I cannot stop staring at my new bodyguard. His gaze finds mine, and I see myself reflected in those dark eyes. My heart thunders. My lungs flutter, torn between crying and laughing. In that instant, everything I am collapses into a black hole inside me.
He lifts a hand, brushes a fluttering strand of hair from my face, and his thumb ghosts over the bruise on my jaw. I realize I am crying. Not the silent, hopeless tears of captivity, but tears of relief and gratitude.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, his voice deep and rough. The words settle over my heart like a warm blanket. He holds me as if I am precious, as if my battered body is worth more than the money and drugs burning behind us. The safety in his arms is a sensation that blooms so violently I nearly collapse.
I drink in every detail of him, the line of his mouth, the strength in his grip, the heat radiating from his skin. He looks at me as though he is searching for damage, for proof that I am real and alive and his to protect. The world of flames, gunfire, the wreckage of the lab behind me fades to a dull roar.
“Stay behind me,” he commands, and I nod, the words getting lost in the storm of everything I feel. There is trust in the air between us, forged in heat and desperation, something ancient and unbreakable.
If you ask me to explain it, I could never put it into actual words another human being can understand. Magic? Fuck no. That doesn’t exist, but the way his presence speaks to me has no other name.
Another Vulture charges around the bend, gun up and his face twisted with rage. My rescuer moves with terrifying grace. Watching him move feels like seeing a man who has waited a lifetime to defend his mate.
He quickly eliminates the threat just in time to see another bounding down the hillside. My bodyguard palms his weapon and fires. The enemy falls.
“I said behind me, Doc.”
My bodyguard sweeps me closer and I wrap my arms around him so that my front presses against his back, the wall of his body my only shield.
His pulse thrums beneath my palm. My own heart finds the rhythm. I feel him breathe, steady and deep, even as chaos reigns. I realize I am not just surviving—I am living for the first time in forever. In his arms, every nerve in my body fires to life. I have not known real touch in months, not safety, not hope. Now it is all I know.
He turns a fraction, and our gazes connect. “You’re safe, Layla. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” His words tremble with something fierce and raw. I don’t know why, but I want to believe him.
And really? Do I have any other choice?
The world narrows again, just the two of us at the center of the storm. Smoke twists between us, but I can feel the certainty in the way he holds my gaze.
We move as one, his body leading, mine following, an unspoken connection already binding us. I do not know his name yet, but I know he is the man who will burn the world to save me. In the blaze of sunlight that greets us as we move down the road, something new is born. I swear with my hand on a stack of Bibles it feels like hope.
Please, God, don't let me be wrong.
6
BEAST
Gunfire cracks through the humid air like thunder ripping the sky apart, and I move through the chaos with the kind of focus that turns the world into a tunnel of targets and threats. The plantation mansion looms ahead, its white columns smeared with smoke and the sharp tang of burning chemicals that stings my nostrils and coats the back of my throat.
Women burst from a side door, half-dressed, wild-eyed, arms flung over their heads as bullets chase them into the green. One of the Vultures lunges after them, but a shot rings out and he drops. Ash’s doing. He waves the girls toward the trees, and then he slips inside.
My boots sink into the soft earth of the overgrown lawn, each step pulling at the mud that clings like desperate fingers, but I don't slow down because slowing down means death. Not for me, but for her, for my crew.
I won’t let that happen.
Sweat beads on my forehead, trickling down to mix with the grit on my skin, and my white T-shirt sticks to the tattoos across mychest, the ink a vivid map of battles won and lost that flexes with every controlled breath I take.
Reaper's voice cuts through the comm in my ear, low and steady amid the roar. When they rolled up about five minutes ago, I grabbed more ammo, the comm and we formed a simple plan: take down the Vultures and save Layla. End of plan.
I like simple.
“Flank the east shed, Beast. Flush ‘em out.”
I acknowledge with a grunt, my dark eyes scanning the shadows where Vultures scurry like rats from a sinking ship.
Storm, Phantom, Viper and the others fan out behind me, their boots pounding the ground in sync, the metallic click of weapons priming the only sound sharper than the distant screams from inside the mansion.
We’ve hit them hard and fast, Savage Reign pouring in like a storm after months of me chasing ghosts, and now the air thickens with gunpowder, scorched wood, and the coppery scent of fresh blood.
I spot a Vulture darting from the shed, his cut flapping like a coward’s flag, and I raise my Glock without breaking stride. The shot rings out, precise and final, his body jerking before crumpling into the tall grass. Another emerges, firing wild, bullets chewing up the dirt near my feet in puffs of dust that taste like dry earth on my tongue.
