He seizes, releasing Kage to grip at his slippery neck, blood spurting worse than it does in cheesy action movies. I stumble backwards, the knife clattering to the ground as I stare in awe and numbness at my shaking hands.I didn’t do that. But the relief that washes over me is proof that the enemy is done.
Someone yanks me from my burning feet, and the brightness of hellfire is eclipsed by the ebony of nothingness.
Cool, smoke-free air blasts my face as we land on the grass, both of us choking, gagging, and coughing. And when my fingersfeel the slipperiness of someone’s blood, I begin to vomit, as well.
A huge explosion sends the house behind us up into a conflagration, and someone is pulling at me, yanking me toward flashing blue and red lights, the sirens seeming so quiet compared to the ringing in my ears.
Eyes stinging, throat on fire as well, I glance up and am confused to find guns pointed at us. A lot of guns.
“Hands up! Don’t come any further! Hands up, drop your weapons!”
A dozen voices shout the same insane sentiments.We’rethe fucking victims here. But Kage’s hand goes tight around mine, our arms stretched taut as he stops. Whirling, all I see is an innocent, scarred, and terrified man with his hands up and fear flooding his eyes. No. No no no no no.
We didn’t make it out just for him to die—for him to be sent to prison for what he did to save me.
“No!” I screech, running to him, holding my palm up to the police as I cling to Kage with enough force for us to fuse and become one. “NO! Please!He saved me, he saved me, please!He saved me!”
“Get down, Get down!” They yell back.
Kage drops his arms around me, pulling me to the ground and blanketing me with his massive, familiar body. I scream and sob into him, the two of us clinging to one another…
Prepared to die, because that’s the only way I’m leaving him now.
Somehow, I manage to wriggle an arm free, and I wave my hand frantically at the officers, my white flag of surrender pitiful. Kage didn’t escape his family to die like an animal. “Please! Please, no!”
Another explosion to our left sends a blast of white hot heat tearing across our bodies, toppling us over, Kage cradling myskull in his hands as he lands atop me. For just a simple second, time stops the moment our eyes connect, and every truth he’s never been able to share vocally spills from his soul, piercing my heart like an arrow he carved himself. And every last ounce of a grudge I intended to hold against him should we magically live past tonight slips through my fingers, turning to ash.
“Stand down! Stand the fuck down! Terror Grayson, CIA, call your men off,now!”
What the hell kind of name is that?
My head whips in the direction of a voice that is somehow louder than the burning of the house and the horrible melody of sirens. A massive beast of a man rushes toward us, gun drawn but pointed at the night sky, badge flipped open in the other, his terrifying, predatory eyes locked on mine. His name suddenly makes far too much sense, but I’m thrown for another loop as he addresses Kage.
“Kage Lawson?”
He tenses on me, muscles locked, body prepared to spring into a brawl. The agent slows his approach and slips his gun into his holster, lowering his voice as he takes measured steps forward. Ash falls around us, and embers singe our skin and clothes, but we’re frozen in confusion. “It’s over, Kage. Been keeping tabs on you for a while. When Carter left to go after you…”
He stops a few feet from us, crouching down, his ruggedly handsome face lit by flames. He looks like some sort of Viking, not a three letter agent.
“We struck. Wiped that compound off the fucking map. It’s over, Kage.”
It’s over?
Shoving against Kage with every last ounce of strength I have, I grit my teeth and barely move him an inch. Enraged, I digmy nails into his chest and seethe at the man, “You’re not taking him from me. He…”
His dark eyes find mine, and he smirks. “Summer Stone. You’re even more internationally famous than you were before.”
“He didn’t kidnap me,” I grit out, the lie scraping like gravel against my teeth. The agent quirks his brow, patronizing. It only makes me fight against Kage’s hold harder. I ripped the throat out of one person tonight already, what’s another?
“Carter took me. Kage found me here and…and he saved me. He didn’t take me.”
An ominous look ripples across the man’s brow, his full lips flatlining. Kage stills above me, and I can tell he’s equal parts furious and elated at my lie. I don’t like taking advantage of the fact he has no voice, but right now, I have to.
“You sure that’s the statement you wanna make, Miss Stone?”
The last four months flit through my mind. Only in the very beginning was I truly afraid of Kage. He unraveled himself slowly to me, as slowly as he knew how. He inadvertently gave me an out from a life I no longer wanted to participate in. He gave me the time and space to find myself, and to dig deeper and discover something darker, sharper, and more powerful than I thought myself capable. I’ll forever be scarred and traumatized by certain elements, but when that fear starts to climb up my throat and threatens to choke me, the first thing my heart reaches for is him.
“Yes. I’m positive.”
