Page 35 of Beyond Hate (Beyond #3)

London

I t took a while before I unwrapped myself from Otto so we could stand up.

By the time we did, the blood soaking through my jeans was cooling, tacky, and I had to wonder what it said about me that it didn’t even bother me now.

The feel of his lips against mine had slowly brought me down from the cloud of fear and panic pooling through my chest…

and when my feet touched the ground, I realized it was okay.

That I would have done it all again, because we were here .

We’d made it.

It was like we’d somehow outrun fate chasing us down and trying to break us apart again.

I wasn’t sure if I was becoming someone new, or if I was finally settling into whatever past life made up who I was now.

Whatever it was, Otto took a second to bend down and carefully pluck the journal I’d used to hit Elizabeth with from the crimson puddle around her before he straightened up beside me.

Something about the dark cover dripping red made my stomach ache, and when he flipped the first page open and I saw the name Nicholas Blythe in familiar handwriting, I shivered. The movement made Otto shift, and that made a photo flutter from between the blood-soaked pages.

I bent to grab it almost automatically, handing it to him with numb fingers… because I realized what it was.

A young man with long dark hair and beautiful green eyes. A taller boy with dark hair and my blue eyes. Sharper features…

He could have been my brother.

And Otto…

Fuck, I felt like I’d recognize Otto anywhere.

It was us… or… the people we used to be.

It was who he’d come looking for that first night in the alley when he’d taken me, and some small part of me seized up in fear that it would remind him of everything he’d lost, everything he was so angry about.

He took it from me with careful fingers, his eyes fixated on faces that probably danced like ghosts to a melody I would never be able to hear. I wanted to beg him to give it back, to put it back where he’d found it… but…

“All the answers are in there.” My voice held the softest ache, because I wasn’t going to take this from him, even if that damn picture and everything it meant, everything it could mean , scared the shit out of me.

They looked like they could have been a dream of us. It was proof that everything Otto said was real, right there in his hands.

It was all the answers he’d ever wanted.

And…

“It’s not important,” he murmured, then he threw the book into the fireplace. My mouth dropped open.

“Otto, what are you doing?” When I started toward the fire and the pages that were starting to catch flame and curl at the edges, he caught me around the waist and pulled me to him.

“I said it doesn’t matter.”

“But you wanted…”

He’d wanted to kill me for a long time for those answers—he’d wanted to make me someone I wasn’t. He’d wanted a lot of things, and now he was throwing it all away when it was right there. It was somehow bigger than me killing a man to save him, more important than the dead woman at our feet.

“I want you , little rabbit.” His eyes flicked to the picture in his hand and his brows knit together.

When he tossed it in on top of the book, I felt like my chest was breaking open.

“Whoever those people were, maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe it’s better not to know. I want this…

now. Us. I want a clean slate.” Otto leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine.

“You’re not Nikki.” The whispered words felt final, like he was letting go of something.

Like the fire burning the journal was cleansing something inside Otto too.

“No… but I am yours.” I whispered back. He nodded, leaning in and pressing his mouth to mine. The kiss was soft… warm. It was everything we’d never had before, everything I’d never felt before.

When I pulled back, Otto was looking at me like he was really seeing me for the first time… and I…

Fuck, I loved him.

“Can we go…” I paused. “I’m not sure where. I was going to say home, but I don’t know where that is.”

The corner of his mouth quirked into a soft smile and he lifted a hand, brushing his fingers along my jawline, tracing my lips like he couldn’t quite get enough of touching me.

“Home is wherever you are, London. I have money. Home is wherever you want it to be. Though…” His eyes flicked to the bodies in the room with us.

“I’m beginning to think it should be somewhere away from here. ”

Home.

I wasn’t sure if I’d ever really felt that word, if I’d ever understood it… but I did now.

Home was blood, and danger. Home was his eyes going dark when he wanted to hurt me, and the feel of his mouth when he kissed away that pain. Home was the man standing in front of me. Home had found me when it should have been impossible—past death, beyond hate. It was here.

Home was Otto.