Page 230 of Under an Endless Moon

Only it didn’t last because a feral scream cut through the air. A pain so great as Sienna jumped to her feet and came running across the room with a knife held in one hand above her head.

And she was coming for me.

I could feel the reservation pummel the air. The way not one of my crew wanted to take her down since they’d committed their lives to helping women in need.

“Get down on your knees!” Theo shouted at her, but she kept coming.

A single gunshot popped off. I saw her stumble when it struck her low in the back of the leg, no doubt, Theo trying to injure her rather than end her.

Only she was already right there, refusing to let it stop her as she went to drive that knife straight into my back where I was still straddling Gideon.

Only Raven had pushed to her knees, and I saw a flash of metal.

A blade.

She had Gideon’s knife, and she drove it straight into Sienna’s stomach right before she got to me.

Shock dropped Sienna’s mouth open and froze her to the spot, her knife toppling to the ground as her hands went to the hilt of the blade that was buried in her abdomen.

Two seconds later, she dropped to her knees as a gush of blood poured from her mouth. Her eyes were wide as she gurgled and wheezed, before she faceplanted against the floor. Sprawled out dead in front of Raven.

Discordant breaths raked from Raven, horror tearing through her as she scrambled away. Only she was scrambling for me, throwing those arms around me as a sob erupted from her throat.

“Are you okay?” I begged. “Baby, tell me you’re okay.”

She could barely nod, sniffling as she rambled, “You came for me. You came for me.”

Relief sped through my veins, and I curled my arms around her as I pulled her onto my lap. She kept wheezing through the disorder, through the trauma and shock, and I was pressing a thousand kisses to the top of her head, murmuring, “I will always come for you, Little Moonflower. Always.”

SIXTY-THREE

RAVEN

I couldn’t stop crying.Couldn’t stop the emotion that flooded out of me on a torrent.

The relief.

The horror.

The vestiges of terror and the lingering pain.

But most of all, it was the feel of Otto. The surety of his arms that were held fiercely around me. His heart that thundered a savage beat against my ear. His promises that he mumbled at the top of my head.

“Always. I will always come for you. It’s over. It’s over.”

Hot tears kept bleeding from my eyes and into the fabric of his shirt as I choked and whimpered.

“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, trying to get me closer. “I should have?—”

I shook my head and fisted my hand in his tee. “No moreI should haves. All that matters is the now. That you’re here. That we move on from here. Together,” I rasped.

I was finished living in the past.

Finished being chained.

The time had come that we were freed.

He clung to me the same way as I clungto him, his warmth saturating me, his strength surrounding me with an overwhelming force.

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