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“You stupid whore!” he wheezed, grabbing me by the hair. Sharp pain lit up my skull as he yanked me back. My head slammed against the hard floor, vision blurring. I rolled to my stomach, unable to stand, and crawled away instead.

I felt a hand clasp the cloth of my nightgown, lift it up and pull, while his clammy fingers gripped the hem of my undergarments and tore them clean off. Suddenly, I was bare between my legs.

“No,” I cried, rolling back over, grasping blindly at my nightgown to cover myself up. As if that would do a damn thing. “Please!”

His sweaty hand swiped across my face, disorienting me with a sting, followed by the clang of a belt unbuckling, a sound I knew I would never forget if I made it out of this kitchen alive.

“I’ll make you pay for that, bitch!” He shoved his hips between my legs, and a shrill protest escaped when I saw his hard member spring free from his pants.

But he was slammed into the cabinets to my left, blasted with a force so swift and powerful, the wood splintered beneath his body.

Mouth agape, I froze at the sight of my protector standing over us, the image of terror. Wild and fuming, like I’d never seen him before. That look in his eyes—ice cold, all-encompassing, and lethal—was a step beyond fury.

I scurried out of the way, half naked, into the opposite corner of the kitchen.

I watched as Gavin grasped the man on both sides of his head, like he’d done with me during so many gentle moments.

But now he tightened his fingers around the man’s skull with punishing force—withdrawing a petrified whimper from the lips of his victim.

He leaned down and stared directly into wide, pleading eyes. “What did I tell you,” he hissed, low and lethal, “about touching my girl? ”

And in a single movement, quick and effortless, Gavin snapped the man’s neck.

I gasped a choked-out rasp. The air escaped my lungs in reluctant empathy as life drained from my attacker.

Gavin let the man’s body crumple to the ground. And then he sighed, merely annoyed.

He turned toward me.

Panicked, I crawled backwards until my back hit the cabinet beneath the sink.

“Twice in one day, Ella, you manage to scare the ever-living shit out of me.” He squatted before me and reached for my arm, but I dodged him. He frowned. “Are you hurt?”

“I—I was getting some water,” I panicked. “I was thirsty.”

Again, he reached for my hand, but—

“No, no, no!” My voice broke, making way for the flood of tears. With my left hand, I pulled my nightgown over my knees and my knees into my chest. “I don’t—I don’t want you to see me like this.”

Or perhaps… I didn’t want to see him like this. What I just witnessed…

“It makes no difference how I see you.” He outstretched his hand. “He’s gone. You’re safe.”

“He’s not gone, he’s dead .”

“Aryella.” He shifted to block the lifeless body with an unnaturally twisted neck. His voice was too calm after breaking a man’s neck with his bare hands. “Come here. Please.”

“Get away!” I wept, but I didn’t try to retreat any farther. Part of me wished to, but the warmth of his body drew me closer and reminded me of safety, which I desperately craved. “You killed him and now you’re angry with me.”

Sadness passed through him. “Ella, why the hell would I be angry with you? ”

“Because you told me to stay in my room, and I didn’t listen.” My breaths grew faster, panicked. “And now you killed him, and it’s my fault!”

“I’m not angry with you,” he replied calmly. “It is not your fault. And I can’t… when someone wants to hurt you, I can’t not— Ella, sweetheart , take a breath.”

When I heard his command, I realized I was hardly breathing. I gasped for air. I closed my eyes and reached for his shoulder to steady me. He shifted forward, stroking my cheek as if to give my breathing a rhythm to follow.

It was impossible not to focus on the places I had been gripped, handled, thrown. I could not force the bruises to form, but if I could, I hoped they would heal faster. My focus remained on healing rather than the horror of what happened.

Minutes passed before I opened my eyes and saw straight again.

“You killed him,” I exhaled shakily.

“He was hurting you.” His finger gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “He was about to rape you.”

“But you killed him. And you killed them today in the temple.”

“Without hesitation.” He carefully held my chin between his fingers and surveyed my head, face, and neck for injuries. “And I will do it again.”

I shook my head. He’d told me he would kill for me. That he already had. It shouldn’t have shocked me. But it was the ease with which he’d done it, the calm, unflappable tone in his voice mere minutes after taking another life, that frightened me.

“You act like it was easy, killing them.”

His dark eyebrows rose as he nodded. “It was.”

