Page 44 of Dark Surrender

“You’re impossible,” she huffs.

“Yeah. I know. Which is why you wanna strangle me, instead of goin’ to get my father, so we can talk.”

Kali cocks her hip to the side. “What do you wanna talk to him about?”

“Christ. You don’t need to protect him from me.”

“You almost died. He’s goin’ through some stuff.”

“But I didn’t, and we’re all goin’ through it. I didn’t ask to be brought here. I appreciate you bein’ the good woman you are, but this doesn’t involve you.”

“If it involves either of you, it involves me,” she sasses.

“No. It doesn’t.”

Rubbing her red-rimmed eyes, Kali backs out of the room. Sure, I feel like a prick for havin’ to put it like that, but that’s the way it is. For both our sakes, it’s for the best. There’s too much history between us.

It doesn’t take long for Pops to enter, and when he does, I don’t mince words.

“Who told you where I was, and did you hurt Iris?”

Sighing long and hard, Pops, rockin’ a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, perches on the end of the bed, pats my foot over the blanket, and gives it to me straight. No fluff, no emotions.

Cell told Kali, and Kali lost her shit.

Iris is okay.

At that, I draw the first full breath into my lungs since I got here, and the tension I didn’t know I was holding releases.

Iris is okay. She’s okay.

Those eyes will live another day.

That shy smile.

The freckles on her nose.

She lives.

Swallowing down the sudden lump in my throat, I close my eyes and rub my fingertips together. Her phantom skin is still with me, soft and warm. So lush and beautiful.

My sleepy cock gives a cursory twitch.

Iris is okay.

She’s gone but… alive.

That’s good. As long as she’s safe.

Safe.

I repeat the word in my head, and it does fuck all to repair the ache in my chest. Not on it. In it. Behind my breastbone.

She’s safe.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Iris