Page 141 of Merry Fake Bride

“It’s me. I’m here. I’m right here.” Easing her back a little, I cup her face and my fingers come away sticky with blood.

Her clothes are covered in snow and dirt.

There are leaves and sticks caught in her curls, her makeup is smeared from tears, and blood rolls sluggishly from a head wound.

“What happened? Are you alright?”

“Kairo!” Devon clutches at me, struggling to get her legs underneath her. “He’s still here, he’s still here! We have to go, Kairo, we have to?—”

She’s cut off by the ear-splitting crack of a gunshot and we both flinch.

The bullet misses, skimming the snow on the ground next to us and leaving a dark scar that reveals the road beneath the white blanket covering the world.

Then Axel melts out of the darkness with his gun aimed right at me.

Without thinking, I drag Devon behind me and block her with my body. “Axel.”

“You motherfucker!” he yells, waving the gun around as if he can reach Devon cowering behind me.

Blood pours from an open gash across his forehead and his nose.

There’s blood soaked into his clothes yet despite that, his eyes are wide and crazed, and his steps are unwavering as he approaches. “You just couldn’t stay away, could you? You think you can get between me and my wife, huh? You really think I won’t kill you?”

“She’s not yours,” I growl, and my pounding heart begins to slow. “Do you hear me? She’s not yours, she’s not fucking property. She’s her own person and shechoseto be mine. Soif you think I’m going to let you hurt her, then you don’t understand a single thing about love.”

“What’slovegonna do against a bullet?” Axel sneers, his words eerily loud in the quiet blizzard forming around us. “Love won’t save you?—”

Axel hits the ground with a yell as Martin crashes into him with a shout and the gun goes off again.

Devon yelps, and I reach for her until the horror of the situation hits me.

Martin slumps to the side as Axel kicks him off him and blood rapidly seeps through the white material of his shirt.

No.

There’s no time to think.

I lunge at Axel as he tries to climb to his feet and we both hit the ground with a yell.

Grabbing his wrist, I slam it down against the frozen ground again and again, trying to dislodge his grip on the gun.

He does everything he can to stop me.

He tries to kick me but from this angle, his knee just glances off my thigh.

His fist collides with my jaw and my head snaps back, but my grip on his wrist remains like iron, refusing to grant him a second of respite.

After the fourth slam of his wrist into the ground and my fist into his shoulder, he’s forced to drop the gun and it vanishes into the snow.

Disarming him was my only plan.

Beyond that, it’s instinct to protect Devon as the sight of Martin, deathly silent on the ground, taunts my thoughts.

A glimpse to my future.

I can’t let him get away with this.

I’ve never been much of a fighter.