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Unlike that day when he’d almost died, his eyes were no longer accepting of death. They sparkled with ebony fire and a conviction that he would heal, he would be happy, and he would love me until the end.
I lost myself in his stare, amazed that the ghosts inside him were finally starting to fade, slowly and reluctantly...thanks to our co
Josh coughed as if he choked on a bone, shattering the moment. “You expect me to believe that you were, what? Giving him climbing lessons? That he fell while you were teaching him to climb a cliff, and you felt so responsible—toward a man who’d imprisoned you—that you turned your back on your panicked family to play nursemaid in the goddamn jungle?”
He soared to his feet, pacing on the other side of the coffee table, stepping over the TV glass with his sneakers. “Come on, Gem. The sister I know is smarter than that. There’s no way she’d forsake those she loved and not find a way to contact them.” He slammed to a stop, a horrified look on his face. “Unless...you’re not the sister I know. Unless he did something to you. Did he hurt you? Did he scramble up your mind?” He leaned over the coffee table with murder in his stare. “Get away from him, Gem. I’ll help you. I’ll save you from whatever mess you’ve got yourself into.”
Kas sucked in a breath, and all the energy in the room went to crackle around him, filling with possessiveness and protection.
How much more could Kas take before he snapped?
Not wanting to test his limit, I shot to my feet as well, matching Josh’s angry stance. “I’m still the same sister you know and love. I’m telling you the truth, Joshua. Kas had been alone for a very long time. He didn’t have the same happy upbringing as us, so I forgave him for his inability to accept my company at the begi
My voice cracked, but I plowed on. “I’ll never be able to apologize enough for the stress and pain I put you and Mom through, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I couldn’t leave him, Josh, and I had no way to tell you where I was. Without a vehicle, I was stuck because I refused to have his death on my hands, and he would’ve died if I’d come home.” I tapped myself over my heart, imploring Josh to accept the truth. “He would’ve died and...I couldn’t let that happen because I love—”
Kas suddenly shot to his feet, placing himself a foot away from me. His hands spread with his palms up as if he offered a sacrifice. His long hair cascaded over his shoulders, and his beard looked so rugged and unruly compared to my clean-shaven brother.
“Kas...what are you doing?” I blinked, unsettled by him standing while I’d been so impassioned in my speech.
“I’m giving him what he needs to know.” He bowed his head toward Josh. He looked both subservient and masterful. A warrior laying down his sword while still holding his dagger. Locking eyes with my brother, he said clearly and curtly, “I was the reason her Jeep wouldn’t work. I was the reason the locator beacon didn’t send a signal.”
“Ha! I knew it!” Josh shoved a finger at Kas. “You motherfucker!”
“I threw her keys into the forest and smashed her beacon,” Kas said. “I did what was needed so she couldn’t leave me.”
“You absolute bastard!” Josh went to attack Kas, his fists ready to fly.
I leaped in the middle of them, bringing my arms up like a wall. “Stop it!”
Kas stayed behind me, but he didn’t stop talking. “What she says is the truth, but what she isn’t saying is...I wasn’t human when she first found me. I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to her, but I’m also not righteous enough to say I wouldn’t do it all over again because...she gave me back my life. She gave me back the will to live. No...” He paused and shook his head, making me look over my shoulder. His face twisted with regret but also gratefulness. “That would imply that I had a life before her. And I didn’t. I was a slave. My body was not my own. My soul was bought and paid for. My pain was their toy, and I lived in hell from the moment they snatched me from a world I no longer remember, hiding me away in a place no one could find.”
Kas came to my side. He didn’t touch me, but the heat coming off him made my heart flip and skin tingle. “I love your sister, Joshua Ashford. I love her with everything that I am because she made me everything that I am. I know I’m not worthy. I know I’m not the man you’d pick for her. I’m pe
Tears trickled down my cheeks as Kas shrugged. “So, say what you want to me. Hit me if you need to. I get your desire to protect her because she’s your family. I would do the same for mine. But afterward, you will accept me because I will never stop loving her. And if she loves me back the way I hope she does, then there’s nothing you can do to stop the inevitable.”
