My pulse thundered as I tried to scramble back to my feet, but I was unarmed, tied up and stuck here like a sitting duck.
Kyan groaned where he’d fallen, his gun nowhere in sight as he half pushed himself up while clutching a wound on his side and it was easy to remember that he’d come damn close to death already tonight.
And unless the tide suddenly turned in our favour, I had the horrible feeling that my father was about to win this part of the game.
“T roy! Wait for me!” Karen’s voice reached me from up ahead as we sprinted around the castle, hugging the wall to give us cover from any guns that might be pointed our way.
Panic tugged at my lungs and I ran faster through the mounting snow beneath my feet, my breaths misting before me as I carved through the bloody trail ahead of us.
We made it around to the front of the house where Troy was stepping out of a Bentley, raising a gun to point at two people on the paved driveway while Karen staggered toward him.
“Troy!” she cried and he looked up in surprise.
My gaze focused on the men on the ground. Saint. Kyan.
My world slowed, my head spinning, my heart swelling as I felt my connection to my husband more assuredly than ever before. My beautiful, dark sinner, pale and bloody but alive. Totally fucking alive. I was so overwhelmed by the sight of them and the love in my heart for both of those boys that I was momentarily frozen to the spot. But I had one task left to fulfil. I couldn’t let Karen or Troy get away. They were the last pieces of this horrible puzzle. Their deaths would fill the final slots and we could all finally wake up from this nightmare.
I raised my gun, aiming it at Troy with a sneer before pulling the trigger. He lurched sideways and the bullet went fucking wide. He turned his gun on me and Saint kicked his shins hard as his weapon went off. Strong hands pulled me back, dragging me behind the cover of the wall and I found Blake there, giving me an anxious look.
“Jesus, Cinders,” he cursed. “That was too close.”
“You’re dead – our fucking queen is here!” Saint snarled and I struggled my way free of Blake to look around the wall.
Troy was back in the car, pulling away down the drive, clearly deciding he’d rather save his own ass than risk it going up against us in a shoot out. Karen had ducked down behind a boulder that flanked the drive and I growled as she darted out from behind it, clasping her side with one hand, blood oozing through her fingers as she ran as fast as she could to catch him.
“Wait!” she shrieked as the Bentley accelerated away.
Saint tried to get up, but his hands were bound behind his back and Kyan was struggling too, clearly in agony as he pressed his hands to the ground to push himself up onto his hands and knees.
A shot cut through the air and Nash suddenly threw his weight at me and Blake, flattening us to the wall once more as the bullet narrowly missed us. I turned back to see where it had come from as frantic breaths left me, finding a guard following us, panicking as he struggled to reload his gun.
Nash drew away from me and he and Blake ran at the guy full speed, firing their guns and taking the man down in a spray of bullets. But as the guard hit the ground, he started rising once more, clearly wearing a goddamn bulletproof vest as he raised his own gun to fire. My boys collided with him before he could, crushing him to the ground. And I knew they’d win that fight as the man started screaming beneath them and they worked together to pin him down and finish him.
I turned back to face Karen as she stumbled down the drive toward the car and Troy slowed to a halt for her. Kyan was on his knees, reloading his weapon as Saint fought against his restraints.
“Fuck,” I spat, taking chase after Karen and raising my gun.
The passenger door was shoved open and Karen grasped the side of the vehicle, staggering toward her only chance of escape.
I stopped running and raised the handgun, levelling it on her, aiming down the sights and not moving a single inch as I held my breath. I had to do this right. Aim well and hit my target dead on. And for that, I had to remain still.
She kept moving jerkily as she grasped the door of the car, her head bobbing in and out of my shot as I growled under my breath.
I pictured my dad and Jess, I pictured the people she’d hurt, the chained and caged men and women I’d seen at Royaume D’élite. I pictured that virus sweeping through the world killing innocents without mercy. I pictured Blake’s mom meeting her end and Kyan lying in his bed at The Temple barely able to draw breath.
An emotion welled in me so fiercely that it was all I could feel. One single defining emotion that was all projected towards these weak, cowardly human beings trying to escape justice in that car. It was hate in its purest form.
I pulled the trigger and Karen was thrown onto the ground in a spray of blood.
I released a heavy breath of satisfaction as a single tear tracked down my cheek, before I levelled the gun on the back of the car and started firing again. Troy took off with a roar of the engine and I realised the Night Keepers were firing too, bullets carving holes into his fancy ass car as he raced toward the exit. But he didn’t slow. He kept going and going, making it out of sight until there was nothing left in his place but gas fumes and failed dreams.
Gone.
We’d lost him.
I turned to look at Saint in dismay, my heart sinking and his eyes pooled with a bitter disappointment. Then his features twisted with hate as a groan sounded from my mother on the ground, her body twitching with life.
Kyan untied Saint’s hands for him and then Saint helped him to stand.
“You’re alive,” I choked as I lunged at Kyan, wrapping my tattooed monster in my arms, knowing he wasn’t anywhere near okay, but he was still breathing. And that was what counted right now.
