Page 5 of Oathbreaker

And last night I followed her to a cemetery where she was kneeling in front of my fucking grave before I stepped out of the trees and scared the crap out of her.

My beautiful Briar.

The thought of coming back to her is the only reason I’m still alive. The reason I continued to push through when it would have been so much easier to give up, let them kill me.

A brisk knock at the door startles me fully awake and I sit up in confusion. Then the door opens and—Briar.

Fuck, she’s a breath of fresh air, the brightest sunshine of summer, and beauty personified. If I could bottle her up, I’d never work another day in my life. That might be corny, but it’s true.

“Good morning.” She steps inside briskly, letting the door click closed behind her. She’s carrying two big shopping bags, and the scent of coffee and something slightly sweet hits my nostrils.

“If you brought breakfast, I might kiss you.”

She arches a brow. “You’re in no condition to be kissing anyone. Lay down and let me look at your bruises.”

Who am I to say no when the love of my life asks me to lie down in bed?

“Christ, Colt, what happened?” Her eyes are sharp, fingers light, touch warm as she runs her fingers over my torso.

“It’s a long story, babe.”

She flinches—almost like I hit her—and regret settles over me like a dark, heavy blanket.

I have so much explaining to do, I don’t know where to start.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says finally.

Yeah, my girl is upset.

I’d be worried if she wasn’t.

I’m just not sure how to explain the massive clusterfuck I created.

“How far back should I go?” I ask after a moment.

“Uh, how about the beginning?” she snips, dabbing a cotton ball of something that burns like hell on one of the open sores on my chest.

“Well, the basic story is that I didn’t re-enlist—I was recruited to a Black Ops unit. It’s not officially part of any agency. Or the Marines. That’s all I can tell you for security reasons.”

“You became…a spy?” she asks, her eyes snapping to mine.

I nod.

It’s close enough. There are other terms we used, but they don’t matter. None of it matters to me anymore.

The salve she rubs on one of my bruises is cool and soothing, and the moan that escapes me is inadvertent. My eyes close, and I just lie there as she rubs a little more on my shoulder, the underside of my jaw, my forearm. Eventually she stops, and I realize she’s waiting.

Fuck, but this is hard.

“So, when I left you, I went dark for a year. Complete immersion in hardcore training. All the things you see on TV times a million. Navy SEAL training combined with MMA fighting, foreign language studies—it was the most intense thing I could’ve imagined.” I pause. “They didn’t tell me ahead of time that it would be a complete blackout, no contact with the outside world at all. I didn’t know, Briar. Every night in my bunk I wrote you letters and?—”

“You did not.” Her face is steely.

I take a breath. “I did. I know now that they never sent them, but I wrote them.” I pause. “I also had no idea they…killed me off.”

This time she sucks in a breath, her eyes fixed on mine. “You didn’t…know?”

I shake my head. “When they sent me out on my first mission it was supposed to be simple: Get arrested in Siberia, find the agent who was already imprisoned in the prison there, and break us both out. We had people on the outside waiting, so it should have been a quick in and out.”