Page 56 of Barbarian Daddies

“It’s not over until I say it’s over!” Selina hisses.

But Kai swoops past me and rams into her with his full body weight. He throws her against the wall with such force that I hear the bones in Selina’s body breaking before she hits the floor. My instincts kick in and I back away, choosing to shield Cynthia instead. My side hurts like a motherfucker, the blood constantly trickling down my thigh, but at least I’ve got my woman close and I’m getting her farther away from Selina with each blinking second.

We breathlessly watch Kai and Selina fight. She is determined, I’ll give her that. Despite the stab wound in her wrist and the broken ribs she endured, she’s already up and coming at Kai with everything she’s got. The laser guns are on the floor but close enough for Selina to reach them if my brother doesn’t take her out first.

“Kai,” I hear Cynthia whisper, her arms tightly wrapped around my waist.

I don’t even care about the pain anymore. I only care that she’s with me. And alive.

Kai is a formidable fighter. Most people know him as the strategist, the diplomat, the chieftain who always advocates for peace before resorting to violence. Yet when push comes to shove, my brother transforms into an unbeatable fiend. He’d often say I’m scary when I’m fighting, but I doubt he understands precisely how fearsome he can be. Fast as lightning, his feet barely touching the ground.

Selina is well versed in battle, as well, and she almost slashes his throat open with her bare claws. But Kai dodges the blow and shoves another knife deep into her chest. She didn’t even see it coming. She was so angry, in so much pain, so distraught and desperate she didn’t see my brother as he carefully chose his angle and shortened the distance between them.

The blade went right between her breasts. He turns it.

“Ah,” Selina gasps, blood gurgling in the back of her throat as she stares at him.

I can see the life leaving her body. The light leaving her eyes. The fire of Sunna dying inside her as she gives her last breath and falls to the floor. It’s over.

This time, it’s finally over.

Kai turns around and looks at me, Selina’s blood smeared across his bare chest. He’s panting. Exhausted. We’ve been at this for a while, fighting our way through the city to get here. To find Cynthia before it was too late. It all feels like a haze.

I hold Cynthia close while Kai rushes to press a strip of cloth to my wound. The pain comes back with a vengeance, and I throw my head back with a snarl as he swoops in to hug and kiss Cynthia.

“Dammit, man, you ruined the moment!” I snap.

Cynthia laughs and cries at the same time as she welcomes his affection, then comes back to shower me with loving kisses. “I thought I’d never see you again,” she whispers, lips pressed to mine. “I love you so much, Maur… Kai… I love you so much.”

“I love you,” I whisper back, my heart filled with a familiar warmth.

“We’ve taken the city for you,” Kai says, adoringly gazing down at her. “If that doesn’t speak to our love for you, I don’t know what will.”

“I’m so glad you’re both okay,” she replies, then glances at my hip wound. “Well, sort of.”

Gasping, she pulls away and looks out the window, her eyes popping with surprise.

“It’s over,” I tell her. “We really did it.”

“How did you manage to regroup, to pull this off?” Cynthia replies, but I am nowhere near ready to answer that question just yet.

All I want to do right now, in this very second, is hold my woman and kiss her, feel her body against mine, her heart beating in time with mine. I need to feel her soul close to mine and my brother’s, and I know Kai feels the same way, because the two of us flank her by the window and wrap our arms around her, oblivious to the ongoing war unraveling beyond the thick glass.

“You gave us quite the scare,” Kai tells Cynthia, gently kissing her temple.

“I’m so sorry. I know it must’ve been awful, but something happened,” she says. “I doubt you’ll believe me if I tell you, but it happened. I had to do this. It was an opportunity I couldn’t resist.”

“Did it yield the results you desired?” I ask. She nods, smiling softly. “Then it was worth it.”

“What matters is you’re safe,” Kai adds.

But Cynthia can’t look away from Selina. Lifeless on the floor, her eyes affixed to the white ceiling. “She wanted to die,” she murmurs. “I could tell from her voice. As soon as she realized you had her cornered, Selina wanted to die.”

“It was all or nothing with her, I’m afraid,” Kai replies. “There was no other way.”

“As much as I hate to say this about another being, the world is better off without her,” Cynthia says. “There was only poison in her heart.”

But that heart isn’t beating anymore. My brother took care of it. I would’ve liked to have carried that burden in the end, yet the universe saw fit for Kai to do it. It’s alright. We’ll support each other going forward. We’ll nurse each other’s wounds—the physical and the emotional ones. We have Cynthia with us. There’s no better cure for our ailing souls than this marvelous creature.

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