Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
“And that’s what happened today? You got shot trying to help someone?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed violently when he swallowed. “Yeah. A woman and her little boy. We tried to get them out without him knowing, but he was watching and followed us. Ended in a gun fight.”
“Are they…” I rasped around the horror.
Relief filled Kane’s nod. “That’s what River was saying. They’re safe. With Theo and on their way here to Moonlit Ridge where they’ll stay at The Sanctuary. It’s what it’s really used for…hiding victims away until we get them on to their new lives.”
“This is…”
“More than you should have to bear, and I’m the bastard who is asking you to do it, anyway. The bastard who can’t fucking stomach the idea of you walking away. But if that’s what you need to do…to protect your beautiful heart…then I will respect that. But I can’t take it back or stop it. Not when these people need us. If my mother would have had someone like us...”
The last broke off, the man unable to speak.
Overcome with old grief.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed. Bled out and filled.
“Oh, Kane…”
I could see the thoughts play out in his mind. A spinning record he would never be able to stop. If only I could go back and save her…if I could help her the way I help these women and children.
My own thoughts raced through my mind, the tattoo on the inside of my wrist burning with its truth. Find me in the darkness, bring me to the light.
For three gutting days and nights, it had been the plea of my soul. For someone to find us. To bring us out of the torture that we’d been subjected to. And I could almost feel the relief I had when we were rescued. When I’d been brought into the light.
How could I ever, ever consider what he did wrong?
Kane’s frown was grim. “Know what you’re thinking, Em. But you need to know how ugly this goes. How dangerous it is. Everything I do is criminal. From my bars that we use as a cover for the money laundering that we use to support ourselves and those we set up with new identities, all the way to the fact that we shot a man dead today, and I don’t have an ounce of regret in doing it.”
My chin wobbled. “Because you’re a fighter, too.”
I was sure, right then, that he would always fight for me. For us.
And all the walls that I’d tried to keep erected were finally floored.
Demolished.
Ruined.
Because I could feel myself slip over the edge, right into that free fall that I’d been so terrified of.
Surrendering.
Surrendering.
Regret rippled across his face. “You really should run.”
“Is that what you want me to do?”
A big, big hand was back on my face, softly caressing as he murmured, “Think you know the only thing I want is for you to love me back.”
And that last barrier cracked wide open, and a rush of tears gushed down my face. “As if there was any chance of me not loving you?”
Emotion gripped him, and he pulled me in, his nose brushing mine. “What are you saying, Little Warrior? That you’re mine?”
“Kane Asher, I think I was yours the second you picked me up off the floor at Twisted Moon.”
“Fuck…Emery.” Gulping, he dropped his forehead to mine. “I love you. I love you with every breath that this body will give me. With every sunrise and every twilight and every fucking second in between. For every single one of my days.”
The only thing I could do was curl myself against him, my mouth buried in his neck when I fully, completely surrendered. “I love you. With all of me. With everything.”
FIFTY
KANE
Freedom.
I didn’t think I’d really understood the meaning of it until right then. The wind lashing across my face, the heavy metal of my bike vibrating below me, my girl wrapped around me from behind.
Her tits pressed tight against my back and the thud of her heart battering through me like a beautiful storm.
Right then, we were traveling down the south end of the mountain after I’d taken her to watch the view of the sun going behind the lake.
“It’s so beautiful,” she’d whispered.
I couldn’t help but ask her, “Does this feel like home?”
Her answer had been simple.
“Home feels like wherever you are.”
Like I said, freedom.
This thing that we’d found.
Three weeks had passed since the showdown with that bastard in Eugene. Emery had come to the place where she knew she wanted to stay, believing this was where she belonged.
With me and Maci.
Making a family.
She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do about her sister’s store, but she, Raven, and Charleigh had been tossing around some ideas.
Tonight was the first time I was up to taking my bike out on the open road after the incident, and I’d wanted to experience that moment with my Little Warrior.