Page 232 of Under an Endless Moon

It had to be midmorning, the sun steadily climbing the sky, the warmth of its rays expanding out over the earth and wrapping us in its embrace.

Otto kept me in those arms as he ambled down the steps and through the yard. Below the ramble of trees that were beginning to turn, the leaves a glorious patchwork of oranges, yellows, and reds.

He kept moving past the bikes that had been left at haphazard angles out front, and he headed down the pitted dirt drive.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my throat sore from the screams.

“Left my truck about a quarter of a mile up the road so they wouldn’t hear us coming.”

No question, they’d planned it all, utilizing their skills of getting vulnerable women out of bad situations to their full extreme.

As if he read the questions that played out in my mind, he explained, “Knew I had to get to you as quickly and as stealthily as I could. River, Kane, and I plotted it on our way out here, praying that we’d make it soon enough.”

“And you came.”

“Promised you I wouldn’t let this bastard get to you. Had almost been too late.”

“But you weren’t, and I’m fine and whole.”

A furor of fury rolled through him, and he pulled me tighter. “Can’t stand that he still managed to get to you. That we missed it.”

“None of us knew Sienna was involved.”

I wanted to hate her, but in the scheme of it, it didn’t matter. Ididn’t have any space left inside myself for the animosity to infiltrate. No room for the fear, humiliation, and shame.

I was letting it go.

All of it.

And I was doing it today.

Otto peered down at me, and his brow arched in speculation. “You want to tell me what he was talking about when he claimed you killed his brother?”

I curled deeper into his hold. “I don’t know why I was always so afraid of telling you.”

Unease rolled through his being. “Tell me what?”

“That I followed you that night. That I knew what you were doing. That you were somehow going to go and make the ultimate sacrifice. Thinking that it would make up for what happened to Haddie and me. But I couldn’t let that happen.”

He slowed a fraction, and he pulled me even closer as old pain wisped from his mouth. “It was you.”

My throat clogged off, and he hugged me tighter.

“You were the one who saved me. Gave me a new lease on life.”

I peeked up at him. “Because I always knew you were destined to spend this life with me.”

“Fuck, Raven, you…” He trailed off.

I looked up at him without shame. “I never regretted it, Otto. To me, what I did was the exact same thing as what you all do for Sovereign Sanctum. Stopping an atrocity from happening. And no, I don’t love the way I had to go about it, but would I take it back? Change it?”

I stared up at him as the rays of sunlight speared through the breaks in the trees, the glittering rays flaring around him like beacons.

“Never.” It was an urgent whisper. “Because you were always worth it to me. Because I would always fight for you, the way you promised to fight for me.”

The wings on his throat thrashed as he swallowed. “You found me at my lowest.”

“Just the way you always found me in mine. And now it’s time we both rose above it.”

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