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We were at zero hour, with just a few days to prepare for a massive battle, and that time would be much better spent actually preparing than arguing over which dangerous path to take.
Because the honest truth was, we were out of safe ones. We were out of easy options.
We talked to Director Price for several more hours, and other Custodians were called for and brought into the meeting. I met so many people that their names all started to bleed together in my head, but I tried to keep them straight—because these were people I would be fighting alongside, maybe dying alongside, in a few days’ time. It felt like I should at least know their names.
After we were finally released from the meeting, we were shown to another part of the large compound where they had temporary housing set up for Custodians in between jobs. We were each given our own rooms, but five minutes after our escort left, the guys all converged on my room, and we passed out in a tangle of limbs.
The next three days were a blur of planning, preparation, and trying to rest and recoup our energy as much as possible.
I had no idea what the Custodian headquarters was like on an average week, but now it seemed to buzz night and day with energy and activity, like an ant farm on steroids. We spent hours every day in strategy meetings and war councils, and between messages from Michael and the Custodian’s team of analysts, we managed to pinpoint a four-hour window in which we were fairly certain the attack would take place.
At first, the guys and Hannah and I got angry, suspicious looks when we walked d
own the hallways, but by the day before the attack, the glares had faded. Either people were too exhausted and scared to muster up the energy to hate us anymore, or they’d finally come to accept that we were really on their side.
We were all on humanity’s side.
On earth’s side.
On fucking decency’s side.
“Too bad it took this kind of massive threat to existence as we know it to get them to pull their heads out of their asses,” Jayce mused as we all trekked back to our quarters the night before the battle. A countdown clock had been erected in the main room of the Custodian’s large compound, and the numbers on it ticked steadily down, sliding past like sands in an hourglass. “But it does seem like things are changing around here a little. That Price lady is actually pretty badass.”
Kai snorted. I had a feeling it’d take a lot longer for him to change his tune about the Custodians than it had taken Jayce, who actively looked for the good in people—and found it a surprising amount of the time.
When we reached our quarters, Hannah gave me a hug and waved to the guys before slipping into her room.
I hesitated outside my own room, resting my hand on the doorknob as I glanced at the four men. My body unconsciously leaned toward them, trying to get closer to them, craving contact with them.
Kingston reached up and stroked a knuckle down the curve of my cheek, and a little shiver worked its way down my spine.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I murmured, even as my vagina screamed in protest.
I wanted to drag them inside and fuck them all until none of us could move, but we would be fighting for our lives tomorrow, and I wanted them to be fresh and ready.
Sleep had been a little difficult to come by lately, since every time I closed my eyes, visions of dozens of possible outcomes of the battle swam through my head—most of them gruesome and none of them good. But I could at least let my men get some rest, right?
Jayce cracked a smile. “Good one, Pipes.”
“What?”
“He means, that’s a hilarious joke,” Kai put in, a bit of a growl entering his voice.
“Come on, Piper.” Xero stepped forward, taking my hand and brushing his thumb over the backs of my knuckles. “You don’t really think we’d let you sleep alone tonight, do you? The night before we face the biggest threat of our lives?”
“Oh.” I flushed, a little embarrassed. I felt like a battery that constantly needed recharging. “Right. You want me to be powered up for the fight.”
Kingston slid his hand down, gripping my chin between his thumb and fingers. His green eyes burned fiercely as he gazed at me.
“We want you to be strong, yeah. To have all the power you need. And we’ll be there to have your back in the fight no matter what. But that’s not why we want to stay. I for one want to stay because I want to spend the night with the woman I love.”
A wave of emotions hit me like a runaway train, and my breath caught in my throat as I looked up at him.
He hadn’t said those words to me until now. They had existed in the space between us, real and true despite being unspoken.
But now they had been spoken, and hearing them out loud felt like the sealing of a bond.
“I love you too,” I murmured, wondering why the hell it had taken me so long to tell him that. To tell all of them that.