“Yeah,” he saw gruffly. “Bullets are like candy to me, baby.” He winced as I drew back and he looked over my shoulder, his breaths coming out in heavy pants. “Let’s deliver Maren Kunt to Satan personally.”
I nodded, savouring the closeness of him as I breathed in the scent of leather and blood on him, assuring myself he was really here. Then I turned and started marching toward Karen with purpose and felt my boys following me until we were all circling around her in a ring. Blake and Nash joined us, spattered with blood and looking thirsty for more death.
Saint kicked Karen to roll her over and she gazed up at us as she choked on her own blood, my bullet having blasted through the centre of her throat.
“Who’s weak now?” I hissed at her and her eyes glistened with anger, defeat, fear.
“It’s you,” Saint supplied in an arctic tone. “You’re the dirt at our feet.”
“You’re going to go into the ground and become a feast for the worms,” Nash said chillingly.
“You’re not going to be missed by anyone on this entire planet,” Blake added with a taunting smirk.
Kyan shook a little as he leaned on Saint for support, his eyes hollow as he gazed down at our kill. “You’re nothing…and no one…and nobody.”
I crouched down as she started to jerk, the last of the life leaving her as I angled her face towards mine with the tips of my nails.
“I won’t think of you after this day,” I promised. “Not a soul in this world will.” I leaned down to whisper in her ear. “And do you know what’s weaker than the weakest woman on earth? The weakest woman on earth when she’s dead.”
A rattling, gargled breath left her and she fell still, her eyes locked on me, a permanent shadow of regret, defeat and failure stamped into her irises.
I got to my feet, sharing a look of relief with my boys, but it was short-lived as Kyan cursed and fell to his knees, dropping back onto the ground and sending a spray of snow out around him.
I threw myself down at his side with a panicked scream, clutching his hand as he gazed at me for barely a second with a thousand desperate words burning in his eyes.
“No,” I gasped in fright.
“Was I a decent husband,
baby?” he rasped and tears splashed down my cheeks in a torrent as his hand rested against my cheek, feeling all too cold.
I cupped it to my face as panic clutched every piece of my heart and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t lose him. My dad had taught me to face the end of the world, but had never taught me how to make it through this. Because Kyan Roscoe’s death was an apocalypse of its own kind. And I wouldn’t be a survivor.
“You’re the best kind of husband, Kyan. One who’d do anything and everything to save me,” I choked. “And I promise your wife will do the same for you.”
“The rest of you assholes better look after her,” he breathed, his voice seeming to fade away. “Make her smile every damn day.”
They all started making complaints, commanding him not to give up and swearing to look after me for the rest of forever with him at their sides. But I got the awful feeling he didn’t believe he’d be there for forever with us and the thought of that was tearing me apart.
Peace filled his features then his eyes fell closed and I frantically tugged the phone out of my pocket as I started to call for help, yelling at him to stay right here with us.
Saint plucked it from my fingers as Blake and Nash knelt down either side of me in the snow. “Just keep talking to him,” Saint commanded me. “Your voice will keep him here.”
I started saying Kyan’s name and begging him to stay, telling him about the life we were going to make together, all five of us.
“Hold on, brother,” Blake growled passionately as Nash checked his pulse then started performing CPR.
Oh god, oh god.
It was all happening too fast and terror was thumping through my veins.
I gripped Kyan’s hand, holding onto him as my tears started to flow and a real sense of terror encompassed my heart.
I couldn’t lose him. I needed him as surely as I needed the sun to rise. There was no us without Kyan. No Night Keepers, no anything. But as Nash worked to keep his heart beating, and Blake breathed air into his lungs for him, I felt death leaning over my shoulder, daring to come for the man who feared nothing. Not even the Grim Reaper.
“You can’t have him!’ I screamed from the depths of the nothingness in my chest. And I held onto him tighter, refusing death itself. Because no force in this land could take one of my Night Keepers from me. I was their protector, their saviour, their queen. And they were my kings of the dark, my immortal beasts. So if death was here to claim one of us, it had better take us all.
ONE WEEK LATER
T he four of us sat in silence as the time ticked by, none of us wanting to say or do anything other than just feel the emptiness of the space that Kyan should have resided in.
I felt hollow without him here. Like this barren space in me would never quite be filled again. It wasn't like when my mom had died. Though I'd never get over losing her, I was fairly certain that I'd finally come to terms with it. What had happened to her wasn't right and it hadn't been her time, but she'd at least lived. She'd known love and family and had seen her dreams come to fruition. But Kyan...he'd barely even begun to find out who he was without his family's shadow hanging over him. He’d barely even gotten a taste of love. It wasn’t his fucking time.
I blew out a slow breath as I looked at the unfamiliar view outside the window, open planes coated in snow looking back at me blandly. None of us had been home in the week since it had all happened. Since we'd gone up against Troy Memphis and lost.
Saint had thrown himself into trying to track his father down, but it was no use. He'd even admitted so himself. Troy had run far away and put himself out of our reach. Saint had even pulled the plug on his assets, locking off his access to most of his money, calling in all of the favours he'd accrued with the powerful people Troy may have tried to turn to for help. And with Royaume D’élite gone it seemed like the last of his contacts should have been gone too. But apparently not. Someone must have helped him. Either that or he'd had an escape plan in place for a situation like this and there was nothing but dead ends left in his wake.
