Page 45 of Savage Reign

Everything he was doing was for her.

And I could understand that. Fuck me, but I could.

And I could respect that.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll have to discuss everything with Maverick and Silas, but yeah. And thank you. For letting us know.”

He nodded. “Let me know. I have to get back home, and you need to get back inside the room before she wakes up.”

I didn’t tell him Mila wouldn’t be waking up until morning. I placed my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. It was all I would be giving him, and he knew it.

He met my eyes for two long seconds before grabbing his gun on the ground and pulling away, pulling back to the shadows, disappearing completely. I stayed where I was, watching the space he had vacated for a beat before walking back inside the motel room. I hid the gun in one of the small dressers and stripped down to my boxer briefs before climbing back into bed and pulling Mila close to me, thinking about all the words Finley had said.

Fuck me, but I was holding the heir to Stocken Isle, and she didn’t even know it.

14

MILA

I woke up to a warm,hard body wrapped around me.

In my sleep-dazed mind, I thought it might be Maverick returning from wherever he had been. Or perhaps Silas had snuck into my room last night while I slept, but the arms felt different, and I couldn’t figure out why that was.

I also couldn’t bring myself to care because it felt like there was a heavy cloud settling over my body. I had never felt like this waking up before, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

Hell, why was I feeling like this?

I shifted, and the arms tightened around me. Slowly, I turned around and took in the arresting brown eyes against rich, olive-tan skin. His face was inscrutable, and his dark brown hair was nothing but a mess on top of his head. And still, he looked beautiful. Even more so now than he was when he was put together because he didn’t look so harsh or rude.

He looked like someone who could belong to me. He looked like the man who had held me right after tracking me, and a messed-up part of me really missed that man, even if I was still angry at him for tracking me.

I held out my hand, and he looked at it as if it were a snake and would bite his face off, but he didn’t move away, and hedidn’t stop me. His huge body tensed when I cupped his cheek, taking in the rough stubble around his jawline, his cheek.

I didn’t think I had ever seen Killian so… unkempt.

And tired. “Did you not sleep?” I asked.

“How could I when I finally just got you back in my arms?” he said, his voice clear. The words were so uncharacteristic of him, something I never thought he would say to me in a million years, I was struck frozen.

“Killian.”

“Fuck, baby. But don’teverleave again. Don’t ever run away. You stay, and you fucking fight. If we do something you don’t like, you just stay and yell at us.”

I scowled at him, trying to pull away, but he must have seen the intention on my face because he grabbed my hand and pushed it down against his chest, trapping it with his own hand.

“You act like I ran away over something small and insignificant. As if this had been nothing more than me throwing a tantrum,” I said.

He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m saying at all, but fuck, I can’t… I fucking can’t go through this again, firecracker.”

“This?”

He took in a harsh breath before letting it out brokenly. “This… hell. This time you’ve been gone has been fucking hell, and I won’t be put through that again, you get me?”

“And the lies?”

Maverick already promised me complete honesty, and Silas said something similar, but just because the brothers operated as one didn’t mean they were. They were their own person, and I needed the same promise from Killian himself.

“I won’t lie to you,” he said.

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