She studies me once more, eyes narrowing just slightly, and when she speaks again, there’s no softness left, only practicality. “Look, I don’t know if we’re clear of your father and his guards, but I know you need to be strong enough to fight back if we aren’t. We’renotgoing back there, Dante.”
The words slam into me harder than the crash of our vehicle did.
We’re out. Out of the compound.
Somehow through the haze, I knew that, but it escaped my focus, almost feeling like a dream. I can feel the truth of it now,in the open air on my face, the stretch of stars overhead, and the silence not broken by boots thumping against tile and the mechanical whirring of cameras following all movement.
If we’re found…my gut churns violently with the thought of what my father will do, of what it will mean if we fail now.
My resistance to drinking her blood buckles under the thought. I drag in a sharp breath and tilt my head toward her waiting wrist. “Okay.”
Briar presses the torn skin of her wrist against my mouth with practiced ease, muttering as she does, “Good boy.”
The words slip through my mind, teasing and curling low in my chest where they have no business stirring anything at all. It’s wrong, the way the soft, dulcet sound of her voice on those words makes my heart flutter. I can’t stop the tremor it sends racing through me as her blood touches my tongue.
After my first swallow, the change rushing through my body is instantaneous. The pounding in my skull dulls, vision sharpening at the edges until the stars stop swimming in the sky above me. Warmth spreads through my chest, sliding into my limbs, and steadying the tremor in my hands. I feel skin tightening and stitching together, every breath feeling a little looser than the last.
Yet behind the relief I feel in my body repairing itself, a single thought still swirls around my mind, heavy with guilt: I don’t deserve for her to heal me when I couldn’t stop her pain for the past month.
Then Callum’s voice cuts across the field, shaky but clear enough to raise every hair on my neck. “Uh…Briar. Do you happen to know these people?”
I push up instantly, jerking my mouth from her wrist. Instinct takes the reins before thought does, and I lurch to my feet, quick to jump in front of her, body braced againstwhatever’s coming. If it’s my father’s men, they’ll deal with me before they have a chance to touch her.
I’m no longer a bystander, and I will do whatever I can to make amends with her.
But Briar is already moving, pushing around me, faster than I can track, and what the moonlight spills across the field in front of us isn’t what either of us are expecting. A gasp falls from Briar as my brow knits, taking in the three figures that absolutely are not guards or a unit from my father’s compound.
Two large men with rippling muscle down their arms stand locked against Callum and Elias, blades pressed to their throats as their bright red eyes break through the night to pin me to the spot.
Vampires.
In front of them, a woman advances, her features striking enough to steal my breath. The resemblance is undeniable–the same tanned skin, flowing white hair, and similar body composition of the woman who has consumed my thoughts the past month.
A ragged sob rips from Briar before her trembling voice whispers, “Mom?”
She rushes forward at the same time cold metal kisses my temple.
A voice ghosts against my ear. “Don’t move a fucking muscle, hunter.”
CHAPTER 22
BRIAR
Long silver hair spilling loose down her shoulders to her waist. Red eyes fading into the blue ones I used to glare into when she scolded me. That familiar, unyielding line of her jaw is softened now as tears fall down her cheeks.
The moment my brain finally comprehends she’s truly standing in front of me, my world fractures. My body surges forward before I even decide to move, knees giving out mid-stride so I stumble the last step into her arms.
She catches me like she’s been waiting a lifetime, arms engulfing me and pulling me tight against the curve of her chest. The second her warmth closes around me, the scent of cherry blossom rolls over my senses, and it undoes me.
She’s really here.
My breath shatters on a sob that claws free before I can choke it down. My face presses into her shoulder, cheek sliding against her battle leathers, and tears spill hot and relentless down my cheeks. The world spins around me as my body seems to shut down in her arms, all the strength I forced into myself the past month disappearing now that I’m safe and with my family.
Her palm cups the back of my head, fingers sliding into my hair and holding me steady against the storm breaking openwithin me. Her arms don’t ease for even a second. They cinch tighter around me, holding me in the solid, immovable embrace of her body as though she knows that if she loosens even a fraction, I might splinter apart and never find the pieces again. The cherry blossom scent of her skin and hair threads through every shaky inhale, soft and sweet against the copper tang of blood matted in my hair and crusted along my body. The comforting scent is so jarring my lungs can’t decide how to draw breath around it. I want to breathe it in and wrap myself in it, all at once. My chest stutters against hers, every gasp shallow and uneven, as if my body no longer remembers how to settle into the rhythm of simply breathing.
For weeks I forced myself to believe they’d never stop searching until they found me. I clung to the thought, chanting to myself to just survive until then. Now, here she is, and the reality of her holding me is almost unbearable as her presence bringing every emotion and memory I tried to suppress in my captivity to the surface. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to feel it. But with the slide of her hand brushing my damp cheek, the steady drum of her heart against my ear, and the warmth of her body bleeding into my own, I can’t ignore it any longer.
My mind knows she will be here to hold me through it, and I’m helpless to the way my body shakes and shudders with every heart-wrenching sob.
