When the roar of the big engines was close enough to hear, she pushed from the ground to flag them down. Panic lanced through Anna’s chest over whether they’d be able to tell Devlin wasn’t one of them. But too late to worry about that now. She jogged out to the front of the house and waved her arms at the bright-red fire truck and ambulance. Rainwater flowed along the curb of the street in a rushing stream. Men in full gear spilled from both vehicles, and she recognized a few of them from around town. “This way,” she yelled, guiding them up the driveway to the backyard.
“Sweet Jesus,” one of the firefighters said. “This was from lightning?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “The grass caught fire but the rain put it out before it reached the house.”
“The house never caught?” he asked, walking the line from one corner of the building to the other.
“No,” she called over the rain. “I was on the back porch for part of it, and then I hid behind the car.” Chills erupted on her skin and she shivered at the memory. She’d seen everything except the initial ignition, which she’d heard as a weird, sizzling pop, like one of those firecrackers that sparkled and crackled. By the time she’d come outside, Devlin stood in the middle of a swirling haze of translucent fire that grew and grew around him until she hadn’t been able to see him anymore.
The firefighter turned to two others. “Take some of this siding down just to be sure,” he said, gesturing to the most melted portion at the far side.
“Anna!” called a voice from behind her, and she whirled to see Evan rounding the corner of the house.
“Oh, God, thank you for coming,” she said, falling into his arms and returning his hug.
“Are you okay?” he asked, pulling back and squeezing her shoulders. His gaze swept over her.
“Yes, I’m fine. But Devlin’s hurt and Dad has to have heard this commotion by now.”
“I’ll take care of Garrett, don’t you worry.” His gaze tracked to the EMTs kneeling in the middle of the field. “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. I better go see,” she said before Evan asked her a bunch of questions she wouldn’t be able to answer truthfully.
“Go on, now,” he said. “I’m here for as long as you need me. Don’t give it a thought.”
Relief and gratitude making her heart swell, Anna waved and jogged to where Devlin lay in the center of the black circle, an EMT kneeling on either side of his chest.
Black circle.
Dizziness gripped Anna as a wave of déjà vu suddenly made her feel as if she were floating.
Oh my God! The painting! The painting of the man lying prone and injured in the middle of a burned field. This…this was that painting.
I think you’ve been painting the future. Devlin’s words echoed between her ears. He was right. She’d done that painting four days ago. Which meant somehow, someway, she’d known this was going to happen.
Holy crap, could she have prevented this?
She blew out a shaky breath and sank to her knees near Devlin’s feet. His boots were absolutely shredded and charred. Still, she cupped her hand around his ankle. Just to touch him. Just to hold him. Just to let him know she was there.
No, she couldn’t have prevented this. Hell, she hadn’t even known Devlin was capable of whatever it was he’d done, or had been done to him. But for sure, Devlin was right that the paintings represented the future, and if that was important to helping him in any way, Anna would do whatever it took to figure it out.
Especially if it would keep him from being hurt again. Because he would get better. Anna couldn’t imagine any other outcome. She couldn’t lose him after knowing him only a few days.
As one paramedic worked on Devlin’s vitals, the other cut his shirt away. “Christ,” he muttered under his breath. He slanted a gaze toward Anna and then leaned closer to his partner. “Look at this.”
Anna followed the man’s gaze to Devlin’s bare, sculpted chest, absolutely covered in scars, some seemingly accidental, others in obviously purposeful shapes. What the hell had happened to him?
One of the medics called in Devlin’s condition—lightning victim, unconscious, rapid, shallow breathing, thready pulse, cardiac irregularity, likely smoke inhalation. Soon, they were ready to lift him onto the stretcher.
Anna stood up—too fast, apparently, because she stumbled and her knees nearly went out from under her.
“Whoa,” said the EMT who caught her with an arm around her shoulders. “I think I need to check you out, miss.”
“No, take care of him,” she said, letting him guide her to sit on the edge of the stretcher.
