Page 25

DEACON

T he gunfire fades, but my pulse doesn’t. My lungs seize against the scorched air, coughing as acrid smoke stings my throat. My vision blurs for a heartbeat before I force it back into focus, the world narrowing into shapes and shadows through the haze.

The stench of blood and cordite clings to the back of my throat, thick and choking, igniting a cough that burns all the way down.

It sears the lining of my nose and coils in my gut like bile, leaving behind a phantom heat, like breathing fire in a closed room.

metallic and hot, like the air right before a lightning strike.

I step over a mangled body, rifle raised, eyes sweeping the terrain for movement.

Shadows twitch in the corners of my vision, but they belong to the dying.

What’s left of the Reaper’s men are either retreating or bleeding out. We’ve won. For now.

Gage moves past me with a nod, jaw clenched and face grim as he secures the perimeter.

Dalton hauls a groaning bastard up by the vest and slams him into a tree, barking questions.

Gideon stalks the edge of the clearing like a wraith, watching, waiting for any straggler dumb enough to breathe wrong.

It should feel like victory. But it doesn’t.

And it won’t. Not until I see her—until I’ve touched her, smelled her, felt her alive and breathing. Until I’ve confirmed with my own two hands that she’s still mine.

The reinforced door to the ranch house bursts open and I spin, rifle up, breath frozen—but it’s her. Sutton. Streaked in blood, chest heaving, eyes wide with battle-shock and fury. Her hair is tangled, her cheeks smeared, and she looks like a woman who’s just fought her way out of hell. And won.

Too much blood for just one wound—none of it looks like hers.

The coppery scent doesn’t just hang in the air—it hits like a punch to the gut, conjuring the moment I thought I’d never see her alive again.

My jaw tightens, the memory searing through me even as I step forward, driven by the instinct to shield, to claim, to never let go again.

I know she isn’t really mine. But that doesn’t stop the roar in my chest or the heat that surges through my limbs like wildfire.

She’s alive. On her feet. And I damn near drop to my knees.

I close the distance in three long strides, my rifle slipping from my hands and hitting the ground with a dull thud.

Her eyes lock on mine—wild, searching—and the world blurs at the edges.

Adrenaline crashes into me like a breaker slamming against the shore.

Then she's in my arms, crashing into me like a live wire, her body trembling, slick with sweat and adrenaline.

The scent of blood clings to her, sharp and metallic, mixing with the scorched smoke that still lingers in the air.

Her breath comes in ragged bursts against my throat, her heart pounding a staccato rhythm that mirrors my own.

In that moment, nothing else matters—not the screams, not the fire, not the carnage left behind. Just her. Just this.

Her arms wrap around my neck, fierce and unrelenting, and I stagger back a step under the force of her impact. The rawness in her touch—the desperation, the relief—hits me like a hammer to the chest, and I lock my arms around her as if I could fuse us together and never let go again.

I grip the back of her neck, fingers curling hard enough to feel her pulse thrumming beneath my palm and yank her to me.

Our mouths collide—no grace, no warning.

Just raw heat and the taste of blood and smoke.

I devour her like I’ve been starved, like this kiss is the only thing keeping me from unraveling.

There’s no finesse, no gentleness. Only hunger.

Desperation. Fury. And the unrelenting relief of knowing she’s still mine.

"Don’t ever scare me like that again," I growl against her mouth, voice raw and shaking. "I thought I’d lost you."

Her hands fist in my shirt, the tremble in her fingers betraying the storm still churning beneath her steel exterior.

Her grip is fierce, desperate—clutching like she’s trying to anchor herself to something solid after surviving a maelstrom.

I feel the scrape of her nails through the cotton, a silent scream of everything she can’t yet say.

She yanks me closer, our bodies colliding, breath intermingling, heat flaring.

Her mouth crashes against mine—biting, bruising, raw.

It’s not a kiss; it’s a demand, a battle, a claim.

Her lips break from mine only long enough to rasp, voice shredded by fury and need, "You think I wasn’t scared? You left me."

"To protect you."

"I protected myself. I shot a man in the chest. Twice. He was going to kill me. My father's a cop, remember? He made sure I never had to wait for someone else to save me."

