Page 66 of Bound

I’ve come to realize it’s okay for the before Lucian to love the before Isabel. And that’s what I told him.

Despite everything, I turn my face, stretch up on tiptop and kiss his lips. He smiles when I pull back. He grins back.

My smile quickly drops when Rafe’s voice comes over the radio. I press my hand flat against Lucian’s chest, feeling his heartbeat as we wait for the words we know are coming.

“Show time.”

Lucian’s entire body sharpens. Then, he says, “No one moves until I call it.”

The convoy waits outside, visible. Just as much a part of our plan as Isobel—Belle, to Carlos, and to me. He takes my hand, leading me out to the line of black bulletproof cars. Delicate flakes of snow stick to the dark threads of my hair.

Isobel walks ahead of us, looking every bit the Ice Princess as she glides through her winter castle. Her long blonde hair hangs elegantly down her back. She wears a pure white knee-length coat over black leather boots with stiletto heels, impossible in this weather, yet she moves with the grace of a ballerina. She’s so beautiful to look at that sometimes even I have to stare.

The girl you want to hate because you wish you looked more like her. But I don’t. Lucian has made me feel so beautiful in my own skin that I no longer need his praise to know I’m every bit as lovely as she is.

Right now, I just feel sad for her.

She chose the white coat, the boots. “Carlos always liked me in white.”

She holds her head high, not even glancing at us over her shoulder as she climbs into her vehicle. Lucian ushers me into ours, the warm cab a surprise even though I’m expecting it. I run my hand over the luxurious black leather seats.

Snow taps against the wind shield making the cab feel like a snow globe. A snow globe that could turn into a beautiful coffin at any moment.

I squeeze Lucian’s hand.

The Village waits too.

Having heard Rafe’s call beyond the gates, men in dark coats move with a new urgency. They know we are ready. They know our plan. They know Carlos may be watching through something old, buried in the very bones they are rebuilding.

I take a slow breath. The plug is not there anymore.

Lucian removed it before we left Iceland, with infuriating patience and an amount of aftercare that made me feel softer than I wanted to admit.

But I can still remember it.

Not as a physical sensation exactly.

A reminder; My world depends on you making choices that keep you alive.

Shameful man. He found a way to make kink educational. And somehow, it is working.

Because right now, with the gates ahead and fear trying to turn me inside out, I am listening to my body.

My pulse is fast. My hands are cold. My stomach is tight.

But nothing in me says run.

Not yet.

“Still good?” Lucian asks quietly.

I look at him.

He didn’t ask if I was scared. Scared is obvious. Not one of us here is unafraid.

“Green,” I whisper.

His eyes flare.