Page 26 of Cold Ignition

“Someone has to,” Alexios replied, nudging him lightly. “Otherwise, we’d just stand around staring at each other, and while I’m not opposed to that as a lifestyle choice—”

Rangi huffed a soft breath that might have been a laugh, his hand still resting at the back of Alexios’s neck.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

Simple.

Certain.

It landed the same way it always did.

Alexios’s expression softened, the humor easing into something deeper as he held Rangi’s gaze.

“Yeah,” he said, just as quietly. “I know.”

Then, softer—“I love you too.”

They stayed there a moment longer, foreheads still touching, the world held at a distance.

Then Rangi eased back, his hand dropping from Alexios’s neck as the space between them returned—not distance, not absence. Just enough room to breathe.

To think.

To wait.

Alexios let his gaze drift toward the broken window, toward the horizon beyond it, where the light was beginning to shift.

“You think he’ll come?” he asked quietly.

Rangi didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Alexios studied him, searching his face for doubt and finding none. “Why?”

Rangi’s gaze drifted toward the broken window, toward the endless stretch of desert beyond it where heat already shimmered despite the early hour.

“Because he doesn’t walk away from something that challenges him,” he said. “And because when he sees a pattern, he finishes it.”

Alexios’s mouth curved slightly. “You almost sound like you miss him.”

Rangi’s expression didn’t change. “I respect him.”

“That’s worse,” Alexios murmured.

Rangi glanced back at him, something softer flickering briefly beneath the surface of his control.

Alexios leaned in then, closing the space between them, pressing his forehead briefly to Rangi’s. It wasn’t desperate. Wasn’t rushed.

It was grounding.

“We hold,” Alexios said quietly.

Rangi nodded once. “We hold.”

Below them, voices carried now.

“...clear the upper floors.”

“...they can’t have gone far.”