Page 224 of Damsel in Disguise

Maybe this was simply the cost of choosing him.

So I close my eyes, already accepting my fate. This is it—the end.

Something massive collides against me, knocking the air out of my lungs as my body is pulled backward, not falling, not hit—held. I’m being held by someone.

A sound tears through the room. A strangled grunt followed by the gunshot.

My eyes fly open only to see his body wrapped around mine.

Arms tight around me. Protective in a way that makes no logical sense in a place like this, especially after all he’s done to me till now.

Alistair.

For a second, my brain refuses to process it.

He was standing beside me. He was calculating. He was watching everything like it was already written and expected.

And now his body is between the Crown and me.

I feel it before I understand it.

His breath stutters near my ear as he drops his forehead over my shoulder. “Ariella,” he whispers. “You should—argh—you should run, your brothers are here…” he somehow manages to speak.

Suddenly, my hands are shaking as I reach for him without thinking. Warm, thick, and sticky liquid seeping through his side covers my palms.

“No…” my voice breaks seeing the blood.

The impossible truth lands in me with violent clarity. He took the bullet for me.

My mind refuses it again. Rejects it. Rewrites it. Because Alistair doesn’t take anything for anyone. He calculates. He anticipates. He avoids.

He doesn’t sacrifice himself for others.

But his hand slides away from my body. He’s letting me go.

He chose this. In the end, he chose me.

The doors behind us explode inward. Light fractures across the room. Footsteps. Shouts. Familiar chaos enters from every angle.

“Ariella!”

Adrian’s voice crashes through the laboratory before I even see him.

Both he and Asher run inside to me, outrunning his men. For one horrifying second, I can’t even answer him.

I can’t warn him.

I can’t tell him that the man with the gun might decide to take another person I love.

I can’t lose my brother too.

The guards recover from their surprise before I do. A dozen rifles that had been aimed at the laboratory doors finally find their new targets.

I try to scream, but the sound barely leaves my throat.

The room erupts.

Muzzle flashes tear through the laboratory, bright enough to blind.