Angel in Chains (The Fallen #3)(101)

Never again.

His fingers intertwined with hers.

“Well, well . . .” Sam’s voice boomed as he strode down the hall. “Here to help me torch the rest of this place?”

Sam’s Seline was by his side, but her face didn’t have the same mask of unconcern that Sam wore. No, when she looked at Sam, there was worry in her eyes.

Az shook his head. “We’re here to help you rebuild.”

Sam blinked. “You? You’re into destruction and death, not into putting some two-bit bar back together.”

But the bar mattered to Sam. He could see it.

“It’s time to move on,” Sam said with a shrug. “More places to see in this world. More things to—”

“This is home.” Their new home. “And we can rebuild.” He offered his brother a smile and both Sam and Seline stared at him in shock.

“Uh, Az, did that hybrid shifter hit you on the head?” Seline wanted to know.

Jade laughed lightly at that. He loved her laugh. To him, that was the sound of pure— Happiness.

“I realize that I owe you a debt,” Az said, “and I’m here to start repaying.” Because he would be the man that Jade deserved. She said that she loved him as he was. Well, she’d love him more once he atoned. Once the darkness was gone from his soul.

He’d make her happy every day of her life, and he’d see to it that she never feared again.

He blinked and found Sam in front of him. “What’s happening here?” Sam demanded as he studied Az with eyes that seemed to see too much. “What did I miss in that cemetery?”

Some stories weren’t meant to be told. Az offered him a faint smile. “Everyone always said we’d kill each other one day.”

Sam wasn’t smiling back. “No, they said if we did, the end of the world would come.”

Jade sucked in a sharp breath at that hard truth.

Seline strode toward them. “Sam . . .” A warning note entered her voice.

Finally, Sam’s lips twisted into his usual hard grin. “But I don’t see the end of the world.”

Hopefully, you won’t ever. “Fate can change.”

Now his brother stepped back in surprise. That too-sharp gaze of his widened.

“It can change,” Az said again, and that was all that his brother needed to know.

Slowly, Sam inclined his head.

“Now why don’t we get started cleaning up this place?” Jade asked, and Az saw her nose wrinkle. “Because, no offense, but it really smells like piss in here.”

Piss. Ash. Hell. Whatever.

Seline laughed a bit as she agreed with Jade. She came closer, and Jade lifted her eyes to the ceiling as she said, “While we’re doing the cleaning, tell me we get to ditch that cage . . .”

The cage, though blackened with soot, still swung from the ceiling.

Seline looped her arm with Jade’s. “Oh, no,” she told her as they walked away. “I’m rather fond of it.” She glanced back and winked at Sam.

Sam’s face softened as he gazed after her. But when he turned back to Az, tension spread lines near his mouth and eyes. “Fate . . .” He sighed. “You should know better than to think that it can be totally changed.” His voice was pitched low so that the women wouldn’t overhear his words.

Yet fate had changed.

“Jade was meant to die last night.” Sam jerked a hand through his hair. “How long do you think you’re going to be able to keep her by your side?”

Forever. Az’s stare darted to the left. Found Jade. “I told you, fate changed.” He paused and turned his focus back to Sam. “I changed.”

Sam studied him in silence. What was he seeing? The shell Az had been before? Or the man he was becoming?

Then his brother nodded and offered his hand.

Az stared at Sam’s extended palm. He’d been the one who sat in judgment when Sam had been banished from heaven. He’d watched as his brother fell, and he’d fought not to show any emotion.

“You were always stronger than me,” Az confessed.

Sam frowned. His hand began to lower.

Az didn’t take the hand. He grabbed his brother and held tight. The brother he’d lost centuries ago. The brother he’d found again. “I’m sorry.”

He should have fought for Sam that long-ago day. He’d make damn sure he always fought for him now.

The wall he’d kept around his heart was gone. Battered away by Jade. Now he felt—so much.

But Sam had frozen against him. Az stepped back. Stared right into eyes so like his own. Sam had been his only family. The one closest to him, until that bitter day that had burned a divide between them. Burned as surely as Sammael’s wings had burned away.

“You were the better angel,” Sam said slowly, softly. “I could never follow the rules.”

No, he hadn’t followed those rules. And nearly a whole army had been killed by his fury.

But . . .

“Some of those rules are shit,” Az admitted.

Sam laughed, a sputter of surprise, and so did Az. He laughed and felt . . . free.

Strange. An angel without wings had finally found his happiness, and it was with a family standing in a burned-out club on one of the wildest streets in New Orleans.