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“What happens in five minutes?” I squeak, still haunted by the saints’ faint chiding.
“You meet with KORT.” He smooths my hair back from my face, calming me as my breath lodges in my chest—a big fat boulder of terror. “I’ve got you, but I need to tell you some things.”
I swallow. “Okay.”
“There you go.” His tenor is so smooth and calming, coiling around me to stave off the brewing panic. “In case we get cut off, you’re to go along with whatever I say in that room—or whatever details they convey to you regarding us. Understand?”
“Understood.”
“Good girl,” he praises, kissing my forehead. “Christ, I wish I could fuck you right now. You’re so damn sexy, and there’s great acoustics here. I bet your whimpers would sound glorious, bouncing off the—”
“Liam, please focus.”
“Right. Later.” He shakes his head, dislodging whatever erotic fantasy was consuming him. “I want to explain the rationale for why I called your father that day in the sauna and told him you were mine.”
Shocked by this detour, I merely offer a hum to assure him I’m listening.
“I couldn’t claim you officially for the reasons we discussed at the family meeting later that day. We didn’t want to risk revealing Ivy’s and Wells’s identities, especially with Felicity so young. So, I needed your dad to hate me enough to complain to Jared Austen—the leader of The Order—so the rest of KORT would hear we were together and know there was dissension between your father and me.”
“Why would you want them to think that?” I ask, more confused than I was the day it happened—when I thought it was just another display of his unhinged alpha monster rearing his enraged head. The lower one.
“Since I couldn’t officially name you as an untouchable, it alerted KORT that you were someone who would be under steep protection. We aren’t permitted to have casual relationships—it’s part of the bylaws. Too many risks. It’s either nameless one-night stands or someone serious who needs to be submitted to KORT. So, once your father complained, they knew I’d be claiming you.”
My mouth dries, crackling as I open to request more, but he’s way ahead of me.
He dusts his thumb over my bottom lip, his gaze focused there with a wanton ogle. “And, like I’d hoped, it influenced your loyalty test.”
“My loyalty test?”
“Yes. That’s what you just went through with the FBI, Ace.”
Loyalty test.
I remember that from the chaos that Ivy endured. My skin heats as I try to slink away, but Liam tightens his grip on my hip. So, I latch my gaze to his.
“Explain to me why Ivy’s loyalty test was you kissing her and mine was you abandoning me while my parents were interrogated by the FBI.”
“Your parents weren’t actually interrogated. Once they were hauled in, they were apprised of it being your test.” He sighs and scrubs his hand over the side of his face, his golden stubble flattening and springing back up with the movement. “Ivy’s loyalty test was built into her trial. The test with me was just to throw another element at her concerning the marriage. She and Wells were so unwavering to each other through the trials that O’Reilly didn’t even bother to test Wells further.”
His hazels roam all over my face as his Adam’s apple bobs. “But you are coming in as a … significant other, and your allegiance lay between two families. They had to verify that you’d choose KORT, no matter what. After your dad reported to Jared Austen that I had essentially stolen you from your family, it was enough for KORT to play with, creating an impossible situation to see if you’d cave. It was the only way I could think of to prevent you from dealing with a more dangerous scenario. I didn’t even tell Wells so that his reaction would be authentic with your father and KORT.”
“So … Agent Colehorn?”
“In on it.” He smirks. “He’s a dirty motherfucker. KORT uses him a lot. I didn’t get the specifics on how you did, but Wells said Cole was impressed.”
I tug my gloves off, stash them in my coat, and weave my fingers into his dirty-blond locks, needing to feel him more. “I used information from the book, pieced together with something I heard.”
“Brilliant, baby. I can’t wait to hear about it, but Gage or Ty will be out here any second, and this is more important.”
He cradles my jaw and captures my mouth, his tongue sweeping feathery strokes at the seam of my lips, beckoning them to open for him. It’s an all-consuming love song, one with a melody of promises. And I return every note tenfold.
When he breaks from me, I bite my lip, forever grateful to be back where I belong.
On the side of a barn. A restaurant full of people. A sauna. A dressing room. Covered in blood or in this creepy church. It doesn’t matter.
As long as Liam Graves is enwrapping me in the warmth of the rising sun, I’m home.
But even cocooned in his arms, one concern still lingers—one I can’t overlook. “You have the book, don’t you? What about my father?”
