Demon Fire (Angel Fire #3) - Marie Johnston Page 0,97

Alma didn’t have a phone, he’d asked Sierra to print them. “You brought Alma?”

“Packed us both up, put the house and cabin up for sale, and came straight here.”

He’d sold his cabin? That place was his refuge. “Boone.” Tears pricked her eyes.

He was there, his arms around her, his soap-and-pine scent surrounding her, his lips buried in her hair. It’d grown long enough since she’d fallen that the ends were turning black. And she was letting them. She was in a realm where two-toned hair was pretty tame.

“Don’t cry, Sierra. I just wanna make you happy for as long as I’m allowed to. I love you.”

“Oh, Boone.” She sniffled and buried her face in his shirt. “I love you too.”

A spot on her wrist burned. She hissed the same time Boone did. They pulled away, looking at their flesh. Sierra peered closer. Was that a . . .

“No way.” A faint image of a single wing. “A sync brand.”

“You got it too?” Boone’s gaze jumped back and forth. “What does that mean?”

“In Numen, it’d mean we’re meant to be. Tied together forever.” The truth of the words resonated to her bones.

“Forever,” he echoed, hopefulness in his tone. “It’s a good sign. Right?”

“Yes?”

She pulled him out to the kitchen where Jagger and Urban were helping Alma dismantle the lion puzzle Urban was so proud of. A new lion and lioness puzzle waited on the counter. “Guys. What do you think this means?”

Jagger’s eyes widened and Urban said, “Holy. Shit.”

Alma hummed and kept to her puzzle task, smiling to herself.

Jagger went toward the sliding door. “I think it means I should go get Director Vale. It can’t hurt to have a sync ceremony.”

“Wait.” What would Boone think? She grabbed his hand, her thumb brushing the mark. “It’d be like getting married, but way deeper, for much longer. It’s something you can think on. Getting the brand doesn’t mean you have to go through the bonding.”

Boone turned her hand in his and covered it with his other one. “I think that I might’ve pulled you out of the snow, but you pulled me out of purgatory. We’re in this life, together.”

Epilogue

The doorbell gonged through the house. Sierra’s eyes popped open and the swaddled baby on her chest squirmed. She’d fallen asleep in the recliner in the middle of the day. It was like she’d regressed to her training years, when they’d been taught to catch shut-eye anytime and anywhere they could.

“We should’ve dismantled that damn thing,” Boone groaned from the couch. He’d been napping too. He rolled up and his long strides took him to the door of their three-bedroom cabin outside of Helena. They were close enough to the city to get decent internet but private enough that they could tell if anyone was trying to sneak up on them.

Her security system was top-notch. She had cameras all over the trees. A wolf couldn’t sneeze without her knowing.

Boone had proposed moving back to Montana shortly after he arrived in Vegas. The proximity of people strummed his nerves and they had both longed for the simplicity of mountain life. Jack and Shari Smith were put to rest. They were Boone and Sierra Reamer, and Boone didn’t sell health insurance.

Arik was three months old. When he was much older, they would travel to meet and talk with fallen in person, discreetly gathering data. But for now, she used all of her surveillance skills to do it between diaper changes and feedings, like she’d planned to in Vegas, before her bond with Boone.

Voices murmured from the entry, along with the fresh, clean scent of the great outdoors. Snow was coming. She looked forward to being snowed in with Boone again. They had a lot more food supplies than their first cabin had held.

Was it someone from her team? Jagger had made good on his vow to stick around. He and Felicia had babysat so she and Boone could buy groceries without planning the adventure between feedings. Urban was back to being his old self around her, and Bronx joked about teaching Arik all the things Sierra had given Bronx crap about. Dionna had held Arik as a newborn, wonder filling her deep brown eyes.

Harlowe was the only one who hadn’t made an appearance.

The regret never went away, but with Boone and her baby, the reminder wasn’t such a blow.

Boone appeared at the edge of the foyer. “You have visitors.”

She sniffed her free shoulder. Did she smell like sour milk? Was her hair frightening? She shouldn’t