For the first time in his life, he was paralyzed by indecision.
The EVP might not be safe. She’ll hate you if you force this. Taking her will mean defying Teddy and putting her in danger. Not taking her might cost me everything anyway.
Time was ticking away. Daria, the gatekeeper on the Solbourne payroll, would be arriving any minute alongside a troop of armed soldiers ready to escort them back to the Protectorate. They would have orders to follow, and he couldn’t risk defying his brother openly in front of them once they arrived.
He had to make the decisionnow.
He couldn’t call in Fracture if he went rogue. That would be treason, and he would never make his unit choose between their loyalty to him and their loyalty to his brother.
If he did what he feared he had to, thenhewould be the only one standing between his mate and danger.
The only way to keep her safe — to becertain— would be to hunt down the people behind the bounty. His brother Sam was on the Luz trail, but there was another lead he knew he had to follow. That posed its own series of dangers, not least of which was the fact that he was certain Theodore would send a unit out to hunt their asses down.
Defying him, taking her to the conference where every being hunting her certainly knew she’d be, was objectively stupid. It’d probably get them killed, and if it didn’t, he would be blatantly disregarding his sovereign’s orders.
Everything pointed to him marching Atria home and patiently waiting out her wrath. So why was he hesitating?
I can’t do this,he thought, staring down at his mate’s beseeching face. It was tear-streaked and fierce. Deep in the pit of his stomach, he knew that if he did what was logical, what his brother commanded, he would lose her. There would be no waiting out her wrath if he locked her up.
And he… couldn’t lose her.
She was his mate. He’d fought it tooth and nail for three years, but that time was nothing but a smudge in the back of his mind. The memories of living without her seemed dimmer,duller,with every passing second in her company. Even his objections to matehood seemed to be meeting the same fate.
He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, but hedidknow that Atria now sat in the center of his universe.
She deserved better than him. She deserved someone kind and patient and gifted like her.
Kaz couldn’t give her those things.
He wasn’t kind. He wasn’t patient. He was the bastard spawn of a madman and only knew how to channel his brutality into protecting the people he cared about. He was worth less than the cheap carpet under her strappy sandals.
But he could give herthis.For her and her alone, he could be a hero.
“When is your conference?” he asked, some of the gruffness finally leaving his voice as his indecision cleared. Like sunshine burning away fog, he felt like he could finally think clearly.
Atria’s eyes darted over his features. Licking her lips, she whispered, “Two weeks.”
Two weeks wasn’t a lot of time when one needed to lay low, but it would have to be enough.
Kaz dropped his hand from the door to cup her cheek. His eyes locked on the way his darkened skin looked against her warm complexion, and how his thumb claw retracted almost instantly with a small, pleasurable burn.
Swiping the pad of his thumb over her tear tracks, he rumbled, “Okay, princess.”
Atria blinked. “Okay?”
“Okay,” he repeated. “We’ll do things your way. But I want you to swear to me that you’ll listen when I tell you to do something. No fucking exceptions. Got it?”
Her chest rose with a great, gulping breath. Those eyes he loved — whiskey colored, warm, fringed with impossibly long, curling lashes made into little spikes by tears — melted into the sort of softness that made him feel like a fuckingking.
“Y-yes,” she rasped. “Gods, yes. Okay! I’ll listen. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”
And because even now as he stared down the barrel of defying the brother he’d sworn his life to, Kaz was still a little bit of a dick, he pressed, “You’ll begoodfor me?”
Atria’s eyes narrowed, but she answered, “Yes, Kaz, I’ll begoodfor you.”
A corner of his lips kicked up. There were so very many wicked ways he could interpret her promise. “Dangerous words, but you can’t take them back now.” His eyebrows hiked up when he said, “I can’t believe I’m fucking saying this, but I guess it’s you and me, princess.”
He bent down over her, lashes lowering, to give her the lightest, skimming kiss.“Let’s go on the run.”
