"What am I?"
"One of them. Family." His eyes held mine, intense and certain. "Family doesn't sit on the sidelines while their people go to war. Family fights. Even when it's terrifying. Even when the people who love them beg them not to."
He left me alone with the wind and the grey sky and the weight of what was coming.
I found Axel in his room—our room, now—cleaning his gun with the methodical focus of a man trying not to think. He looked up when I entered, expression guarded. "Come to yell at me?"
"Depends." I closed the door, leaned against it. "Are you going to listen?"
"I've made my decision."
"Without consulting me. About my own life."
"About keeping you safe." He set down the gun, stood. "That's not negotiable, Kai."
"Everything's negotiable. That's what you told me about the MC life." I pushed off from the door, moved closer. "Or does that only apply when it's convenient for you?"
"This is different."
"How? How is this different from every other risk we've taken?"
"Because you could die!" The words exploded out of him, raw and ragged. "Because I watched you run into a firefight two days ago and I couldn't breathe until I saw you again. Because every time I close my eyes, I see you bleeding out on that floor instead of Jake."
"That's fear talking. Not logic."
"I don't care about logic." He was in my space now, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him. "I care about you. And I will not watch you walk into that compound knowing you might not walk out."
"So I'm supposed to sit here while everyone I love goes to war? Patch up the survivors and pretend I couldn't have helped?"
"Yes."
"No." I held his gaze, refused to back down. "I'm not your property, Axel. I'm not some fragile thing that needs protecting. I've proven myself?—"
"This isn't about proving yourself!"
"Then what is it about?"
"It's about me being too fucking selfish to risk losing you!" His voice cracked, and suddenly I saw it—the fear underneath the anger, the desperation underneath the control. "I spent twenty years hiding from who I am. Then you crashed into my life and made me feel things I didn't think I was capable of feeling. And now you want me to watch you walk into a slaughter?"
"I want you to trust me. The way I trust you."
"I do trust you?—"
"Then let me fight." I grabbed his shirt, fisted the fabric, pulled him closer. "Let me stand beside you instead of behind you. Let me be your partner, not your protected."
"Kai—"
"I'm not asking for permission. I'm asking you to understand." My voice dropped, fierce and raw. "I love you. But I won't be caged by that love. I won't be diminished by it."
He stared at me, chest heaving, eyes wild with emotion. The silence stretched, taut as a wire.
Then he kissed me.
It wasn't gentle. His mouth claimed mine with bruising force, hands tangling in my hair, tilting my head exactly where he wanted it. I gave as good as I got—biting his lower lip, hands raking down his back, pulling him so close there was no space left between us.
"I hate this," he growled against my mouth.
"I know."
