Page 61 of King of the Dawn

That ridiculous, medieval bullshit. A scar on my hand, more permanent than a ring.

“I guess you were a knight in shining armor all along.” She smiled, collapsing into my arms, her head resting on my shoulder.

I didn’t move, afraid that this dream would disappear.

“Hold me, husband,” she whispered against my chest. “Hold me tight.”

I did. And she was real. Her slight weight, her slender frame, her warmth and the incredible, raw, presence of my witchy little wife overwhelmed me. I dipped my head into her wild, fiery curls, and took in her floral scent, and thanked God, or whatever higher power had given my miserable life this small mercy.

For her, every scar, every wound, every miserable experience was worth it. The fight to bring justice into the world was something that had made me want to suck start my own pistol. But with her in my arms, everything had new meaning.

I held her on my lap through the entire flight, even as the flight attendants tried to warn us that it was against protocol. But protocol be damned. I held her to me as she dozed off. I couldn’t sleep, though. I was too busy memorizing her smooth features, and every strand of her glorious mane.

I was still the fucking Pakhan, and if she wanted to sleep in my arms the entire flight, then I would make it happen.

When we landed in a small airport outside of Mourningkill, New York, she finally moved out of my arms.

We walked to the door and the staircase holding hands, and the sight that greeted us from the bottom of the steps terrified me.

“What’s happening, Yuliya?” I demanded, pulling Eve into me.

My sister’s hair was in a tight braid, her face devoid of any of that useless powder she’d been using, with a helmet strapped to a black netted vest over her black combat gear. She was dressed to go to war, with a pistol on her thigh, an M-4 slung at the low ready, and black gloves with hardened knuckles, and full magazines taking up every space on top of her body armor.

“Corbin has been kidnapped,” she said, her Russian accent strong as shit.

That was never a good sign. My sister might have been born in America, and called herself Finnish because of our mother, but she had been raised bratva. This was her killing voice.

“He was taken on his way to a rally in Boston, and has been gone for almost twelve hours. I’ve alerted all our assets.” She tried to make her face placid as she said it, but there was an added bit of ice behind her words.

Some people’s temper flares like fire. Others like ice. My sister was the latter.

She was an arctic freeze that would kill everything in its wake.

“Give me ten and I’ll gear up,” I told her, leaning down to kiss Eve on the temple.

“No,” Yuliya said, flatly.

“Yuli…” I gritted out.

“You will stay here, with your wife. I don’t care if she knows what we are - I’m sure you’ve already told her.” She smirked, lifting a brow. “You should have told her before the wedding, but I won’t say I told you so.”

“You just did.”

“You have to go home.”

“I’m not going home while my little sister goes and…”

“Rose is in labor.” My sister’s pale eyes turned to my wife, and without changing her expression, she said, “She is asking for you.”

Epilogue

Corbin

The copper tang of blood tasted almost as bad as I smelled. I was a cocky son of a bitch, but even I had a breaking point. Pissing myself because I’d been strung up for hours, unable to move, surprisingly was not my breaking point.

I’d probably shit myself too without any humiliation. Fuck these terrorists. They wanted to take me, they could smell the stench of bodily fluids that came with the territory. What they didn’t know, would never understand was that my rock bottom, the only thing that could make me sing my sins was if they threatened my Kitty.

They could beat me, humiliate me, starve me. Nothing would ever make me beg for mercy. Nothing except knowing her safety was in danger. And I was lucky in the sense that I knew that would never be the case. My weakness was not a weakness in the sense when it came to foreign enemies. Because Yuliya Vasilieva could not only handle her own, she’d chew these men up and spit them out.

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