Page 176 of Caution to the Wind

But she wasn’t dead.

She was breathin’, and she was mine.

I fell into the coffin, hittin’ my hip hard on the wood beside her in my haste to gather her in my arms and wrap my entire fuckin’ body around her like a shield. Like we were still under attack and only my body could save her.

She was sobbin’, great heavin’ sobs that wracked her whole body into convulsions. I held her too tight and peppered her wet face in kisses, whisperin’ how much I loved her, how fuckin’ necessary she was to me, how grateful I was that she was alive, alive, alive.

“Are Boner aa-and Ransom okay?” she almost yelled in her haste to ask. It made my heart, already threatenin’ to break outta my chest, swell larger with love. “Are the girls okay?”

“Boner’s in the hospital, but he’s gonna be okay. Ransom was only skimmed with the bullet. He’s patched up, and the girls are good,” Bat assured her ’cause I was too busy kissin’ Mei’s gorgeous fuckin’ face.

“I knew you’d find me,” she cried, clutchin’ me hard, nails diggin’ into my wet, ruined shirt. “I knew it!”

“Always,” I swore. “Always, little dragon. But swear to me right fuckin’ now, you won’t pull this sacrificial shit again. Swear to me!”

“I swear,” she said instantly, shudderin’ against me, pullin’ and clawin’ to get me closer as if she wanted to crawl beneath my skin. “I was s-so scared,” she admitted, diggin’ her little hands into my hair so tight it burned, pullin’ my head outta her neck so she could stare at me with those gorgeous, wet black eyes. “I was so scared, but I knew you’d come. You were made to keep me alive.”

“Rocky,” I murmured, smoothin’ her wet hair away from her face so I could press a kiss to her forehead. “You’re the one who keeps savin’ me.”

“No,” she swore fiercely. “It’s you. Because in all the darkest moments of my life, even lying in a fucking grave, the possibility of seeing you again was what I lived and fought for.”

With a groan of achin’ relief, I took her wet, tremblin’ mouth with my own, feedin’ her all the love bubblin’ up from my overfull soul.

When we broke apart, I kept her clasped to me and made a private vow I wouldn’t go another fuckin’ day without Mei Zhen Marchand by my side.

“I love you,” I confessed, reachin’ between our bodies to wrench open the button-up, poppin’ buttons ’til I could reveal the fresh tattoo I’d got for her. “You got your teeth and claws in me, and I’m never lettin’ you go, you hear me? I’ve been a fool for most of my life, but I know how fuckin’ lucky I am to have the love of a woman as fierce and fuckin’ perfect as you. You hear me? I’ll scream it from the fuckin’ roof. I love you,” I ended on a roar.

“Henning,” she whispered, the tears still comin’ but softer now, and there was a new kinda fear in her eyes. “I don’t know if I deserve that.”

“You deserve everythin’, and I’m gonna be the one to give it to you,” I swore, kissin’ her again ’cause she wasalive,and she was mine.

“There is blood on these hands,” she whispered roughly, small fingers curled tightly, the skin so pale in the milky moon they seemed luminescent. “I know better than anyone it can’t be washed off. I killed one of the men before they could get me in the grave. Shot him in the throat with his own pistol.”

That explained the blood on her face. Laughter blossomed in the dark place in my belly reserved for violence and vengeance and wrongs that felt so fuckin’ right.

I used one’a my thick, calloused fingers to peel back each of hers gingerly, like petals on a flower reluctant to bloom. She resisted only for a moment even though I could see in her eyes a fragile kinda hope she was afraid to voice. Those black eyes watched me carefully as I brought her hand up before my face and slowly pulled her bleedin’ index finger into my mouth, suckin’ it down to the base. Her nostrils flared, cheeks darkenin’. A hiccough of breath caught in her throat along with her flutterin’ pulse.

I slid my tongue over her digit as I pulled off, then repeated the movement with the next finger and the next. On the third, she shivered so violently I heard her spine crack.

“I happen to like the taste of blood,” I reminded her in a voice thick with remembered lust. “And I don’t give a fuck about anythin’ in your past or mine anymore, you hear me? I would wade through a lake of blood for you. I would dig ’til the bowels of hell opened under my raw, stingin’ hands. I would cut out my own heart and would barter with Satan himself if it meant keepin’ you safe. You’re mine if you’ll say I’m yours, and I’m keepin’ you forever.”

Mei clung to me even tighter, flippin’ me so I was on my back in a coffin six feet in the earth, and all I could see was my girl hoverin’ over me like the angel of death, ready to kiss me into heaven. “Then,” she promised, “I’m yours.”

AXE-MAN

Six months later

I hadn’t spenta single night away from her in months, but it still didn’t explain the vicious acuteness of the pain in my chest as I waited for her to arrive. To distract myself, I stared down at my hands, the silver rings on every finger but missin’ pinky and my left ring finger where in just a handful of minutes, Mei would place a new ring.

She’d picked it out herself without my input, an impish grin on her face when she returned home with a small jewelry bag.

“Something unique,” she’d murmured. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

I believed her.

I’d felt the same way when I’d found the gold ring in the heart of Vancouver’s Chinatown, the dragon’s body an undulatin’ circle with a head frosted by small diamonds and eyes a vibrant ruby red. The sight’a that ring on Mei’s slim finger, the expression on her face when I’d slipped it on without askin’ the question ’cause I was a stubborn old Tiger, but I’d learned after all this fuckin’ time that the answer for Mei would always beyes, would stay in my mind forever. Pure euphoria, the kind that comes not from a drug but from the realization of a dream long dreamt. The diamond bright joy undercut by a sliver of shock, like she couldn’t believe after all these years and all our struggles that she might finally be a real, legal part of her favourite family.

And today, in our backyard surrounded by the family we’d found in Entrance, we were finally tyin’ the knot.