Page 25 of Vow to Claim You

I let out a shaky breath and nod.

Tassilo grips my hand, pulling me up the embankment. He positions his body between me and the treeline like it’s reflex, like shielding people from bullets is as natural as breathing.

I turn back to Aric. My heart splinters at the sight of him.

He’s still on the ground, one hand pressed to his side, blood seeping between his fingers. Because of me. Because I didn’t listen. This should’ve been me.

My jaw tightens. I want to stay. I want to put pressure on the wound and hold him together with my own hands if I have to. I want to scream at him for being reckless and brave and so infuriatingly noble that it makes me want to strangle him and kiss him in the same breath.

But I also want him alive.

The moment can’t last more than a few seconds, but to me, it feels infinitely longer.

Then his men form a wall around him, and he’s gone from sight.

My mind races as Tassilo moves me toward the vehicle. This night. This road. This fallen branch that looked too clean and too deliberate. None of it was an accident. Whoever fired that bullet wasn’t trying to rob us or send a warning. They were shooting at Aric or me, or us both, with the intent to kill.

CHAPTER TEN

Ayanna

Tassilo’s driving like the road personally offended him, knuckles white against the steering wheel, every muscle in his body drawn tight enough to snap.

My heart hasn’t slowed since the gunfire. Since Aric shoved me down. Since his body covered mine and his blood seeped into my dress.

“That bullet—” I whisper, fingers trembling. “It was meant for me.”

Tassilo doesn’t even glance at me. “We don’t know that.”

I look at him instinctively. He speaks. I didn’t even know the silent executioner who usually communicates in grunts and murderous stares had full sentences in him.

For a long moment, neither of us speaks again. I turn and focus on the road ahead, which winds through dense forest before briefly spilling onto the edge of the fjord, its black waters glimmering beneath the northern lights. Then we’re swallowed by the trees again, until the mountains rise beyond them.

The entire time, my pulse is still in my throat, choking me. “Someone tried to kill me,” I mutter involuntarily.

“Whoever it was is now at war.”

My breath stutters. “Because of me.”

“No, because they were stupid.”

I focus my attention on him again.

His jaw twitches before he adds, “They will pay for it.”

I swallow hard. The car hits a curve, and my stomach roils. “Where are we going?” I ask, voice thinner than I’d like.

“Home,” he says.

Home.

Strange word for a place that feels like a beautiful cage. Stranger still that part of me wants to be taken anywhere Aric is.

“And what about Aric?” My voice breaks on his name, and I hate it. “Where did he go? He was bleeding, and you just”—I gesture wildly—“you just drove off!”

Tassilo exhales through his nose, the sound halfway between annoyance and reluctant reassurance.

“Boss knows what he’s doing.”