Page 420 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Lachlan looks away.

He’s holding Kade’s face.

‘I’ve killed enough in this life.’

‘Wait…’ Kade blinks through the rain. ‘Wait, what time is it?’

He looks up at the dark and stormy sky, sees a sliver of thick, milky moon through a break in the clouds.

‘Just after eleven.’

‘Oh my God, Lee. What did she say? She did it, right?’

‘She contacted Cole,’ Lachlan tells him, thumb rubbing over his cheekbones. ‘She said there was someone in the tank.’

‘Did she kill him?’

‘It was a woman named Madeline Delacroix. It wasn’t his Knot body.’

‘No. No, no, no.’

‘It’s OK, baby.’

‘No!’

‘I just want to be with you.’

Kade is dying.

Breaking.

Losing.

Love puts us on the losing side.

Roman had said that, but so had someone else… once.

‘I won’t let you go,’ he promises, crying so hard he can barely speak. ‘I won’t, I won’t! I’ll follow you, I’ll find you, I’ll—!’

Lachlan kisses him.

It’s unfair.

And it’s beautiful.

And it’s everything and yet nowhere near enough because they should have this… forever and always and everywhere and Kade is so fucking greedy, he’s greedy like Julian, like a boy who never knew love until he tasted it in the man sworn to protect him.

Lachlan’s knees give out.

Kade goes down with him.

He locks himself into the kiss.

Maybe death will take Kade too and make a hypocrite of him in front of Riley, under the moon, above the sea, in this painful world, maybe God will be too confused who is who and take them both, or neither.

Lachlan makes a sound.

Kade can’t let go.