Page 82 of Two Sides of Sin

“I’ve found a secure location for you,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that barely carried over the noise of the room. “There’s a civilian shelter being set up in the heavily fortified subterranean cellars beneath the cathedral plaza. It’s secure. I’m taking you there now.”

I sat up straighter, my fingers instinctively gripping the edge of the mattress. “Are you staying there with me?”

He looked away, staring at the massive stone archway over my shoulder. “No. I have to return to the plaza perimeter. My unit is still securing the breach.”

My stomach dropped. A cold, heavy disappointment flooded my chest, washing away the lingering heat of the kiss we had shared against the wall.

“But I will come find you,” he added quickly, his gaze flashing back to mine. The sheer, starving intensity in his brown eyes was starting to scare me a little bit. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper meant only for me. “I promise you, Sage. The second I can, I will come check on you.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. The sadness was a heavy ache, but I knew it was selfish to want him to stay. It wasn’t realistic. I couldn’t ask a soldier to abandon his post in the middle of a security breach, no matter how desperately I wanted his hands on me again.

“Okay,” I whispered softly, pushing myself up to stand on my good leg. “I’m ready.”

The drive across the secured sectors of the city plaza was dead silent. It was uneventful, the dark, desolate concrete roadways illuminated only by the sweeping headlights of the heavy military transport truck, but the atmosphere inside the cab was thick, heavy, and honestly, a little bit awkward.

I sat pressed against the passenger door, my bandaged leg throbbing with a lingering pain, stealing cautious glances at Julian. He drove with a steel grip on the steering wheel, his jaw clamped so tight a muscle ticked constantly beneath his bloodied skin. He was locked in a brutal, intense battle with whatever was going on inside his mind.

I couldn’t blame him. We had all been through a complete nightmare tonight, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine the weight of what he had just done, to get me out of that alleyway alive. He presented himself as this terrifying, unfeeling machine made of carbon steel, but underneath it all, he seemed wrapped in a deep, internal conflict. We all have limits, and the horrors of a war had to surely take a toll on his soul, no matter how hard he tried to hide it behind a stone wall.

When we finally reached the reinforced entry to the underground vaults, the heavy iron-studded doors were illuminated by tactical floodlights and guarded by more soldiers. Julian practically carried me down the stone steps, bypassing the immediate chaos to find me a quiet corner near the old foundations. He got me as settled as he possibly could, making sure my wounded leg was elevated on a duffel bag.

But the moment I was safe, the invisible, icy wall slammed back down between us.

He didn’t linger. He didn’t reach out to touch me. He just gave me one last unreadable look, and then he left.

A heavy, sickeningly hollow feeling filled my chest as I watched his massive silhouette walk out the heavy security doors and disappear into the night. I listened to the roar of the truck’s engine starting up, a sickening knot forming in my throat as he drove off. I had no idea when—or if—I would see him again.

I pulled my gaze away from the exit and looked around the cavernous stone cellar. It was packed with strange, terrified faces, evacuated locals, a few other NGO volunteers I didn’t recognise, mothers clutching crying children. A suffocating wave of anxiety riddled my entire body. It was a consuming, isolating panic, a feeling of deep displacement I hadn’t felt this intensely since I was a little girl sitting in a cold, quiet house where I didn’t belong.

I squeezed my eyes shut, digging my fingernails into my palms, forcing myself to take deep, shaking breaths to try and calm my nervous system.

Eventually, a kind-faced volunteer worker approached me, offering a styrofoam cup of lukewarm soup and a scratchy wool blanket. I took them with a whispered thank you, wrapping the blanket tightly around my shoulders while a man with a clipboard knelt beside me to take my name and details.

“Try to get some rest, Sage,” the man told me in a sympathetic tone, jotting down my information under the glow of a battery-powered lantern. “We’re organising transport for tomorrow. Buses will be taking everyone in heavily armed convoys to the airport at first light. From there, they’ll fly you out.”

Getting out. I nodded numbly as he walked away. As I sat in the dim light of the stone vault, staring down at the soup in my hands, my mind drifted right back to the lethal soldier who had pressed me against a wall and kissed me like the world was ending.

I just hoped I got the chance to see him again before I leave. I needed to thank him again. And deep down, in that reckless, romantic part of my heart that craved something dangerous, I wanted to see him after all this was over. In the real world. I wanted to see where this terrifying magnetic pull between us could lead.

But as I squeezed the wool blanket tighter around myself, the doubt crept back in, heavy and nagging. His hot-and-cold attitude confused me entirely. He had kissed me like I was his entire world, and then walked away from me like I was a liability. But I guess I kind of was in this situation.

Chapter 50

Julian

The perimeter was secured, the remaining hostiles neutralised or scattered into the surrounding city ruins, but the war raging inside my own head was out of control.

I should have stayed at the barracks annex. I should have been debriefing command or washing the crust of dried blood off my skin. Instead, I was going to see Sage.

Even with the smoke still hanging in the chilly air and the adrenaline of the slaughter still burning in my veins, she was undeniably all I could think about. The phantom weight of her mouth against mine, the terrifyingly familiar burning in her eyes as she looked at me, the feel of her curves under my hands. Since my first encounter with sage, sometimes, in the quiet, torturous hours of the night, I genuinely thought I had finally driven myself mad. I wondered if the century of grief had finally broken me, and my fractured mind had simply hallucinated her out of the dust and the shadows just to give me a reason to keep going.

But the blood on my vest was real. And the lingering taste of her on my lips was real.

I pulled open the heavy iron-studded doors leading down into the subterranean vault beneath the plaza and stepped inside.

The overcrowded cellar had been transformed into a dim, sprawling triage centre. The harsh emergency floodlights had been turned off, replaced by the soft, amber glow of lanterns resting against the ancient stone foundations. Most of the civilians had finally succumbed to exhaustion and were asleep on makeshift beds spread across the concrete floor. In the far corners, nurses and medics moved quietly between the cots of those still receiving treatment for their injuries, their hushed voices voices barely carrying over the sound of a hundred people breathing.

A few soldiers from my battalion were stationed at the stone archways, keeping a heavily armed watch.