Page 286 of Reaper Said Mine

“I told you to hold the corridors.”

“I did.”

Her mouth trembles.

I cross the cabin and drop to one knee in front of her because if I remain standing, I will look like a warlord, and I am not that in this moment. I am a male whose heart has been dragged through vacuum and returned bleeding.

My hands hover because she is hurt and because touching her feels like something too sacred for a battlefield.

“Where are you injured?” I ask.

“Shoulder. Ribs, maybe. Pride, absolutely.”

A sound leaves me, broken and rough. “Your pride is indestructible.”

“Good. I was worried.”

Then she reaches for me.

That is all permission requires.

I gather her carefully, one hand behind her back, one at her waist, avoiding the worst of the blood and damage while every instinct in me demands I crush her against my chest and never let the universe touch her again. She grips the front of my armor with shaking fingers and presses her face against me. I feel her breath hitch. I feel my own answer it.

Around us, my warriors secure prisoners. Rana barks medical priorities. Sera the courier tells someone that the toolkit matters, then immediately yells for bandages. Dane keeps repeating that he is not qualified for any of this while helping anyway.

Ursa lifts her head enough to look at me. Her eyes search my face with all the anger and love that have been tearing across relays between us.

“I’m still mad at you,” she says.

“I know.”

“I nearly died carrying your evidence.”

“Our evidence.”

“Do not make this romantic while I am concussed.”

“I would not dare.”

“You absolutely would.”

I press my forehead gently to hers, careful of the cut near her hairline. “Yes.”

Her laugh breaks into something dangerously close to a sob. She swallows it because she is Ursa, and Ursa would argue with death if it interrupted her sentence.

I breathe her in beneath smoke, blood, disinfectant, and burned metal.

Alive.

Mine, not as possession, but as gravity.

“Little reporter,” I whisper, “you are very difficult to rescue.”

Her fingers tighten in my armor. “You should see the other guys.”

“I did.”

“Did you kill them?”