Page 3 of Bound

“Probably,” Blaze snorts.

“Blaze,” I warn.

“What?” Blaze shrugs, kicking a boot toe against an icicle hanging from the tire well of the SUV. “It’s Iceland. Everything looks like a ghost threw up on it.”

“He’s right,” Ryan giggles. “The sand is black.”

“Ryan,” Cass adds, looking at me.

We share an amused look, remembering Ryan demanding that the three of us get into the same bed in the apartment when something scared him.

Cass whispers. “The last thing we need is Lucian towering over the three of us like a sleep-deprived Ghostbuster.”

Bayne moves to say farewell to Freya. Lucian walks toward me.

The wind lifts the edge of his black coat. He looks impossible here, carved from the same dark rock as the cliffs. Wealth, violence, grief, and power arranged in the shape of one dangerously controlling, beautiful man.

He stops in front of me. “Inside.”

I narrow my eyes. “Do you ever get tired of saying that?”

“No.”

“Do you ever consider asking?”

“No.”

Cass coughs. “And they say romance is dead.”

Lucian does not look away from me.

His gaze drops to my mouth.

For one hot, stupid second, I forget we are standing in front of armed men, my sister, my nephew, and enough unresolved trauma to fill this ocean.

Then Ryan tugs at my sleeve. “Aunt Rin, I’m cold. Can I play in my room?”

The spell breaks.

I look down at him, and my heart twists.

He smiles up at me, oblivious to the fact that this situation is anything but normal. He tugs down his new favorite hat, the red one Lucian picked because apparently mafia kings can also be extremely aggressive personal shoppers.

“Of course you can,” I say. Lucian answers at the same time. “After security clears the family wing.”

Ryan sighs dramatically.

Cass pats his shoulder. “Uncle Lucian was born like that, sweetheart. We have to be kind.”

Lucian’s mouth almost moves. Then his attention shifts back to the second SUV.

The air tightens. I notice the way Lucian’s shoulders go slightly harder. The way his hand flexes at his side. The way they don’t look at one another feels almost more intimate than if they did.

History has its own language. I hate that I am learning to understand theirs.

Isobel and Lucian’s.

Now, the beautiful ghost from Lucian’s past who found us at Red Shutters has traveled with us to the end of the world.