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Her breath rushed out of her lungs. “You sure that’s not the drugs talking?”

He shook his head. “We fit just right together. You tried so damn hard to stop me from getting close, but I knew the fight would be worth it. And you’ve helped heal me, too. I didn’t think I could ever love again. You’ve proved to me I was wrong.”

Georgia didn’t know what to say. It felt amazing to be Ash’s woman. “Come on, Romeo. If we want this love to last, we need to get out of this cave.”

“I’m right with you, beautiful.” He staggered to his feet and swayed side to side.

“Are you sure?”

He grabbed his equipment pack from the ground then pulled her in for a long, slow kiss. “I’ve never been more certain of anything.”

She grinned up at him. “Then let’s get out of here and see where this crazy road to love takes us.”

***

The drugs pumping throughAsh made his vision blurry. Moving was helping to get them out of his system, but his reflexes were still slow, and he struggled not to stagger as Georgia led the way out of the caves.

He should have been angry she’d come for him, but he was glad to be with her.

And now she knew the truth about how he felt. There was no going back from this, and he didn’t want there to be. He loved her completely, and she just had to get used to that.

Ash got the impression Georgia hadn’t had much love in her life. He planned to change that. But first, they needed to get out of these damn caves and make the Siblet pay.

“When I was looking for you, I saw the Siblet taking out equipment,” Georgia whispered.

“Hiding the evidence,” he muttered.

“It looked like it. And one of the Siblet was going to get the animals. I think he planned to kill them. We have to go back for them.”

“Georgia, it’s too much of a risk to stay here. We need to get up top. It’s too easy to be trapped in these caves.”

“Ash, it’s the white tails. We can’t leave them behind. We’ve been looking for them for too long.”

“We can’t take them with us. We need backup, and we need to get rid of the Siblet before we think about transporting those animals.”

She turned and glared up at him. “I’m not leaving them. They’re what this mission has been about. If the Siblet kill them, then we fail.”

“And if we die in these shit hole caves, we’ll have failed, too.”

“We won’t die. Not now we’re back together.”

Those simple words resonated through him. Ash had waited so long for Georgia to admit she needed him. No, she didn’t need him, she could handle herself just fine, but she wanted him. She wanted him in her life.

Her glare softened. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Everything’s perfect.”

Georgia glanced around. “Um, not really. Have you forgotten where we are?”

“This is temporary.” He kissed her gently. “This is perfect.”

“Oh! Well... cool.” Her cheeks flushed.

He loved how she got lost for words around him when he mentioned feelings. It was another way of showing she cared, even if she didn’t say it.

“We won’t abandon the white tails, but until our ship gets here, we don’t have a way to restrain them. If we take them out of the cages, they could bolt, and we’ll lose them.”

“So we don’t take them anywhere. But we can still remove the threat to their lives and hide them somewhere until we can move them.”