All night long he watched him sleeping fitfully on the narrow canvas cot. A single army-green lantern hanging from one of the low wooden beams in the log cabin illuminated his frame. Its soft glow highlighted his glossy black hair splayed out on the pillow, his cheeks smooth and rosy from his bath.

Every time the sea roared up against the desolate beach outside, he tossed onto one side. His shirt hugged his body so that when the thin blanket bunched up around him, he could just make out that tiny dimple marking his soft left shoulder. He had kissed it so many times before.

By turns he sighed in his sleep, then breathed evenly, then moaned from someplace deep inside a dream. But whether it was in pleasure or pain, he couldn’t tell. Twice, he called out his name.

Taehyung wanted to float down to him. To leave his perch atop the sandy old boxes of ammunition high in the raftered loft of the beachfront cabin. But he could not know he was there. Jin could not know he was anywhere nearby. Or what the next few days would bring for him.

Behind him, in the salt-stained storm window, he glimpsed a passing shadow from the corner of his eye. Then the faintest tapping on the glass pane. Wresting his eyes from his body, he moved toward the window, released the lock. A torrent of rain poured down outside, reuniting with the sea. A black cloud hid the moon and shone no light on the face of his visitor.

“May I come in?”

Jungkook was late.

Though Jungkook possessed the power to have simply appeared out of thin air at Taehyung’s side, Taehyung pushed open the window further to allow him to climb through. So much was pomp and circumstance these days. It was important for them both to be clear that Taehyung had welcomed Jungkook in.

Jungkook’s face was still cast in shadow, but he showed no sign of having traveled thousands of miles in the rain. His dark hair and his skin were dry. His auric wings, compact and solid now, were the only part of him that gleamed. As if they were made of twenty-four-karat gold. Though he tucked them neatly behind him, when he sat down next to Taehyung on a splintering wooden box, Jungkook’s wings gravitated toward Taehyung’s iridescent silver ones. It was the natural state of things, an inexplicable reliance. Taehyung couldn’t inch away without giving up his unobstructed view of Jin.

“He is so lovely when he sleeps,” Jungkook said softly.

“Is that why you wanted him to sleep for all eternity?”

“Me? Never. And I would have killed Bogum for what he attempted—not let him run free into the night as you did.” Jungkook leaned forward, resting his elbows on the railing of the loft. Down below, Jin tightened the covers around his neck. “I just want him. You know why.”

“Then I pity you. You will end up disappointed.”

Jungkook held Taehyung’s eyes and rubbed his jaw, chuckling cruelly under his breath. “Oh, Taehyung, your shortsightedness surprises me. You don’t have him yet.” He stole another long glance at Jin. “He may think you do. But we both know how very little he understands.”

Taehyung’s wings pulled taut against his shoulder blades, but the tips were reaching forward. Closer to Jungkook’s. He couldn’t stop it.

“The truce lasts eighteen days,” Jungkook said. “Though I have a feeling we may need each other before then.”

Then he stood, shoving the box back with his feet. The scraping along the ceiling over his head made Jin’s eyes flicker, but both angels ducked back among the shadows before his gaze could settle anywhere.

They faced each other, each still weary from the battle, each knowing it was a mere taste of what was to come.

Slowly, Jungkook extended his right hand.

Taehyung extended his.

And while Jin dreamed below of the most glorious wings unfurling—the likes of which he’d never seen before—two angels in the rafters shook hands.