Euan’s voice was laced with disbelief. ‘You’ve seen what loyalty looks like, Kira. I’ve just walked through a blackened forest to get to you. The eco-hotel is destroyed. They blew Mickey-O up. He was once their leader. How do you think you’ll fare?’
She swallowed. She didn’t implore or beg. In her jaw there was perseverance, her spine straightened with conviction. ‘I don’t know,’ she told him honestly. ‘But I do know that I’ll have you and Nick beside us, protecting us, guiding us. Knight will be there too. Showing us how to be the best women we can be. You always have. I know you always will.’
At their side, Knight moved into their bubble. ‘It could work, McKay.’ His tone was hopeful, even as his hand was on his gun and his eyes were to their surroundings.
Euan ignored the plea. He squeezed her cheeks, cupped one hand around her skull and brought her body closer to his. ‘I won’t risk it, Kira. I won’t risk you.’
Her fingernails were embedded into the skin of his wrists. ‘You just said we were never going to be free of them. We have to do something if we’re ever to be safe. There is nowhere left to run.’
Euan huffed. His hands pulled free of hers. The muscles in his face were tight. He pushed his sleeves up and set his jaw. ‘Let me kill them.’
She mirrored everything he had done. ‘Let me lead them.’
Gazes locked. They tugged and warred. He had once thought that the intrinsic nature of a woman was at the core of what had driven the demons from Nick’s soul. Compassion, empathy, persuasion. A genuine preference for compromise over argument. In Kira, there was determination, kindness, an inherent considerate nature. In Lily, there was a strategic mind and a methodical nature. Nick, Knight and himself behind them, they could form a council worthy of humanity’s future.
But he wouldn’t risk it. Never would he risk her for the sake of them. He was through. He would do as he had planned.
Kill every last one of them in a blaze of fire and ash. Pain and blood.
Surrounded by the remnants of a lost civilisation, Euan turned to Knight. ‘Radio Lily, let her know we have Kira, but they now have Nick. We’ll meet up, drop her off, and then move forward as planned.’
‘I’ll never forgive you for this.’
His back was to her. He scrunched his fists tight at her words, allowed his heart to fracture at the venom, at the truth. He readjusted his eyepatch to his ruined face. The scars pinched from memory alone. ‘For your life, Kira, I’ll take your anger. I’ll even take your hatred. But I won’t risk you. Not ever.’
‘You promised.’ Her voice broke.
His head shook as he met Knight’s dark eyes. His grisly features were impassive. What the man thought of Euan’s position, he couldn’t read. At that point, he didn’t want to. ‘Radio Lily, now.’
Chapter 23
Euan
The broken pieces of the promises he had made lay scattered about his feet. Every shift of his body pushed them deeper into the asphalt. He had left Kira with Lily and the Valiant. But with her was his compassion, his empathy. The moment their lips had parted in a farewell kiss, he had forced all regrets, apologies and unmet expectations into a crate that he nailed shut with iron. He ignored the steel band around his chest, the thickness in his throat, the small voice that whispered she had told him the truth, that she would never forgive him and he would never see those crystal blue eyes light up with love again.
But there was no time to dwell on his failures. Nick’s safety was paramount. Once this stealth mission was accomplished, he’d deal with Kira and the consequences. There was no other choice.
They hid within a construction site. Walls of blockwork were partly built around timber frames that had already begun to decay. Rusted nails easily caught on clothing, the debris at their feet could announce their location if not carefully managed. Euan’s shoulder blades were pressed to one of the few completed walls, and he held his breath as a man shuffled by. His poorly shod feet crunched over the gravel, tripped on the displaced bricks and the unused timber struts. The lack of light hindered him, but the darkness was Euan and Knight’s saviour.
Their prey paused. There was a stutter to his breathing, and Euan was close enough to be engulfed by the stink of alcohol that surrounded him.
A shadow emerged from the blackness. Knight was an apparition of destruction. The giant moved with stealth and precision. He had no reservations about what needed to be done, he was simply the bearer of Death’s scythe and did not hesitate to use it. The Lord of the underworld had imparted his magic upon Matthew Knight until the man that Euan knew was nothing more than the promise of demise shrouded in the gloom that surrounded him.
Euan blinked and Knight had caught the man they hunted in a chokehold. Pale skin flashed white in the weak moonlight as a lean throat was exposed to the air. Their captive’s struggle was short, a sharp burst of energy that gave struggle as thick muscles tightened, and that slither of skin disappeared under a wave of black liquid.
Euan moved out from the protection of the wall. He had learned that death was never quiet. There was always sound that accompanied the parting of the soul from the body. The patter of the blood as it splashed on the tarmac, the bubble of air that escaped a slit throat, the stretch of fabric as the nerves within a dying body twitched and jerked. His vision was locked on the dance between the two men as memories took hold.
The heat
