Page 224 of Eight of Swords, Part One

The last three are the best.

He dodges a spin kick but isn’t fast enough to avoid the next, and it gets him good, he’s briefly unable to breathe. Even so, he defends himself, uses his surroundings. The wall, the dumpster, he smashes them against whatever is near and takes one out clean with a throat crush.

Kade spits blood and faces down the final two, but Lachlan has torn clean through his side of things and comes to help.

‘Leave me one,’ Kade warns.

‘Heard.’

One apiece, Kade starts in on his while Lachlan does the same.

They’re momentarily side by side.

Kade takes his guy down in four moves.

Crash entry, knee strike, inside trip and then a neck break.

He’s breathless, surfing the pure chemical high that dances inside him like light on water. He toes the body, finds it heavy and quiet. When Kade looks over at Lachlan, eyes adjusting to the darkness now, he sees his one is still alive, writhing on the ground.

‘Need a little help?’ he teases, winded.

‘In case you want to ask him questions,’ Lachlan says, not even a little bit out of breath, the fucker. He hauls the man up, yanks off his ski mask and then sort of dangles him before Kade by the hair the way a once wild pet might bring in a catch to give their human the honour of final kill. ‘Here.’

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Kade purrs, doesn’t bother talking to the guy, it’ll just dampen his high. Instead, he searches him all over, gets a solid read from what he finds. Unmarked gun, ID in his wallet, familiar tattoo on his wrist. ‘Low level gang member. No one serious.’

‘You want me to do it?’

‘Nah, let him go.’

Lachlan makes a sound of displeasure but tosses the guy loose, who scrambles away fast, boots smacking on concrete.

‘Are you hurt?’ Lachlan asks roughly when it’s just the two of them in the dark, surrounded by bodies, both of them bloody, bruised and breathless. When Kade doesn’t answer, Lachlan takes rough hold of his face, turning it so he can see, like he must see, and what very little light there is catches in Lachlan’s eyes strangely, cat-like and faintly iridescent. ‘Ribs all right? They used to fold sometimes when—’

Something crests inside Kade, who inhales sharply. He falls into Lachlan’s space, lips crushing against his to kiss.

He’s kissing him.

It’s perfect. It’s gross. It’s painful. Bliss.

Kissing in the dark, covered in blood, this man is so fucking dangerous and Kade should know better for so many reasons, but his heart is making rivers of golden light, and his mind is singing and he’s wanted to kiss this motherfucker for what feels like forever.

He has wanted it despite so much.

Chest to chest, his mouth on Lachlan’s is achingly good, just that simple press is everything. It leaves Kade dizzy in new ways.

He’s instantly hungry for more, wants more Lachlan, more violence, more blood, more spit, wants to suck on Lachlan’s tongue and run greedy hands freely over warm, immortal skin and make mess he won’t have to clean up, make contact, forge a connection, make whatever passes for love in Varrow City and keep it inside him when Lachlan gives it, oh God he wants Lachlan to fuck him, fuck him up and fuck him deep, keep going even after he comes, he’s so empty, oh he’s so empty, what the fuck, why has it never felt this way before? Like he lived his whole life without gravity and dreamed of falling and now… now he’s in a dead drop.

It’s bliss, ugly and thrilling and addictively sweet.

He’ll die without it, needs him, wants him, bodyguard.

‘Bodyguard,’ he moans, pulling him closer and it’s been maybe two seconds, two whole seconds since he kissed him, but it feels like weeks, months, years, seven fucking years and he forgot how it felt to live, to live this hard and bright and beautiful.

Two seconds and Lachlan isn’t kissing him back.

Three seconds and Lachlan seems to realise what’s happening.

The same rough hands circle Kade’s wrists, he didn’t even realise he had his own on Lachlan’s shoulders, but they’re pulled down now, removed. Lachlan tries to step back but Kade growls low in his throat, pursues with a sense of ownership that has no right to exist, yet it does.