“We’re taking care of your friend.” He examined her eyes, her throat, the burn on her hand.
“Heart rate’s slowing. We gotta move, Joe,” the other paramedic said to the man working on her.
He gave a nod. “Ride along with us so we can check you out.”
“Okay,” Anna said, sliding off the bed and moving out of the way. She was glad he’d told her to ride along so she hadn’t had to debate it with them. Because something deep inside her didn’t want to leave Devlin—and didn’t want him to wake up alone.
The ambulance ride was a jostled blur. They’d made her wear an oxygen mask because apparently her breathing was raspy. She hadn’t even noticed. Because whatever might’ve happened to her, it was nothing compared to whatever was going on with Devlin—and had gone on with him, given the battered state of his body. If human doctors couldn’t help him, who could? Were there others like him? Would they know something had happened to him? God, she was so out of her depth here.
And holy hell, but she’d been so right about him being desperately hungry. Because lying on his back shirtless revealed his protruding ribcage, collarbone, and shoulder bones. He was so tall that his feet hung off the end of the stretcher, and his size made his thinness even more pronounced.
Every time her mind conjured the image of him scarfing down her chili, tears stung her eyes. He really had been starving. It took everything Anna had not to crawl up on the stretcher beside him and hold him tight.
The urge felt both strange and fundamentally right.
In the ambulance bay at the hospital, they heaved Devlin’s stretcher down from the back of the rig and made Anna ride in a wheelchair. “Please let me stay with him,” she said. But her request was lost amid the EMTs firing off Devlin’s vital statistics to the triage nurses who met them at the door. “I need to stay with him,” she said again.
“It’s okay, ma’am. We’ll take good care of him,” a kind-faced nurse said to her. “What’s your name?”
“Anna Fallston,” she replied mechanically, stretching to watch where they were taking Devlin. She just saw him being wheeled into a room as the nurse pushed her into a curtained examination area. “Please let me go with him. I’m okay.”
“Are you related?” the nurse asked. The hospital ID tag around her neck read Maeve Barnett.
Anna’s gaze cut to the woman’s face and she didn’t miss a beat. “I’m his fiancée.”
Maeve smiled. “Okay, well, let’s get you checked out and then I’ll see what’s going on with him.”
She blew out a long breath. “All right.”
For the next thirty-five minutes, Anna impatiently answered questions, cooperated with her examination, and breathed through a nebulizer treatment for the asthmatic reaction the smoke inhalation had caused.
Finally, the nurse said she’d go check in on Devlin and report back with any news.
Five minutes passed, and nothing. Seven. Ten. The second hand on the big industrial clock moved so tauntingly slow.
Anna couldn’t stand another minute of not knowing. She slipped off the exam table and peered around her curtain. No use. A curtain had been pulled across the windows of his room, and all Anna could make out was the shadows of people moving around inside the space.
Glancing right toward the nurse’s station, Anna darted left and skirted down the hall to his room. His door was open, but she stop
ped short of pushing through the gap in the curtain. Instead, she peeked.
An IV needle was taped to the back of his hand, round sensors covered his chest and temples, and an oxygen tube ran under his nose. And if all that wasn’t concerning enough, one nurse was telling the other that the equipment was acting up. “Look at this. The readings are all over the place,” he said. “This is the second freaking machine.”
Dread crawled up Anna’s spine and prickled her scalp. Was the problem really the equipment? Or the patient it was monitoring?
“I’ll go get another unit,” someone said. “Maybe third time’ll be a charm.”
Anna squeezed herself into the space where the floor-length curtain met the wall and held her breath. A nurse walked right passed her—not expecting someone to be hiding there, of course, she thankfully hadn’t noticed Anna.
Just as relief had her sagging against the wall, the curtain whipped back. “What are you doing here?” a male nurse asked. His gaze dropped to her right hand, where a plastic ID bracelet surrounded her wrist and white bandages circled her palm.
“He’s my fiancé. Nobody would tell me anything.”
