Page 85 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Lachlan kisses him.

The kiss is like air, like Kade was drowning underwater and broke the surface just in time to take a great, gorgeous gulp that means he can keep on living. Lachlan kisses Kade with a hunger he’s not shown before, and Kade’s eyelashes flutter like the powdery wings of meadow-loving creatures. A desperate pleasure curls within him at being so thoroughly kissed, like Lachlan knows how Kade wants it.

And he does.

He clearly does.

Kade saw the photograph.

He saw himself in love.

Lachlan pulls away but stays close, his forehead against Kade’s, breathing shallow, his hand around the back of Kade’s neck.

‘Breaks my heart that you would ever feel unwanted, baby,’ he groans low and pained. Kade’s brain lights up like a Christmas tree. No one’s ever called him baby before. ‘I’d crawl through hell to spend thirty seconds with you. There’s nothing I wouldn’t...’

He’s crying.

Lachlan Tanner is crying.

Because beneath the power of a stone-cold killer, beneath the skin that heals, beneath those unknowable years that Kade has no access to... there’s just a man who lost everything and everyone. A man who loved souls in bodies that failed, and now he carries that failure like a wound that refuses to heal, cannot even scar.

No sun. No daylight.

Only the dark vastness of unbearable loss.

He looks at Kade like he really is the dawn.

Even if only a little bit.

Touching Lachlan like this is intoxicating. They’re so close, sharing breath, lightly tangled together. It’s a dizzying experience that deluges Kade’s senses and gives strength to desire over practicality for once.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he tells Lachlan, kissing his cheek, wishing he could do more, be more, but he’s just Kade. No last name because he belongs to Iron Star, to Riley Harker. ‘I wish I was him.’

‘Don’t be anyone but yourself.’

‘But you love him, not me.’

Lachlan gives a small smile. ‘I wish I could make you understand.’

‘I understand. I look like him and I sound like him and maybe I even smell like him, but Lachlan, I’m not. I don’t know you.’ Kade’s breath snags hard, tears spilling. ‘I want to. I want to know you, but you’re going away and you won’t even try to stay.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Then try. Please try. I need you to.’

‘You might be the only person on earth who’d miss me.’

‘Don’t say stupid shit like that! If you care so much—’

‘I do.’

‘—then stay with me. Help me remember. Or... or just stay to be my friend, be something, be here with me. You could do that. You could try.’

‘My bargain was made to kill everyone responsible for what happened to you and Mimi. To get justice. I didn’t think when I made it, didn’t care about the fine print. Troy Harker is already dead.’

Kade tries not to think of what he learnt last night from Riley.

My fault.