Page 24 of He Will Always Love Me

“And I imagine the oh-so-honorable leader of this rotten town let you know we were here,” Karvex bites out.

One of the bounty hunters hums. “She did tell us which hotel you were in. But we had another contact tell us you were on this asteroid.”

And then from the shadows appears another figure. I gasp, and Karvex tenses.

“Renari?” he asks.

The other Reaper’s mouth is drawn in a grim line. “You brought this upon yourself, Karvex. Abandoning everything and everyone for a worthless human girl. So I thought I’d return the favor.”

Karvex snarls. “I’ll kill you for this!”

“Oh, I highly doubt you’ll get very far at all,” Renari retorts. “Even you can’t dodge three guns at once. And even if you could, you’d have to take on me.”

I glance up at Karvex for any indication of what he might do next. Of how we’ll get out of this mess. He seems to be taking it all in, calculating. But I can tell that he doesn’t seem hopeful.

Renari must see it, too, because a cocksure grin appears on his face. “Surrender, Karvex. You have no chance, so just accept your fate.”

Karvex clenches his fists. I shake my head. “No, don’t do it. We’re in this together.”

But Karvex seems to have already come to some conclusion. “You’ve been my second-in-command all these years. How low you’ve stooped, to betray me like is.”

Renari snarls. “You betrayed me first for this human whore.”

“Don’t do it!” I protest again, grabbing at his arm when Karvex steps forward.

My mate looks at me and squeezes my hand. “It will be alright.”

And then he’s walking forward slowly, arms raised. One of the bounty hunters grins and lowers his gun to pull out a pair of cuffs.

And that is their first mistake.

In a flash, Karvex lunges at the bounty hunter and knocks the gun out of their hands. The others scramble to try and take him down, but he’s too quick.

“Get to cover!” he yells at me as he fights off the bounty hunters.

I move to obey, looking for anywhere that might conceal me. But then I see Renari pulling at a gun, aiming for Karvex who’s busy fighting off the other bounty hunters.

Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m running full speed at the other Reaper. I launch myself at him and my body hits him just as he pulls the trigger. The shot goes wide, and Karvex looks in our direction, eyes wide.

Meanwhile, I try to do everything I can to keep him from firing that gun again. I claw and kick and bite and punch. Renari roars and tries to knock me off.

Then there’s another gunshot, and I gasp. For a moment, I don’t even know what’s happened to me. I just feel a searing pain in my gut and then I’m slipping off Renari and falling onto the ground.

There’s an anguished cry, and suddenly Karvex is there with a knife he must have stolen from a bounty hunter. He slashes at Renari across the stomach. And then he’s above me with pain in his eyes.

“Alana,” he murmurs, and he sounds like he’s dying. “Hang on, please hang on for me.”

And that’s when I realize that I’m dying. I try to articulate the words to tell him, but I can’t.

“Please, my love. I’m right here and I’ll never be anywhere else. They can try and rip me away from you a thousand times, but I’ll always come back to you.”

I give him a watery smile and hope it’s enough to tell him I feel the same.

“So much for the human,” one of the bounty hunters sneers.

Rage fills Karvex’s face. He hurls the knife at the bounty hunter and then is on his feet, slaughtering them all.

When they all lay dead, he turns back and takes a step toward me.

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