Indecision flickered across the man’s face before he waved her in and gestured toward a chair. “I’ll be right back,” he said.
As soon as he was gone, she moved to Devlin’s bedside and took his hand again. “I’m here, Devlin.” She smoothed her other hand over his forehead, careful not to disturb the sensors. “Open your eyes,” she said, longing to see them flash with light again. God, she’d have given anything to see that one more time.
Voices sounded from behind her, but given the business of the ER Anna didn’t pay any attention to them until she heard the words, “Get him. I’ll run interference.”
She peered over her shoulder as two of the biggest men she’d ever seen in her life stepped through the curtain. One tightly closed the fabric behind him.
“Who are you?” she asked, turning all the way around and blocking their view of Devlin with her body.
The men looked at her like she had three heads. The slightly taller one had long dark hair with beautiful lighter highlights running through it and the other one appeared younger somehow, and had shorter dark hair and eyes. Neither looked happy.
“Let’s just get him,” the younger one said, at the same time the older one finally replied, “I’m his grandfather,” and nodded toward Devlin. “The more interesting question is, who are you?”
The younger one sighed. “We don’t have time for this.”
Grandfather. What the older one said finally sank in. If Devlin was a god, and his father was a god, then surely… The room spun and Anna sagged against the edge of Devlin’s bed as her heart took off in her chest. The lights above her flickered.
“What are you going to do with him?” she managed in a quiet voice.
The taller man stepped closer and tilted his head, as if appraising her. “He can’t stay here.”
“Because…because of what he is?” Anna swallowed hard. “Because of what you are?”
His grandfather arched an eyebrow—and the expression was so similar to the one Devlin always gave her that she knew their relationship was the truth. “So, he’s told you, then?”
Anna nodded.
“Let’s figure this out at home,” the younger god said. Light flared from behind his eyes.
She gasped. That light hammered the last nail in any doubt she might’ve had about whether they told the truth. “Can you help him?”
“I can,” the older man said. “But not here.”
“Wherever you take him, I’m going with him.” She crossed her arms and drew herself up to her full height. However, at five foot three inches, she felt like a miniature next to these gods. She doubted they were impressed.
For a long moment, Devlin’s grandfather stared at her. “So be it,” he finally said. “Zephyros, you take her.” Then both of them approached.
“Don’t hurt him,” she said, her heart beating in her throat as the grandfather moved to the far side of Devlin’s bed and began detaching the monitors and IV.
An incredibly gorgeous light-haired man ducked his head and shoulders through the curtain. “Are we ready to rock and roll or what? Oh, hey,” he said, smiling at her.
Anna hadn’t wrapped her head around how to respond when the one called Zephyros stepped in front of her. “I need to put you to sleep to get where we’re going,” he said.
Where in the world could they be going that required her to be put to sleep? “Um.” She looked over her shoulder to where the older god gathered Devlin in his arms. The image of his prone, limp form would’ve gutted her except his grandfather had said he could help. Did it really matter where they needed to go? The squeeze of her gut answered that question, and she turned back to meet Zephyros’s serious gaze again. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he said, gentling his tone. He cradled her shoulders in one arm and laid his other palm on her forehead. A warm breeze blew over, just like when Devlin had grabbed her earlier. And that was her last thought before she couldn’t think about anything at all.
Chapter Nine
Owen sat in the dark on the foot of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, and stared at the contents of the glass jar in his hands. Three crystal snowflakes containing Boreas’s divine energy. How could this be all that was left of his father?
Gods, what Owen wouldn’t have given to hear Boreas’s voice one more time, to watch those silver eyes sparkle with mirth over something Teddy had done. Slowly, Owen turned the jar round and round and watched the snowflakes tumble and slide.
Red-hot anger surged through him until he feared his grip would crush the glass and the treasures within. And then he’d have nothing left of his father at all.
Stretching, Owen returned the jar to the dresser top. It didn’t hold the answers he sought anyway. And never would.
