Page 72 of Indecent

“Coffee?” he asked, opening the cabinet above the machine and gesturing to the stacks of white china mugs.

Chaol forced himself to move forward. “Sure.”

Talon moved away to give Chaol space, stirring his coffee with a delicate spoon. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“It’s not safe,” he blurted, and then scowled at himself. He hadn’t meant to say that.

Talon smirked lopsidedly. “I know. I feel the same. I can’t rest when Alex could be in danger.”

Chaol poured himself a cup and took a sip of the black brew. It was nice; a more pleasant taste than the stuff Julian kept in stock. It was probably expensive, like everything else in this place.

“We could take them all back to the Rink, where the angel wards are,” Chaol suggested, even though he knew, logically, that they would be safe enough here until Daniel woke. Not to mention the space issue they would face at the Rink.

“We will,” Talon said, pulling himself up to sit on the kitchen island. “But that isn’t a long-term solution. It’s already crowded there, thanks to the guild refugees. We can’t all sleep there. There isn’t enough room.”

Chaol hummed, leaning against the kitchen counter across from him. He didn’t like hearing his own thoughts voiced by the leviathan. It made him… relatable.

“Then we should just hurry up and kill this angel.”

Talon huffed out a laugh. “Agreed. The trouble is how.”

“We’ll figure it out.” He wasn’t opposed to some experimentation. Could an angel survive decapitation? Dismemberment? Sinking into the Mariana Trench?

Talon’s dark gaze studied him intently. “You sound very confident about that.”

“I’m confident that something led Daniel and I together like this for a reason. It wasn’t just so we could die at some rogue angel’s hands right after he’s achieved immortality.”

Talon cocked his head with a bitter twist. “You would think. Life can be cruel, though.”

That was rich coming from him. “I know,” Chaol said pointedly.

The air pulled taut between them.

Talon’s eyes glittered knowingly. “I won’t apologize.”

“I don’t believe I asked you to.”

“Do you still want to kill me?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Admitting out loud that he didn’t want to kill him felt like ceding valuable ground in whatever conversational spar was happening here. His pride wouldn’t allow it.

“Oh?”

“It would upset Daniel.” That was admission enough.

Talon nodded, leaning back, and the tension dissolved with him. “How quickly they wrap us around their little fingers. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Alex, either. The minute they realize it, you’re done for. Any leverage you might think you have is gone.” He sighed wistfully. “He lets me pretend I’m in charge, at least.”

Chaol snorted out a laugh. “Danny knows. He’s always known. Hell, it doesn’t even matter. He’s a harbinger now. He can just strong-arm me into doing whatever he wants.”

Talon gave him a thoughtful look. “It wasn’t just Shadrach and I, you know. Wolf, Malachi, and Storm were there, too. Alex, Luke, Ira, and Nathan. Not to mention all the others who were still paladins at the time—including Daniel. All of us were there. We all played a hand in what happened.”

“I know—now. At the time, I’d only heard about the leviathans. Possessors don’t exactly tell reliable stories.”

“They’re the ones who told you about it?” Talon’s head tilted curiously.

Chaol nodded. “After that battle, the possessors scattered. A lot of them wound up back in Hell, where they told the tale of the battle with the guild and Amon’s fall. I heard it from one of them. They were all too eager to regale me with their brief taste of freedom and the leviathans who’d ended their fun like a couple of do-gooder humans.”

Talon rolled his eyes. “And it didn’t occur to you that they intended for you to hunt us down?”