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Iron grunted his appreciation, then rubbed at the back of his head just beneath where his russet hair was bound in a knot. “Good. A little too good.”
Rhode nodded his thanks but leaned heavily against the staff. The angles of his chest expanded with an effort that belied the stealth he’d demonstrated a moment ago.
“You’ve still got a ways to go, my friend,” Brass remarked, stepping onto the mat.
Iron straightened and pinned him with a menacing glare. “He’s doing fine.” Then those eyes, one hazel and one brown, swept down the length of Brass. Iron stilled his solid frame, then lifted a brow and flared his nostrils with a great inhale. A creeping recognition awoke the spark of his fire. His eyes erupted with molten topaz, trapezius muscles swelling like raised hackles on a wolf. “You fucking touched her,” he snarled.
Brass dropped his hands into fists at his sides. “Mind your own— Oof!”
Brass’s heels scraped across the mats as Iron’s transformed metallic bulk pummeled him into the granite wall behind him. Charcoal-gray wings burst from Iron’s back and held the angel’s body above the ground, giving him the perfect amount of leverage to rain down blow after blow upon Brass’s face. The second time his neck jerked to the side, however, Brass’s rage responded in kind, armoring every inch of his body with his own metal. Fire erupted from his core, shooting down his limbs and consuming Iron’s wings.
Then the familiar cackle in his mind returned. A voice as cold and calculating as the taunting sands of his diminishing time left coiled around his self-control, fueling his flames with a power he’d never reached for.
Hotter. Burn hotter.
A blue inferno engulfed Iron’s wings as Brass dodged the next blow. Iron’s fist met the granite beside Brass’s ear. The angel snarled and reared back his fist again and recocked. “I told you to let us know how bad it was getting. I told you we would find a way. And now you put your fucking hands on a mortal! A woman!”
Woman . . . My woman. Mine.
The declaration was a vow growled by his soul long before his mind or body could catch up. There was no time to analyze or question, only feel and react. Intellection fled the field, until all he was left with was a consuming need to destroy.
Iron’s hands descended, poised for Brass’s throat, but before he could tighten his grip, the great mountain seemed to vibrate from the force of Brass’s wail. The voice was his, but the pure gleeful devastation projected through the bellow shook his body with an alien sensation.
Hotter. Make him feel what you feel.
Brass roared into the face of his brother, pushing, pressing, screaming a power he didn’t comprehend against a male he’d otherwise die for. “She is mine! Nothing will take her from me.” Then he leaned into his brother’s face and flashed his teeth on a growl. “And with one word from her, I will happily melt you into ore, brother, just so she could command me to remake you into a likeness of her choosing.”
Iron froze above him, as if jerked to a halt. Thinned lips relaxed over bared teeth and wild eyes blinked through a sudden shocked confusion. Then he whipped his head toward his wings. “What’s happening?”
Brass’s angel fire surrounding Iron’s wings had burned beyond its celestial electric blue, pulsing and pounding into writhing swirls of white-hot fire.
Hotter. More.
Brass roared against the inferno, spread his wings and, gripping Iron by his neck, hoisted him above the floor. A hissing drip permeated the screams, followed by the unmistakable fumes of metallic oxides.
Through the haze, Brass peered down from his screaming brother’s face toward the mats below and the rising smoke that drifted above two small puddles of molten iron.
Puddles that still bore the outlines of Iron’s flight feathers.
Before he could comprehend what he was seeing, a blaze of dark wood swiped down on top of Brass’s wrists, jerking Iron free of his hold. Startled, they both fell to the floor, but before Brass could rise, Rhode’s bo cracked him across his temple. His head swiveled around violently, breaking the curse’s claim on his concentration and extinguishing his fire along with it. Then he was pushed forward until he was facedown on the mat with Rhode’s foot compressing his neck and the butt of the staff levered under his chin.
“Enough of this.” Rhode’s stern words carried a weight that had been born of eons commanding legions of the Empyrean’s finest spy networks under Chrome’s instruction.
And the dude had subdued Brass with no more than some meager body weight and an overgrown toothpick.
“Sorry,” Brass breathed out, blinking away the fog of the moment and feeling the repercussions of his loss of control press him farther into the mat. Had he really just done that? Had he just?—
“Iron! Let me see him!” Brass roared, struggling against the weapon at his neck.
Rhode didn’t move despite his body straining against Brass’s flailing. “Are you calm?” Rhode gritted out. “You must be calm.”
“I’m in control.” It was as good of an answer as he could give, and judging by the decrease in pressure against his neck, Rhode knew it as well. As soon as the weight was off him, Brass scrambled forward to where Iron lay on his hands and knees, panting and spitting on the foam mats. His wings and metal had receded, revealing red and mottled flesh that stretched along the column of his spine where his wings had sprouted. Some patches of skin puckered with minor burns, while others were blackened and flaked by advanced degrees.
“Shit. Fucking shit!” Brass cried even as Iron waved him away.
“I’ll be fine,” Iron breathed out as he fell back on his ass and leaned his weight on his forearm. “Chrome will fix me up. They’ll regrow.”
Regrow. Like his flight feathers had received no more than a bad goddamn haircut.