He was gone.
His reputation was in tatters, his companies sold off, liquidated or now under the control of his son. He was wanted by the FBI, his face plastered all over the news and the most wanted lists and yet he'd just up and vanished. Like a ghost.
I guessed ruining his life was something. But it wasn't enough considering all he'd done.
Saint had sworn he'd never give up the hunt, but I wasn't sure what the point of it was. I needed to let it go. We all did. If we wanted any hope of moving on and building...something.
I ran a hand down my face and sighed, turning my gaze to Tatum and offering her a hand as her tearstained cheeks hurt my soul.
She accepted it, her fingers curling around mine as she let me draw her from her chair and pull her into my lap.
"I don't want to live in a world without Kyan Roscoe," she breathed. "I need him darkening my doorway. I need him riling me up and fighting with me. I need him being the worst kind of asshole and laughing while he does it. I just...need him."
She looked up at me like I might be able to offer her some kind of fix for this, but how could I? There was nothing I could do but share in her grief and try to figure out what the fuck we were going to do without him, how the hell we were supposed to do anything at all.
My throat thickened and I leaned down to kiss her, tasting our grief between our lips as I wrapped my arms tightly around her and tried to draw her pain and fear into me. I wished I could make it all okay. I wished I could do something to change fate or bargain with it.
Saint was silent, glaring at the door like it had personally offended him, his posture rigid and jaw tight. He was going to break. Not in the ways he had before. Without Kyan he would break in a way I knew he'd never come back from. It would destroy him. It would destroy all of us and I didn't see how we'd ever recover.
"I can't just sit here," Nash growled, standing suddenly and knocking his empty coffee cup flying. "I'm going to go for a run."
None of us replied. He'd been doing that a lot, even though the doctors had told him it would aggravate the healing brand on his thigh. I guessed he just needed the oblivion of real exhaustion. The kind you could only get from pushing your body to its limits and beyond. Maybe I should have been taking a leaf out of his book, but I hadn't been able to do it. I didn't want to be away from Tatum. Not now. I couldn't.
I didn't think I'd slept more than a few hours this entire week and my heart hadn't stopped pounding since we'd been forced to watch Kyan collapse in the snow, see his body fail him and were left helpless at his side while his life faded.
It wasn't right. He'd been so strong, so solid, so freaking permanent that I hadn't even contemplated a world without him in it. Yet now that was all I could think of. This endless abyss of time that stretched out before us which should have been so full of joy and possibilities and now held no appeal at all. What was the point to it without him to share in it with us? After everything we'd survived together, didn't we deserve a happily ever after?
The door opened before Nash could reach it and Tatum sucked in a breath as she turned to look at the man who had just stepped into the room with us. Her hand locked tight around my fingers and I held my breath as I waited to hear what he had to say. Whether he was about to end the world or save it.
The doctor's face split into a tired smile and hope blossomed in my chest like the rising sun.
"He survived the surgery. We stopped the bleeding. I can’t even begin to explain how unlikely...” He trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief. “Truly he should be dead. In fact, he was dead - twice. But by God, he's one stubborn bastard. His heart just kept coming back to life. He must have something he really wants to live for because I've never seen someone fight so hard to stay with us."
"Oh thank fuck," Tatum gasped before descending into sobs as I hugged her close and a relieved laugh fell from Nash's lips.
"When will he wake?" Saint demanded, getting to his feet
and only looking marginally relieved. I knew he wouldn't believe it was true until he was looking Kyan dead in the face and seeing it for himself.
It had been a week of agony, waiting for him to wake up since his surgery to remove the bullet that was lodged in his abdomen. It had taken them hours to repair all the damage that had been done by it and pull it out of him, and he’d been in a fucking state afterwards. Then this morning he’d started bleeding internally again and they’d rushed him in for emergency surgery.
We’d endured seven days of hell while they'd kept him in an induced coma and monitored him constantly, warning us about how bad the odds were and encouraging us to say goodbye while we had that chance. Like hell we had. None of us had said a single goodbye to him. All he'd heard from the four of us all week were demands for him to fight this, stay with us, come back swinging like he always did. And it looked like the asshole had been listening. Though when they’d rushed him into the ER again an hour ago, I could admit that I’d been freaking the fuck out.
"Soon. If one of you wants to see him now, then-"
"We'll all go," Saint said forcefully, giving the doctor a look which was clearly aimed to remind him of who exactly was paying his wages here.
Tatum didn't wait for the doctor to agree, leaping from my lap but keeping hold of my hand and dragging me after her as she ran for the door.
Nash and Saint swept past the doctor too and we practically charged down the corridor to Kyan's room.
The place had been cleaned and aired out while he was in surgery, but he lay there now in the centre of the large hospital bed with the IV hooked up to his arm and more colour in his cheeks than I'd seen all week.
Tatum hurried to his side, smoothing his hair away from his face and leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. His eyes flickered beneath the lids and I grabbed one of the chairs, dragging it right up behind her so that she could curl herself into it while staying right beside him.
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