Lark knew he was doing the right thing, the noble thing, but at the moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Those fifty-one soldiers he was going to the mat for were nameless, faceless entities to her. Grady was real. He was hers. And maybe it was selfish, but she didn’t want to let him go.
She’d fallen in love with him.
She loved Kong, Jace, Perrin, and all the other Beasts. They were her brothers and sisters. She would die for them. Kill for them. But Grady… She’d burn the world down for him.
How she wished her gift worked over a video feed. She’d know if the General was lying, and could wring the truth from him with a few specifically worded questions. But she had to physically be in the room with a subject to mesmerize them.
The feed suddenly blinked out and Lark startled. Had they lost the connection?
“Well, that went better than I thought it would,” General Davies remarked.
It was over, she realized. And she’d missed it.
“They’ll move quickly, I’m thinking,” the General added. “We should have their counter-offer soon. Probably within an hour if I had to guess.”
So, nothing had been decided. Right. That made sense. General Rivera was only one piece of the Resurrection machine. He’d have to talk to the others before negotiations could continue.
Grady’s fingertips touched her cheek and she jerked.
“Are you all right?” he asked with concern.
No. She wasn’t.
Glancing over at the General, she said, “We’ll be right back,” and pulled Grady from the conference room.
What she felt for him was too big a thing to let it go unsaid. She needed to tell him, needed to put the words out there before the fear of losing him devoured her.
They were barely out the door when she pulled him into her arms, uncaring of the administrative staff that were working at their desks. “I willnotlet you go,” she told him adamantly.
The ferocity of that statement must have carried because the staff suddenly found something urgent to do elsewhere in the building. Good. It was probably better if they didn’t have an audience for this.
Leaning back, she cupped Grady’s face between her palms and looked into his eyes. “I’m in love with you, Grady Carter.”
His eyes widened in surprise and his lips parted, but she didn’t let him speak. Not yet. Not when what she needed to say was bubbling to the surface with a vengeance. She needed to make him understand.
“Growing up in that lab, none of us were allowed to have things – things that were just ours. We couldn’t even form relationships with each other without the fear of that relationship being used against us. Now that we’re free, we’re possessive.I’mpossessive,” she stressed. “You’re mine, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me.”
That was not an empty threat and she let him see that on her face. “I love you,” she repeated. “And I will not lose you. Not for those soldiers. Not for anything.”
She expected her words to shock him. Expected him to argue in favor of what he was doing for those soldiers, maybe beg her to understand, but instead, his face held a look of wonder. Raising his hand, he stroked his fingertips down the scales that framed her face, making her belly clench as she shivered at the pleasure of his touch.
“I love you, too,” he told her and her heart thumped wildly in her chest like it was dancing with joy. “I love you so much that when I thought that bastard killed you, I went insane.”
According to Kong and Leo, he’d torn apart the guy who’d shot her with his bare hands. She would have done the same had their positions been reversed.
“I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the first moment I saw you,” he confessed. “Even when I didn’t know who I was, I was more concerned with looking for you and thinking of how I could spend more time with you than I was in finding myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But I liked having you in my head. I still do and I know I always will. I love you, Lark. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Her breath hitched and she took a moment to savor the thrill that ran through her as she thought of their future and all the possibilities… But their future wasn’t set.
That reminder was like a splash of icy water.
“And this plan of yours? What if they don’t agree and come for you?”
“It’s a good plan. The military knows how to do a cost-benefit analysis. As things stand now, they don’t have much in the way of options except a full tactical assault which would cost lives. Or destroying ORION which would also destroy the soldiers they’ve invested so heavily in. They may come back with a counteroffer, but when it comes right down to it, ORION has them by the balls and they know it. This is an easy out for them.”
Lark wished she could be so confident. “Plan B?”
Grady blew out a hard breath as his hand swept through her hair, combing through the locks she hadn’t bothered to tie back in their rush to get here. “Plan B will depend on how they respond to Plan A.”