The pride that swells in me is almost unbearable, flooding my chest with a heat that rivals the fire still licking the edges of the horizon.

My Sutton—fierce, untamed, and still trembling with the shock of survival—meets my gaze like a battle-scarred warrior who refuses to fall.

Her strength stuns me. Her defiance burns through me.

And all I can do is hold on, struck dumb with gratitude and need.

"You did good, baby," I whisper hoarsely, thumb swiping a smear of blood from her cheek. "But I’m not letting you go again."

Something in her shatters then. Her breath hitches, lashes trembling, and a strangled sound escapes her throat as she buries her face in my shoulder.

I feel the tremor that runs through her entire body, the way her fingers dig into my back like she’s trying to hold herself together.

For a heartbeat, time suspends—no gunfire, no growls, no smoke.

Just her. Just this. Then I bend, arm hooking under her thighs, lifting her effortlessly.

She clings to me, face hidden against my neck, and I carry her into the shadows behind the house, away from the carnage, the chaos, the memory of blood still steaming on the ground.

The second I find a secluded corner, I back her into the rough wood, hands framing her face as I kiss her like a starving man tasting salvation.

Her mouth opens beneath mine, wild and demanding.

She claws at my shirt, dragging it over my head with shaking hands, her nails leaving hot trails across my chest. Her breath breaks hot and uneven against my neck, her scent clinging to my skin like smoke curling from a wildfire—earthy, rich, threaded with the remnants of blood and arousal.

It hits me like a punch, a rush of everything she is—fearless, alive, mine.

Smoke, blood, and something fiercely feminine hits me like a drug.

Her fingers tremble as they find my belt, fumbling with urgent desperation, each movement jerky with adrenaline and need.

The buckle clinks, cold metal against burning skin, and the scrape of her nails as she tugs the leather free sends a jolt of heat down my spine.

She's frantic, unfiltered, primal—and it’s that wildness, that raw survival in her touch, which undoes me.

"Turn around," I rasp.

She obeys instantly, bracing her hands against the rough wood of the wall, her breath coming in short, frantic bursts.

Her pulse hammers at her throat, a wild staccato that mirrors the heat rushing through me.

Her skin glistens—slick with sweat, flushed with survival.

My palms curve over her hips, greedy, reverent, fingers digging in to claim and steady.

There’s no pause, no hesitation—I strip her jeans and panties down in one rough, hungry motion, the fabric rasping against her legs as the musky mix of sweat, blood, smoke, and her arousal rises like incense between us.

The scent hits me hard—earthy, primal, electric with adrenaline.

My zipper hisses open, and the pressure that’s been building explodes as I press the thick head of my cock to her entrance.

I thrust into her in one brutal, claiming surge—no preamble, no mercy.

A savage growl claws its way out of my chest, ripped from the rawest place inside me as I bury myself to the hilt, her slick heat swallowing me whole.

She cries out—loud, guttural, primal—as her back bows and her fingers claw for purchase against the wall.

Her body tightens around mine, seizing in a frenzy of heat and hunger, each pulse of her muscles a visceral echo of the storm between us.

The rawness of it rips through both of us like lightning, cracking open everything we’ve been holding in.

Her cry is no longer fear—it’s the roar of survival turned savage, a declaration that she’s still here, still fighting, still burning.

I answer it with every brutal thrust, her nails digging into the wood as she braces herself, hips driving back into mine.

Every movement is reckless, unrestrained, her body clenching with a rhythm that consumes me.

The sound she makes isn’t just want—it’s demand, ferocity, and a visceral need that binds us tighter than any vow.

Her heat surrounds me, searing and alive, and I surrender to it completely—lost in the wildness we’ve created together.

I drive into her with savage need, one hand tangled tight in her sweat-damp hair, yanking her head back so I can feel the cry tear from her throat.

My other hand anchors her hip, fingers biting into flesh as I slam into her again and again.

Each thrust is a desperate vow carved into her skin, every movement punishment for the fear she made me feel and a prayer that she’ll never leave me.

Her moans echo off the wood, raw and keening, her hips meeting mine with wild abandon, desperate and unrelenting.

The sound of our bodies—flesh striking flesh, breath ragged, need drowning out everything else—builds into a brutal crescendo that threatens to consume us both.