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“Like you taste.” I kiss her nose, fingers scratching at the nape of her neck as she pins her lips and nods. Those cuts and bruises are glaring at me though. I need to make her a promise. “I’m going to end every single person who had anything to do with this.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t need you to do that.”
“Maybe not, Ace. But I need to do it.” I’m not sure she understands who’s holding her, but sugarcoating it won’t serve either of us. “I’ll figure this out, and no one involved will be left breathing.”
She rolls onto her back, her gaze floating to the ceiling. “My mother said a life with you would be full of inescapable pain, that death surrounds you guys. But it was the person they’d set me up with that hurt me.”
I contemplate that for a minute, nauseated that she was a target for any reason. Tonight would be an excellent excuse to blow off her mother’s insight, but I can’t. “She’s not wrong.”
Her head snaps to me. “What?”
“This life …” I snake myself around her, careful to avoid her sore areas while pressing kisses to anywhere I can reach—ear, neck, jaw, shoulder, collarbone—my eyes flitting to hers with every peck, lick, and nip. “I can’t promise you a traditional fairy tale, baby. Ivy calls it a crimson-stained fantasy. There’s always threats and danger and the question of how many tomorrows we’ll have. We’ve all accepted it because we have each other, and today is worth it. This is who we are.”
She scoffs. “And I’m not?”
I hover over her, our breaths mingling into one. “You’re every bit ours. Mine. But I … you should know the validity of what your mother claims. Death has already touched you tonight, and it won’t be the last time.”
I’ll devote my life to protecting her, like we all have with Ivy. But we always know each day is a gift. Every outing is a risk. There are no guarantees, no matter how good we are. And Celeste has some precarious obstacles in store, ones I can’t prevent from rolling into motion. KORT doesn’t mess around.
Her cheeks flush, jaw clamps tight, voice quavers. “Why are you telling me this? So you can break my heart when I finally give it to you? Push me away now?”
Finally give it to you. I’ll be hanging on to that.
“Fuck no, Ace.” I cradle her face so she can’t avoid looking at me. “So you understand who you’re in bed with. There’s no going back now. This is a done deal. But you’re strong enough to handle the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear.”
Her frosty features melt before my eyes. “No one’s ever believed that. My father doesn’t think I’m equipped to handle his business. My parents, grandparents—they all coddle me, glossing over anything ugly. You’ve never done that.”
“And I won’t.” Unfortunately, there’s still a lot I can’t divulge, but I’ll share everything I can with her, starting with a hope that sprouted weeks ago. “I want you to fall in love with the sunrise.” With me.
She smiles. It’s the first one she’s given me since the restaurant, and it has that flirty edge I find so enticing. She’s so unbelievably beautiful.
Her fingers skim over my dark angel, tracing the feathery wings. “That’s random, Graves. I have no idea what you’re blathering about.”
“The night by the pool,” I start, kissing the corner of her smile that isn’t sore, “you said your favorite time of day was when the sun dipped beneath the horizon because it reminded you that goodbyes are inevitable. They are, and it’s important to remember that.”
That line of thinking only leads to defeat though, and I never want her to feel defeated again. I saw it in her eyes earlier. Her haunted leer will stay with me for the rest of my life. No matter how divine our moments are, we’ll still travel to Hell, but there are ways to heed the power of the flames rather than succumb to them.
I flatten my hand over hers, resting them both against my chest. “But I want you to love the sunrise.”
She shimmies closer to me, her gaze meandering over our joined hands, my tattoos, and back to my face, stilling there as though she’s transfixed, suspended in a momentary protective dome with me. “Why the sunrise?”
“Because I’ll always show up, Ace. No matter how dark it gets, I’ll always fucking show up. That’s our fairy tale.”
“That’s enough,” she rasps against my lips.
It has to be. Hold on to that belief, baby.
LIAM
Despite the turbulent couple of days we’ve had, blissful chaos bustles about the kitchen. The whir of the mixer harmonizes with “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival and sweet baby coos. Cinnamon, nutmeg, yeast, and banana waft in the air, and the room is aglow with a dusty shimmer of winter sunlight, but that isn’t the root of the warmth decimating the February chill.
Nah. That’s my fucking family.
Felicity is plastered to Wells’s chest in one of those infant slings, her teensy limbs flopping about as he supervises Ivy, who tangos between sink, oven, and fridge, baking up a slew of sugary, post-murder-cover-up, anti-stress treats. She’s been doting on Celeste since the morning after the attack. Ty has his feet kicked up on a second chair at the table, eating a sub sandwich for lunch, while I perch beside my girl at the island, soaking in the scene and the muted news coverage on the television.
I haven’t left Celeste’s side for the last sixty hours—not since I joined her in bed after my talk with Wells. She’s been sore physically, fragile emotionally, and her typical snarky and confident bravado has been replaced with a meek and sheepish facade. But she’s in there, fighting to break free through a series of small moments. She’s also been glued to the television.
The news regarding Scott Filmore missing broke yesterday, and speculation that his chopper went down in the Gulf of Mexico was released late last night. Celeste watches, but doesn’t say a word about it, so we’ve provided room for her to process. The questions will come in time.
