“I’m going to save the world!”
Then I shut the portal, leaving his stunned face seared into my mind.
“Kit!”
I didn’t even have time to worry about the PR nightmare I’d just left behind on Earth. Damien was losing his shit.
“I’m over here! I’m okay!” I shouted from behind a pod tree.
Well, I was sort of okay. I was totally freaking out that the sentries also died when they hit our atmosphere, I’d just told all of social media that I was going to save the world, and a breeder had injected her venom into my face when she’d clawed me. I had no delusions that teen boy would be cool and not upload that video, or that the breeder hadn’t dug deep enough to hurt me.
Damien swam into view, eyes wide with shock as he pulled me flush against his chest. The air whooshed out of me as I slammed into him; he wrapped his arms around me in an iron grip. “I thought I lost you,” he mumbled into my hair. “The breeder had your face in her hands and I thought she’d tear your head right off.”
“I’m okay,” I repeated, as he pulled back to get a good look at me.
Something in his face changed when he looked over me; a softness pulled at his eyes.
I held his gaze. “How are the others?”
I didn’t hear a big fight anymore, and I think they were giving us time to have a moment.
“I’m in love with you,” he said, almost to himself, lightly tracing the edges of the cuts where she had grabbed my face.
Everything in my body froze at his declaration; fight or flight kicked in and I wanted to run. Love meant you could get hurt. Love meant I would mourn him if he died.
My heart, my damn heart, beat wildly as I soaked in those words. I’m in love with you.
He shook his head a little. “I know that terrifies you. It scares me too, but damn it, woman, I love you.”
Now a grin pulled at the corner of my lips. “Damn it, man, I think I love you too,” I teased.
Fuck it. The world was going to hell and we were all going to die one day. Why not in love?
Now it was his turn to smile. Leaning forward, he claimed my mouth in a heart-melting kiss before pulling back. “Now let’s get those scratches looked at.”
Hand in hand, we walked out of the trees to find our friends wiping off weapons and addressing wounds. Jack waited off to the side.
Brisk’s gaze flicked up to mine. “Well?”
I grinned. “Sentries turned to piles of ash. We’re going to annihilate them.”
The entire group gave a collective whoop, jumping into the air.
“Let’s do the giant next, and ghouls,” Brisk ground out. “I want to see every last one of them burn.” My Marine was fueled and ready for war.
“Well, hang on…” Damien put his hands up to steady the group. “Kit’s been injured and it’s going to hit her soon. We need to get to the birthing pools on Skyhome so she can heal.”
The moment he spoke of my injury, it flared to life with pain as if just now remembering I’d been infected with breeder poison. Ronnie lunged forward, concern filtering her gaze.
“Okay, yeah, let’s head back up to Skyhome and rest for a bit. Then we can try our second mission once you feel better.”
Brisk and everyone else nodded and started to move out, back to the chopper. We passed dead sentry bodies as we walked and I found myself trying to plan out a massive die-off of the ghouls. Could I open a huge portal and like… shove thousands of ghouls through it into our world so they could meet their death? Sounded unlikely. Maybe we could create a beacon or something to lure them like Jeremy had said.
One plan was not enough. I wanted five plans to act on in case the others failed. Because now it seemed plausible. Ending the Dream Wars felt within our grasp.
Damien broke off my thoughts. “Jeremy is going to solve this problem. Don’t you worry.” His voice was deep and warbled and the chopper was spinning. I felt drunk.
So he was thinking the same thing that I was. I relaxed a little then, snuggling into him as the poison started to make me feverish and chilly. I didn’t need to figure this out alone. I had my team. And with that, I lost consciousness as the breeder poison took me.
Five
“Kit, come back,” Damien’s strong voice, no longer warbling, whispered in my ear. I felt a light stroking on my arm; my eyelids sprang open as I was pulled from a dream… a real dream. I’d never get used to that. Looking down, I saw that my clothes were soaking wet, probably from the birthing pool. I was lying in a cave den on a clean sleeping bag. At the entrance, someone had hung a sheet to give us privacy.
“How long was I out?” I tried to sit and felt a little weak. Not to mention I was starving and thirsty.
“About two hours. Ronnie assured me you were okay, but I still freaked out.”
My eyes flicked to him and I could see the concern in his gaze. I remembered then that he loved me.
I was in love.
A full grin lit up my face. “You loooove me,” I teased.
All his anxiety lifted then and a wide smile spread across his face. “I do.”
Leaning forward, he captured my mouth in a quick kiss and then pulled back.
Nope. I wanted more.
Hooking my arm around the back of his neck, I pulled him back in and crushed my mouth on his with a feverish passion. I had no idea what had gotten me so in the mood, but we were alone and there was a curtain and there was no time like the present. I almost died, and I was in love—might
