AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I lean back into him and close my eyes, savoring the feeling of his presence, the solid wall of him, knowing that nothing could ever hurt me with Kane protecting me.
Not even him, the man who tried to ruin me.
With Kane, I can do anything.
I feel a smile touching my lips as my womb sends a warm signal all the way through my body, telling me that she’s done it, my inner goddess has done it.
She’s taken his seed and already our child is growing inside of me.
“I can feel it,” I whisper, snuggling against Kane.
“So can I,” he replies, his hand sliding down to my belly and holding me there, not having to ask what I mean.
Chapter Twelve
Kane
The next morning, we’re walking through the lobby when I spot the two Cartel goons standing across the street under the eaves of a florist, trying to look casual but failing miserably. One of them, the taller with a sculpted black goatee, is standing in a way that all but advertises his shoulder holster.
I take Kelly by the hand and turn her around, whispering in her ear, “Let’s take the back exit.”
“Is everything okay?” she murmurs.
“We’re being watched,” I tell her. “Better safe than sorry and all that.”
She shivers. “Okay, okay.”
“I’ll keep you safe,” I growl. “Always.”
“I trust you,” she whispers, hugging close to me as I guide her down the carpeted corridor, through the kitchen, and then out the back exit.
“How do you know where you’re going?” she asks as I press down on the fire escape door.
“I never enter a building without knowing my way out—”
Something solid crushes into my nose, something metal, and immediately my mouth fills with blood and a ringing noise bounces around my skull, making fluid thinking impossible.
I stumble back and feel concrete against my shoulders, and then an animal instinct roars at me to move, that I have to move right fucking now.
I duck down and the knuckle duster – the thing that crushed into my nose – hits the brick wall and kicks up dust.
It’s Kelly’s screaming that makes me spin and quickly assess the situation.
The two goons from outside have their arms wrapped around her, dragging her toward a car at the rear of the alleyway. And behind me the man with the knuckle-dusters is raising his hand for another swing. I can sense him, feel the movement in the air.
I know I have to take care of him before I can get to Kelly, and so I spin and see that there are actually three men, two more Cartel men covered in neck-to-ankle tattoos and another man, his lips pulled back in a sneer as the knuckle dusters glint at his fists.
His dragon tattoo is hidden behind a bulletproof vest.
He lunges at me.
Lance.
I spring to the side and then come up with a left hook that sends him hurling with the momentum of dropped bricks into the wall, landing with a meaty thump. His Cartel goons try to leap forward, but I’m already spinning and sprinting toward Kelly.
One of them – the one with the goatee – tries to say something, probably threaten Kelly if I get any closer.
But I’m already close.
The oldest of these bastards must be shy of thirty, and yet they still move like shit, sluggishly, not like the animals this world requires them to be at all.
I grab then both around the neck and lift them up, both of them clear off their feet, their legs dangling and their arms flailing toward my wrists as they try to stop me from choking the life out of their useless fucking necks.
“Get behind the car,” I tell Kelly. “Stay low until I’ve handled these pricks.”
“But what if …”
“Now, Kelly,” I snarl.
I don’t want to raise my voice at her, but the bravery on her face is unmistakable, the bravery of my queen. And I know that if I’m not stern it will make her want to act with me, to charge into the fray, and I can’t have that.
Relief washes through me when she spins and runs for the car, ducking low, and then I spin and throw myself into the combat.
My mind and body have been honed through years and years of experience, my fists moving in a flurry as the men try to swarm on me, their fists coming from every angle.
But I roll and duck and then come across with powerful, devastating blows. I spin and catch one man’s fist, and then drive it into another’s face so that they both go collapsing to the ground.
I grab one man by the leg and the shoulder, lifting him over my head like he’s a fucking football, and then I toss him at the man with the goatee, who’s trying to clamber to his feet.
I duck my head and bull-rush the one remaining man.
