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He isn’t looking into my eyes but at my feet or possibly the ground between us as he says, “Are you all right?”

I shake my head and then, realizing what I’ve done, nod rapidly. “Actually.” My voice is trembling. I clear my throat. His head cocks to the side and flicks his light-pink gaze up to mine. “I’m having the time of my life.”

His whole face busts out into a smile, and it’s mesmerizing. Because it looks exactly the same as it did in his ... well ... before. His lips are full, a darker color than his skin, his tongue darker than both. He licks his lips and then bites the bottom one between teeth that are ... sharper than they were. Does he have ... fangs? “I ...”

“You’re really handsome,” I whisper.

He shakes his head quickly, his hair swishing around massive dark-gray horns. “What?”

“I came to rescue you,” I blurt out next. “With my brothers and Margerie and Dan and Jeremy. Vinny brought friends too.”

“They brought you out here?” He looks furious.

“It was my idea.”

“They’re supposed to protect you ...” He sounds furious too.

I shake my head and smile up at him like a crazy person. My shoulders are starting to shake. I feel cold even though I’m in jeans and Vinny’s hoodie. Underneath, I’m wearing a black T-shirt with holes in it. It’s one of Rollo’s. I don’t know what compelled me to wear it. Comfort. I’m comforted by him. And horns aren’t going to change that.

“And I’m supposed to protect you. I love you.”

He blinks at me, looking shocked, looking ... vulnerable. He shakes his head and scoffs, “Like ... this?”

I nod. “Especially like this.”

He closes the space between us and drops to his knees at my feet. “Christ, baby. You’re gonna be the death of me. I love you more.”

“It’s not possible. You don’t have any idea how strong you make me feel. You make me feel like a superhero ...”

“You are. Always have been. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“I love you so fucking much.”

“Stop ... talking,” he says, and he kisses me, really fucking kisses me. I kiss him back just as hard, just as biting. Well, not quite .

“You have fangs,” I whisper, breaking the kiss to admire his sharpened canines, dazzling white.

He nods. “They bother you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure this,” he says, glancing up at the same time his horns catch fire for a split instant that makes me jump, “doesn’t bother you?”

I grin, adrenaline and elation and shock warring in my chest, making my heart pound like a tempest against the sail of a ship.

“Nessa, look at me. Be serious. I’m no Prince Charming.”

“No.” I glance from his horns to his impossibly thick chest to his gem-colored skin to his clawed feet. “But you’ll never be the villain to me.”

His chest shudders on the exhale, and I watch something in the vicinity of pain flash across his features before it settles into a cool veneer of relief. “It’s a lot.”

“It’s kinda hot.” I barely get the words out before he crushes his lips to mine again, kissing me deeply enough that I swoon. He cups the back of my head with one massive hand and drags his thumb across my jaw, the claw tickling my cheek as he does.

“Thank you,” he whispers when he’s finished with me.

I’m so confused, so deliriously drunk on adrenaline and lust and love. “For what?” I blink.

“For being my hero too.” He kisses my cheek briefly and then pulls me even tighter against him, a rumble picking up in his chest.

He laughs and takes my hand, and when he pulls, he brings us both to our feet. I only numbly take whatever it is that he puts into my hand as he kisses me one more time, very sweetly. “This was an incredible rescue. Let’s grab Mr. Singkham and Emily, then we can help your crew.”

I smile. We. He said we . I nod, and I’m still nodding like a dope as he heads to the far wall, where I finally notice for the first time a groaning body—Mr. Singkham—and then a woman emerging from behind an open cabinet door.

“Roland? Is that really you?” the friendly COE doctor asks.

“It’s me, Emily.”

“Holy shit. I don’t think the electric sander is gonna cut it.”

He laughs, and though I don’t get the joke, I smile too. “Let me give you a hand.”

An explosion outside turns our attention toward the hangar door, and feeling like a total badass, I lift my new sword. “No, no. You go. I’ll see to Mr. Singkham,” Emily says. She brushes the back of her wrist over her forehead, smearing soot across her face, before turning her attention back to the disheveled, sleeping man. “Good heavens.”

“Is he gonna make it?” I ask.

“Yes. He’s fine. Now go!”

Rollo’s feet lift from the ground. He comes back to collect me, and as he gathers me in his arms and floats us over piles of airplane debris, I awkwardly try not to cut him on my new weapon. Smoke clears around us, and when we touch down outside of the hangar, I can see that my brothers have already claimed their victory. Three and the female are gone. Wounds are being nursed. Margerie is running around filming everything with her cell phone camera. Dan and Jeremy have their phones out, despite whatever pain they’re in, and are hopefully calling the right people.

“They left!” Luca says with a shrug before turning around and seeing us and shrieking. “Jesus Christ! What the fuck is that! Get him, boys!”

“Don’t fucking get him!” Charlie shouts, running forward from where he’d been kneeling at Dan’s side and grabbing Luca’s arm. “Can’t you see? That’s fucking Roland .”

Luca’s face has gone slack. He runs his hand through his curls and shakes his head. “Roland? No. No way. That can’t be the goddamn Wyvern .”

I twist in Roland’s grip, letting my feet find the tarmac. All I want is to lay my head on his shoulder and burrow deep into his massive chest, but I need to make this clear first. I position my body in front of his and hold up my hands.

