze, motherfuckers. In honor of the coming blizzard.”

“Now I know why I’m a Marvel fan,” somebody blurted.

Even though Z didn’t know Marvel from Mrs. Maisel, he couldn’t agree more. The angel had somehow managed to jack himself into a pint-sized costume that was the color of blueberry Kool-Aid and had all the pipes and mechanics of an air compressor. A molded plastic weapon of some derivation or another was hanging off his right arm, and he’d completed the ensemble with a pair of bronze-colored, bug-eyed glasses that had been strapped to his pinhead.

Clearly, the getup had cost at least twenty cents to make. Maybe thirty.

Cue the peanut gallery:

“How did you get all your hair under that bathing cap?”

“Do you actually think any of that fits?”

“Can you please put your junk away—”

“Why, why does Amazon Prime offer free shipping. It should offer free burning—”

Lassiter flexed his sizable muscles, especially his glutes. At which point there was a series of tearing sounds.

Which was what happened when you put a five-pound bag over a fifty-pound asshat.

“Oh, my God, if he goes Hulk and flashes his courting tackle, I’m going to poke my own eyes out—”

“I don’t care what any of you say,” the angel cut in. “You’re going to get used to me because this nor’easter coming our way? We’re going to be snowbound inside for days. And days. And days—it’s gonna be all of us here on the mountain together, sharing and caring.”

There was a pin-drop pause of silence. And then V spoke up. “Who wants to leave right now?”

Everyone jacked their dagger hands up on a oner.

Lassiter looked around with the kind of surprise that indicated self-awareness was not in his personality inventory. Then again, the costume proved that as well.

“You guys can all bite me,” the angel muttered as he turned on his heel and headed out of the study. “For real.”

Down in the clinic, Qhuinn turned his head on a pillow that was cushy as a piece of toast. Right next to him, sitting on a chair that had been pulled up tight to the bedside, Blay was looking at his phone, reading something that had just come through. The overhead light had been turned down, and in the low glow, the male’s red hair was all copper and shine.

That fresh fade V had given him was super tight on the bottom, making his jaw look extra strong, and the flop over his forehead was the kind of thing a male wanted to run his fingers through.

Then again, there wasn’t much that Qhuinn didn’t want to touch when it came to his mate.

“What is it?” he asked.

Everyone had pulled out of the OR, Layla with the kids, and Manny and Ehlena after they’d unplugged all the machines from him. The training center was likewise quiet, no more voices off in the distance, no footfalls, no muffled grunts from people working out in the weight room or the big gym. It must be getting close to Last Meal, or maybe Wrath had called a meeting.

“Tomorrow night’s schedule,” Blay said with a frown.

“Where am I going?”

Blay looked up, all serious. Which naturally was sexy as fuck. “Nowhere. You’re redshirted for injury for forty-eight hours. You know the rules.”

“I was hoping they forgot. Are you on?”

“No one’s on.” Blay turned the Samsung around. “Schedule’s empty.”

“What the hell happened?”

Blay started texting. “I’m going to find out.”

Qhuinn waited patiently, and when the tippytapping ended, he snagged the unit and put it face-down on the bedside table. “Hi.”

Blay glanced at the phone. “Hi?”

“Come here.” To give the guy some guidance, he reached out and took a hold of the front of his mate’s shirt to pull him in. “Hi.”

Their lips met briefly, and when Blay went to ease back, Qhuinn tightened his grip on that shirt.

“Mmmm,” he said as he got more of that mouth.

Things were going in absolutely the right direction as he licked his way into his male, his tongue sneaking in, taking and giving, stroking—

“Fuck,” he hissed. And not in a good way.

With a groan, he flopped onto his back again and put a hand over the gauze and packing tape that was on his belly. The weight of his palm alone was enough to further aggravate the sharp-shooter, so he let his arm slide to the side. Besides, like touching the sutures was going to help?

“Let’s hold off,” Blay said reasonably. As he rearranged himself inside his slacks.

“No.” Qhuinn tugged on that shirt again. “Gimme. You promised.”

“I did not.” Blay started to smile in a half-lidded way. “I did no such thing.”

“Fine, the promise was implied. By your erection.” Tug. Tug. Tug. “I locked the door. And no one’s down here.”

“Qhuinn, you can’t even get on your side—”

The gasp that cut off all that being-logical was so damned gratifying. And exactly what Qhuinn had been going for as he’d transferred his hand from the buttons on that fine, pressed dress shirt to a rather tented region south of the waistband of those fine, pressed slacks.

Right onto the hard length of Blay’s arousal, actually.

“I told you before,” Qhuinn murmured as he ran his pierced tongue over his upper lip. “I don’t have to move much. You can do the active part. I’ll just open my mouth.”

“Qhuinn . . .”

Okay, that was a yes. That tone, with its pleading lilt, was a total, fucking, red-hot yes.

“All you have to do is put it in. Then pull it out. After that, you push it in deeper, to the back of my throat. And out again. You do the work. I’ll just suck on you. Lick on you. Make you come in my—”

The groan that Blay let out was so long, so tortured, so hungry that it made Qhuinn’s hips jerk of their own volition.

“That’s right,” he said as he lowered his lids. “Let me see you unzip and take it out.”

Blay looked to the door. “We’re locked in?”

“Absolutely.”