Page 141 of Guarded Knight

Her voice is muffled against my shirt. “You could work on your timing.”

I laugh, but it’s broken, shaky and shredded. “I’d tear the world apart to get to you.”

Her gentle hand comes up and frames my jaw. Our gazes connect, and my whole inner world shifts.

I’m not broken. I’m remade. Every scar, every crack, it all fused into something harder, more certain. Maybe this was always the path—to take the worst this world gave me and turn it into something better. Looking into her eyes, I don’t just want to survive the pain. I want to carry it and still taste every moment anyway—like she does.

Nothing easy is ever worth a damn.

We’re not easy, but we’re worth it.

I say the thing I should’ve said before the blood, the fear, the fight. The one truth that’s lived in my chest all this time, buried under guilt, fear, and armor I never knew how to take off.

“I love you, Lara. I’ve always loved you.”

She’s quiet and stares at me with those hazel eyes, warm as honey.

I smooth my thumb over her cheek. “I might be fucked up. But you want it? I’m yours.”

She coughs and she winces but laughs somehow, despite it. “I want it.”

I kiss her softly and think about having her in this life. Even in the next. “Looks like we’re going under together.”

“I told you I didn’t want to be there alone,” she whispers. “Seems appropriate that the mermaid would end up with a Navy SEAL.”

My eyes sting again.

I don’t like thinking about the end when it’s just the beginning.

“How about I take you to the surface?”

37

It’s beenthree hours since they wheeled her in.

Three hours since she finally stopped coughing long enough to nap. Since the nurse dimmed the overhead lights and told me I could stay as long as I liked. Since the last test finished and the doctor came in.

Since I exhaled for real.

I can’t let her slip through my hands twice. Losing her again isn’t something I’d survive—not this time, not when I’ve finally admitted she’s my whole damn future.

Lara’s tucked into a hospital bed with blue rails and white cotton blankets that never get a person warm enough. But she’s said she’s running hot every time I offer to get a new one.

Not that I want to leave the room.

My girl is on her side, curled like she’s bracing against the world. No oxygen tube, thank God. Just the occasional hitch of her breath and a raspy exhale that tells me I need to keep an eye on her.

She looks less gray now. Less strained. Beautiful, even here. And it guts me, because all I want is more mornings, more years, and I don’t know how many we’ll get. I just know I want every single one of them.

After hours of us waiting for test results, Lara falling in and out of sleep, the doctor finally came in and told us her blood showed traces of opiates, enough to cause dizziness, maybe disorientation. But not enough to sedate her long-term or be of concern for a CF flare-up.

They’ve got her on IV antibiotics to be safe. They said it’s precautionary, but I know better than to underestimate how fast CF can turn. CF doesn’t wait. It doesn’t forgive…

She coughs again, but in the past half hour, it’s been less strained. Still, the stress, adrenaline, dust, and dirt in the warehouse were enough to bring back the type of cough I haven’t heard in years.

As I wait for her to wake up, I drift in and out of worrying about her health and wanting to break into the hospital room where Trent is detained and finish the job I started. I said I’d ruin him. Prison was not what I had in mind when I said that, but it will have to do unless I can coordinate an inside job, and now…

I have too much to live for.