Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,60

herself.

“Where’d he go?” Lance asked, drawing up beside her.

“Into the city.” She nodded toward the lights – toward the stretch of gray, cloudy sky she’d been watching for at least ten minutes: the last place she’d seen Beck as he winged away from her, his silhouette like a condor, black against the charcoal and dust of the cloud cover.

“He what?” Lance asked, sharply. “Shit, did he – did he fly?” He sounded disbelieving, like he hadn’t seen the wings for himself.

“Yeah. I told him they were going to prep a helo for us, and he said there was no need.”

Lance huffed a shocked, angry breath. “The nerve of…did he even have a weapon? A radio? He’s not wearing body armor.”

She turned her head to regard her lover – one of her lovers, she supposed with an unpleasant twist in her gut. Lance stared out across the wasteland between the airport and the blurred lights of the city, brows drawn sharply together, jaw clenched. He had a smudge on his cheek, some bit of soot off a glove, or his own sleeve, maybe from the plane.

He was so unhappy. So worried. And holding all of it in – or, most of it.

She reached out to brush the smudge away with her thumb.

His head snapped toward her. “What are you doing?”

Her fingertips hovered just above his skin; she’d captured part of the smudge with her thumb, but a shadow of it remained. “You’ve got something.” She gestured to her own face with her free hand. “But if you don’t want me to touch you…?” She let the question hang, vaguely sick to have even asked it. She knew that this had been hard on Lance, she truly did, and she’d meant to pull him aside, speak to him privately, and make sure that he was alright, but things had been moving at a breakneck pace ever since Bedlam gave them the all-clear to depart for Wales. She felt like she hadn’t taken a proper breath in days.

His gaze lingered on her face a moment, poorly-disguised hurt shining in his dark eyes, before he turned away with a snort. “More like you don’t want to touch me.”

“I never said anything like that.” She had so much patience with him now, when she never had before. Beck was the thing that kept her kind and courteous, she thought. Her conscience – an assertion that would have left Beck laughing, eyes and canines flashing.

His mouth pulled sideways in a poor attempt at a smile, one edged starkly with bitterness. “What would you need to touch me for? Now that you’ve got him back.”

“Lance–”

“I’m surprised you’re still here, honestly. That you convinced him to come work with us. I thought you two would just go running off into the wilderness of Wales, never to be seen again.”

“Lance,” she said again, as gently as she could. “If you really thought that, why did you help me bring him back?”

His eyes cut toward her – unwillingly, she thought – and when he swallowed, it looked painful. “Because I want you to be happy.”

She closed the small distance between her fingers and his face, cupped the hard line of his jaw. “Lance.”

“And I didn’t think you ever would be as long as he was gone.”

“I’m sorry.” It felt wholly inadequate, but she didn’t know what else to say. “I’m so sorry.”

He made another go at a smile, a sad failure. “I can’t exactly blame you for the breakup when I helped you get there, can I?”

“But I’m not breaking up with you.”

His brows went up, expression mocking. “You’re not? What, you’re gonna date me, and tell the love of your life ‘thanks, but no thanks, I found somebody else’?”

“I’m not–”

A sharp fwap, like the closing of an umbrella, and a showering of cold water droplets was their only warning before Beck dropped down to stand in front of them, shaking rainwater off his wings and then folding them neatly so they lay down his back like a cape.

Startled, Rose’s gaze went to him – was snatched toward him. She felt a pull like gravity, like a hook in her chest. She pulled her arm back from Lance, and nearly reached for Beck instead, instinct strong as compulsion.

His black hair was windswept and wild, a few strands clinging to his neck, his cheeks, his horns. He reached to tidy it absently, and already his hands seemed steadier around the horns, like he’d learned their shapes and knew how to smooth