Like how to take care of his family when they had no home, his wife legally couldn’t live in the Realm of the Gods, and Owen would have to ascend to his season in just over three months, leaving Megan alone to care for their two-year-old boy and newborn baby.
Turning, his gaze settled on his angel, who had finally managed to fall asleep. The baby was so active at night that Megan had been having trouble sleeping, but on the upside his nightly kickboxing routine gave her the peace of mind that everything was okay. At least one of them was getting some rest.
Owen was just about to climb back into bed when he registered several energy signatures approaching the compound. Aeolus, Chrys, and Zeph, but he could’ve sworn there were others, too.
Everything okay? he asked Aeolus.
Meet us in my chamber.
Frowning, Owen flashed into Aeolus’s luxurious bedroom, the walls paneled in carved wood and decorated with lavish tapestries, carpets, and bedding. He arrived just as the three gods did, carrying two others—a man and a woman. His gaze settled on the man, and realization hit like a sucker punch to the gut. “Devlin,” he whispered in shock.
Twin reactions warred within him. Vengeful rage at the god whose father had killed his own father. And wary, reluctant concern, for Devlin was unconscious in Aeolus’s arms and the little he knew about the Eastern god told him the guy never would’ve submitted to such a thing if he’d had a choice.
Owen stalked closer, close enough to see that Devlin’s chest was a battlefield of scars, which could mean only one thing—the wounds had been inflicted by a superior god. Otherwise, they would’ve healed.
Chrysander caught Owen by the shoulders and shoved him back a step or two. “Whoa, man.”
The temperature of Chrys’s superheated touch seared Owen’s bare skin, another jarring reminder of his new status. As a demigod, he’d been less sensitive to heat than he was as a full-blown snow god—and he recalled all too well the debilitating consequences of prolonged exposure to heat. Two years ago, he’d nearly died from such a situation, which was one of the reasons he’d gladly accepted the demotion to demigod.
Now, as a full Cardinal Anemoi, that sensitivity had returned in spades—and he’d had absolutely no choice in the matter. Not that he ever would’ve refused the great honor Boreas had bestowed in passing Owen the reins to the North Wind. He’d just expected to be a lot older before it happened.
“I’m fine,” Owen said, shrugging Chrys off. As the Northern and Southern gods, he and Chrys were polar opposites now, and Chrys’s touch burned like fire. The movement made Owen realize his fists had been clenched into tight balls.
Holding up his hands as if in surrender, Chrys’s palms were bright red from touching Owen’s cold. “I know, O. It’s just a lot to take in right now. For all of us.”
Owen nodded, forcing a deep breath. Gods, he hated the heavy weight that anger had settled on his heart. So unlike him. “Somebody want to explain?” Aeolus crossed the room and laid Devlin on his massive hand-carved bed.
“He’s badly depleted. I need to restore his energy,” Aeolus said.
From the corner of his eye, Owen saw Chrys and Zeph trade weighted glances, hauling Owen’s attention back to the other newcomer—a tiny woman Zeph still cradled in his arms. “Who’s that?”
“She said she’s Devlin’s fiancée,” Aeolus said in a low voice. With what almost appeared to be affection, he laid one hand over Devlin’s heart and the other on his forehead. “You may as well put her there until she awakens.” He nodded at the space beside Devlin, then closed his eyes as if in concentration.
Suddenly, the scene wrenched Owen’s memories into the present. His throat squeezed tight and an avalanche of pressure parked on his chest. Nearly two years ago while Owen had courted Megan and a chance at a human life free of the loneliness and solitude of his divinity, he’d badly drained himself of energy. Owen had regained consciousness with Boreas standing over him, having sensed his son’s distress and come to the rescue. Boreas had replenished Owen’s energy with some of his own.
Owen studied Aeolus’s expression—the furrow in his brow and the tightness around his mouth. Had Boreas appeared as concerned, as affectionate, as almost desperate that it would work as Aeolus did now?