Page 212 of The Owner's Temptation

Then Lucian retrieves the blade, unpinning Lorenzo from the ground.

Without care, he tosses the three severed digits into a pile of burning debris like kindling for the fire and turns to me.

His eyes find mine through the smoke and haze. And for a moment, the violence slips from his features, leaving only the man beneath it. My man.

“Let the boy go,” he says.

I do. Gently.

He sprints toward his father, screaming through the wreckage.

Lucian slides the blade closed and shoves it into his back pocket as he comes to me, his arm curling around me—his wounded arm slides easily under my legs and he carries me.

“Let’s get you out of here,” he says softly, pulling me closer.

My arms fix themselves around his neck and I breathe him in. My face buried into him as the tears start to fall.

But he’s here.

He came for me.

Because I am his but he’s also finally admitting, showing, that he is just as much mine.

The sound of helicopter blades thunders in the distance, growing closer by the second. Wind kicks up around us, lifting my tangled hair, brushing against my bruised skin.

And for the first time in days—I let myself fall apart.

* * *

The rotor still spins overhead, a dull roar muffling everything but the sound of my heartbeat.

Lucian hasn’t said a word.

Not during takeoff. Not during the flight. Not even when the man stitching up his shoulder winced at the depth of the wound.

He just sits there beside me, rigid, unreadable.

His good arm is caged across my body like a human seatbelt—keeping me tucked firmly against his side. But not for comfort. Not for warmth. Not even for me, I think.

It’s instinct.

Control.

Possession.

Maybe all of it.

His jaw is locked, teeth clenched so tightly I can see the tension twitching in his cheek. His chest rises in short, measured breaths. The kind you take when you're trying not to come completely undone.

No one else speaks either.

Not the medic. Not Killian. Not the pilot.

Just the humming silence of fear and fury and the weight of everything that wasn’t said.

I can feel the hollow pit already forming in my stomach, carving me out from the inside.

He’s going to send me away.

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