“It—it shouldn’t be. ”

He sighed. “Ella, there are people in this world who want what you have, who want to hurt you. I will gladly get rid of them, every single one of them, until they’re all gone.”

“You can’t just go around killing people, even the ones that hurt me—”

“I can, and I will. The world is better off without people like him.”

“That’s not your decision to make.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

His lethal resoluteness made me shudder. “You should,” I breathed.

He held my face with both hands, his burning brown gaze fierce and true as he said, “But I don’t.”

I leaned into his touch, wanting only his safety, knowing this was a battle for another day. “I’m sorry for making you kill a man.” I took his hands and lowered them from my face.

“You didn’t make me do anything.” He enveloped my hands in his like he didn’t want to let go. “I have no problem killing a man for simply looking at you the wrong way. Enjoy it, even.”

I gulped.

He noticed. “I’m not a good man.”

I opened my mouth to object, but before I could—

“And I’ll never claim to be one. I will never be worthy of you. No one will.” He lifted my chin with his careful touch. He could say he wasn’t a good man—and after what I’d just seen, maybe he wasn’t—but to wield such wrath yet take such care spoke to his intentions.

With me, at least.

“I’ve seen things, horrors you cannot imagine, terror I will not be able to protect you from.

I would give my life if it meant I could shield you from the darkness in this world, but I can’t.

I can only teach you everything I know. I can show you how to fight and live.

And Ella,” he breathed, stumbling over the emotion in his voice when he spoke my name, “I need you to live . ”

I nodded, breathing in his fire, cedar, and leather.

My favorite scents. “I want to train more. Tomorrow. I don’t want to be a victim to men like him.

Because,” I croaked, afraid to admit the truth of that final moment.

That fight had fled when I knew what was about to happen.

“I’m not strong enough. Right now, I’m not.

I think I would have given up, and I thought he was going to— If you hadn’t shown up, Gavin—”

“But he did not. I am here, and you are safe.” He stroked the tears from my cheek. “Please don’t cry, Ella.” He winced, his warm breath caressing my forehead. “You are strong, and…” He stopped himself and swallowed.

“And?”

He sighed. “And it fucking guts me when you cry.”

I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the backs of my hands and reached for his face. For the scar on his right eye and cheek, the rugged beard I longed to touch. “Well,” I breathed, touching him like he touched me. With gentleness and care. “I certainly don’t want that.”

His eyes shuttered at my touch, his breath became low and ragged. And with a shallow rasp, he removed my fingers from his cheek, squeezed, and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Um.” I pulled the edges of my nightgown tight around my knees and pointed to the floor, where my panties, now filthy and ripped in half, lay crumpled before the stove.

I looked up to see Gavin’s face, hard and otherwise unreadable.

“He managed to grab them and rip them off but didn’t get any further.” I leaned my shoulder into his chest, suddenly self-conscious of the fact that I was completely bare under my nightgown and concerned someone else might walk into the kitchen and catch a glimpse. “Thanks to you.”

“Leave them. They’re done for.” His voice was strained.

“Yes, but I… I’m out.” I’d packed a few days’ worth of clothing, but we hadn’t washed since that day beneath the rocky overhang in western Wymara. “We need clean laundry. ”

He released a long, heavy sigh. “I’ll find you something.”

I gasped when he bent down, tucked his arms beneath my knees, and lifted me up.

In one swift movement, he managed to position me in his arms so that I was completely covered by my nightgown and he wasn’t risking his hand coming remotely close to the part of me that was bare.

It was these small but intentional gestures that made me crave his closeness.

He was aggressive when he needed to be, which was most of the time.

But when I needed care, he showered me with gentleness and respect.

It felt like he saved that part of himself for me.

“Wait, what about the body?” I pointed behind him.

He shifted so I couldn’t see. “Don’t look. I’ll have Damond take care of it.”

“Is he used to taking care of bodies like this?”

Gavin didn’t respond. He stepped through the kitchen, down the hallway, and carried me up the stairs like my extra weight was nothing.

The way I felt in his arms was everything. I could live there, engulfed by his strength and resting in his delicious comfort.

And then the indent of two silver rings beneath his shirt and my fingers reminded me that I couldn’t.

I was quiet as he set me down carefully next to the bed.

“Stay here.” He paused at the door to look back at me, his expression strict. “Did you hear me, Ella?”

I’d caused him enough grief for one day, and I could tell he needed assurance, so I nodded.