“Vanessa, put that shit down!” David shouts, coughing from his position on his knees near Jeremy’s body. He’s got blood all over his hands, but I can see Jeremy gaping at me and know that he’s going to be all right despite the gash in his left leg and whatever is going on with his knee.

“It’s hers,” Rollo says from behind me. “She’s the only one who can lift it.”

I am?

“She is?” Margerie says.

“She unlocked it. Might be possible for me to carry now, but she can have it if she wants. She can have whatever she wants.”

“Christ, it really is Roland,” Mani mutters as he staggers up to his feet. He’s covered in sand and dirt and has blood leaking down his face from a wound near his hairline.

I swallow, feeling my heart hammering hard in my chest. “Fam, I see how you might be confused given that a wyvern might not seem like such an apt descriptor anymore, but if it helps, I’d like to reintroduce you. This is Rollo.” I place my free hand on his stomach and step back into the cage of his warmth. “My boyfriend, who I very much love.”

“Gonna be her husband soon enough,” Rollo says.

“You better get permission from William first. Puta madre,” Mani curses.

“William? Elena’s the one he’s gotta please,” Vinny hisses, just as pissed. “By the way, I got off the phone with Arnold. We’re gonna need help. He’s in Paraguay at a bar, and he doesn’t have a passport.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Charlie and Margerie say verbatim in the same instant. They share a glance, both of them softening. I hear the K-I-S-S-I-N-G song playing in my head on repeat and laugh.

“Ugh, I hate all of you. The two of you especially,” Luca says, pointing at me and Rollo.

“Can’t believe you let her fall in love with this sorry Charlie,” David adds.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with Charlies,” Charlie mutters, never breaking eye contact with Margerie, even as he cocks his head toward Roland. “And this guy’s okay too.”

My brothers continue muttering at each other while I look up at Rollo, my nose scrunched. Rollo glances away first—first!—and sounds oddly embarrassed when he clears his throat. Embarrassed? That’s my thing! “Everyone okay?”

“Everyone but Arnold,” Vinny says, shaking his head down at his cell. “He’s drunk on tequila and telling everybody he got teleported from Sundale to Asunción by an alien—so he’ll probably be in jail soon.”

“We’ll fix it,” Margerie says.

“I’m getting a dial tone at the COE. I think they might be okay,” Dan adds.

Jeremy says, “I’m calling the police. They’ve got me on hold. For fuck’s sake ...”

Rollo clears his throat. “Before the cavalry arrives ...”

“Hey, we are the cavalry!” Luca interrupts.

Rollo smiles to show a mouth full of extrasharp teeth and rolls his pretty pink eyes. “Before the rest of the cavalry arrives, I just wanted to thank y’all for the rescue.”

Charlie just grunts. “Course, man. You might look like a gigantic roided-out bottle of Pepto-Bismol, but that’s what you do for family.”

“Though truth be told,” Luca adds, “we were actually coming to kick your ass for doing ... stuff to our baby sister.”

“I’m older than you,” I sigh.

Roland gives my waist a gentle tug, but with his newfound muscle mass, I topple against his side. “Sorry,” he whispers to me quietly before pitching his voice louder to the others. “I turned into a monster overnight. I don’t think kicking my ass is gonna go the way you hoped.” He exhales fire through his nostrils and tries to run his hand back through is hair, only to hit horn first.

I elbow him in the gut, but he’s not paying me any attention. Instead his gaze is trained on the horizon. “What the ...”

I look up and see a distant point on the horizon start to get closer and closer. It’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, it’s ... I gulp hard and clutch my sword tighter. “That’s not one of the bad guys, is it?”

“No ... I think it’s ... the good guy.”

“The good guy? Who?”

Roland huffs through his nostrils and squeezes me more tightly against his chest, and we both watch as, seconds later, a Forty-Eight Champion I’ve only seen one other time in person lands only twenty feet from us.

“What the fuck?” I blink in the sight of Taranis’s surprised face, and I don’t feel any of the nerves that I should. After all, why would I? He’s now only the second -best-looking male on planet Earth. He glances between me and Rollo with eyes that aren’t pink or sparkly but boring, even if they are purple.

“Wyvern?” he says, voice cracking. My brothers are filming him, Luca approaching way, way too close. Taranis’s skin crackles with electricity that shoots out at Luca when he gets within touching distance of Taranis and knocks Luca onto his butt.

Rollo grunts. “Something like that.”

Taranis scoffs again. “The fuck happened to you?”

“I found what I’d been looking for.” He looks down at me, and I blush.

“Are you high? Is this some acid trip? What the fuck does that mean?” Taranis throws his arms out to the sides and runs a hand over his hair. His jaw clenches, and his uniform glistens. He looks incensed. I giggle.

Margerie crosses her arms over her chest. “It means he fell in love, you idiot.”

Taranis turns toward her, his skin crackling dangerously, and Margerie lifts her gun, pointing it straight at one of the most popular and powerful people on the planet. Charlie, of all people, grabs Margerie’s arm and tugs her to his side.

“What the hell does love have to do with it?” Taranis says.

“Everything,” Rollo answers softly, looking down at my face as if I’m the only person in the world. “Only everything.”