Josh swallowed hard, his anger making his cheeks red. “What’s inevitable?”
Kas let out a caustic laugh, shaking his head as if the epiphany surprised even him. “You’ve just shown me what I need to do. I felt it before in the hallway just now. A shift inside me. An acceptance and submission that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to handle.”
“And what’s that?” Josh sneered.
“I love your sister,” Kas murmured.
“You already said that.” Josh crossed his arms.
“I love her past myself, past my nightmares, past every shit I’ve lived through. I love her.”
“Geez, get to the point!”
Kas glanced at me, puffing out his chest as if the words in his head were terrifyingly new but perfectly right. “I love you, Gem. I’ve told you that before. But what I didn’t tell you is how I felt a few minutes ago. Standing in your corridor, I was so afraid I’d done something to fuck this up before we even had a chance to be happy, and it showed me just how deep those feelings go.”
He took my hand, his fingers trembling. “I want you forever, Gem. I don’t need to live another day in this new world or meet a thousand other people to know that I’ve found where I belong. Who I belong to.” His turbulent gaze searched mine, making my heart beat painfully quick.
Ripping his stare from mine, he looked at Josh again, determination etching his face. “You don’t know me. You don’t like me. You might never accept me. To you, it will seem fast...but to me? I’ve been waiting my entire life for this girl. Every romance book I read, when I had nothing and no one, filled me with jealousy. Every fairy tale that I wasn’t able to have made me desperate to find my own. I think...I think that’s why I never ended it. Why I kept going, even when giving up would’ve been so much easier. I wanted what was promised in those pages. I wanted to feel what they did. To be safe like them. Happy like them. In love like them. And...now? Now that I’ve found my own soul mate...” He looked back at me, sweat dotting his forehead and wildness cloaking his lean shoulders. “I never want to let her go.”
I choked on a swallow.
God.
My entire body melted for his.
I wanted him.
God, I wanted him.
Kas gave me the softest, most loving look as he squeezed my hand. “I want to keep her forever, and in order to do that...I have to marry her. I have to do what those heroes did in all those dusty pages and a
My mouth fell wide.
Wait...is this...a proposal?
If so...oh, my God.
I didn’t know what to say.
I couldn’t think.
I glanced from Kas to Josh, tensing for my brother’s reaction. I expected more rage, but his anger had faded, and his eyes had lost their hatred. If anything...he looked as dumbfounded as me.
Josh caught my gaze, and in a heart-clenching moment, he shrugged. His eyes were tight with confusion, hesitation, and sibling protection, but he didn’t forbid me from saying yes. He didn’t leap in my defense against a man who’d drawn my blood but had also gifted me his heart.
We stood in a strange kind of triangle, poised for the biggest answer of my life.
I should probably tell him that we’d discuss this later.
To help him understand that his panic at making me his came from a place of fear instead of sanity. There were so many things to talk about. So many things still to learn about each other.
But...all of them were superficial in the face of what he’d said and how I felt in return.
There was something between us.
Something that couldn’t be explained, rationalized, or stopped.
I’d felt it the moment I first saw him, naked and furious, racing up the stairs to strangle me. And he’d felt it through every fight, every curse, every heartfelt evolution.
So, yes, it was fast.
Yes, it was scary and strange, and I’d most likely be called stupid for falling, but...I’d found my soul mate too.
Kas didn’t say a word as I turned to face him fully.
I reached up to cup his cheek.
Our eyes locked, and that buzz, that energy between us multiplied until it hummed in my blood and buried deep into my bones. It was there to stay. A faint unexplainable, inescapable knowledge that I was his.
A few months ago, marriage would’ve been as unfathomable for him as a wedding for a mountain lion, but now...now it seemed almost necessary.
He hadn’t just asked me to marry him so he could claim every part of me. He did it so he was free to give me every piece of himself in return.
To be bound by paper the way we already were by choice.
I’d saved his life.
There would be plenty more moments where he would need my help.
And I was okay with that.
I was ready for it.
I wanted the good and the bad, the happy and the sad.
I wanted to be beside him every step of the way.
Because I love him unconditionally.