Page 48 of When Kings Fall

With what was coming, that could be an issue.

I mean, the three of us would do whatever possible to protect her during the actual physical takedown of Lynch and Osiris, but there were no guarantees in that sort of situation. Not everything could be controlled when it came to a live combat situation like that.

And there was no way she’d accept having to sit it out, considering her personal stake in it and her need, just like Lev, to be there to destroy that psychopath and his organization.

I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that this was just about me helping her to get her skills up to snuff. Mason and Lev must’ve told her that I was more than just a little rusty too.

I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d thrown down against anybody.

I mean, being brothers with Lev and Mason, I had skills in a fight, no doubt. The two of them had made sure I’d learned when we were younger and all that, making sure I could defend myself if it ever came to it.

But I hadn’t spent years honing or increasing those skills like Lev had with his missions and his street fighting, and all that insane level of training.

Mason spent some time training too. Not as much as Lev, but he did box and work out. And with all that powerhouse muscle and his tank of a build, he had what Lev had termed a cement block punch. It was why, no matter how pissed he got at Lev, he shoved if it did end up getting physical, he never hit.

“Do you yield?” she asked, grinning down at me, looking so proud of herself.

I panted, staring up at her and her whiskey eyes gleaming with the satisfaction of winning out here. “We’ve been at this for two hours straight, damn right I yield, woman.”

She chuckled, then leaned down and brushed her lips over mine, kissing me softly.

A serene moan escaped me.

“Good fight,” she said then, as she pushed off me and got back to her feet.

She held her hand out to me and I took it, groaning as I got up too.

“Let me see,” I said, cupping her face, and inspecting the damage I’d done. “Shit,” I groused. “I’m so sorry.”

She eased my hand down and held it between us, smiling up at me. “It’s honestly nothing. We were sparring, things happen. It doesn’t even hurt. Besides, I did damage to you as well.” She released my hand, then trailed her fingers over the nail marks across my abs, then sweeping all the way along to my left arm where a purple bruise was forming.

“That’s different.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“Nah, cutie,” I said, reaching out and stroking her hair. “If anything, that makes you a hell of a lot stronger than the rest of us, especially after all you’ve been through.”

I stepped closer until my slick, bare chest was pressing against her shimmering gray sports bra.

I smiled as I heard her breath hitch.

“It’s because you’re ours. Even the idea of you hurting in any way makes me sick to my stomach. It’s like being slugged in the fucking gut, honestly.” I stroked her cheek, my fingers brushing over her soft skin.

She turned into it, her eyes fluttering closed briefly before they fixed back on mine in an all-consuming way that promised to drown me in that sweetness forever.

I broke into the melody I’d been working on up here for the last couple of weeks, singing the lyrics low at her ear, “Vicious things tangling in the night/ She was made for one hell of a fight/ Fuck it, she was born for this/ Born to be merciless/ Girl’s got claws and she’ll sure as fuck bite.”

“Is that the new song you’ve been working on?”

“Yeah, cutie.”

“It’s about the four of us?”

“Sure is. You get it now? How I see you?”

“I do. Thank you, Colt. And thank you for being so welcoming to me right at the beginning when things weren’t as they are now, when they were hard. It was a comfort to me and I won’t forget it.”

“No worries,” I said, easing back and holding her to me by her hips. “It was easier for me to be that way, to see the sweetness beneath the hard outer shell that Mason was seeing, because I don’t have to be on top of everything or worried about controlling and protecting us. That’s his and Lev’s thing. I’m lucky, you know, that I don’t have all that baggage that Lev does bearing down on him, or all the expectations that have been burdening Mason. I’m allowed to be free.”

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