Page 71 of Protected By the Convicts
Chapter Sixteen
VAUGHN
From the moment Hannah and Ky’Li walked through the front gate of their home, Vaughn knew something was wrong. Hannah’s eyes held worry, trepidation, but mostly fear. Until she spotted Sersie sitting on the sofa in the common area.
“Sersie!”
Hannah ran to Sersie first, as Vaughn expected. The chemist had been shot trying to reach her by the gate, after all. Sersie had been resting in his room where it was quieter and more conducive to sleeping, but the second Foley’s guards summoned Ky’Li to retrieve Hannah from lock-up, the younger man had stretched out on the sofa, insisting he wouldn’t move until Hannah returned. Vaughn understood Sersie’s excitement and his worry.
Three weeks since they’d last seen her, touched her, heard her sweet voice. Already the air smelled cleaner, the house seemed brighter, and she’d only just returned.
Vaughn waited patiently while she hugged, kissed, and fussed over Sersie. When Sersie pulled her into his lap, Vaughn winced. This was not what Vaughn had meant by rest.
“It’s about time you decided to return, gorgeous,” Ren said. “The grub Sersie’s been cooking has been killing off the fauna outside when I dump my food.”
Ren’s eyes lit, sparkled, for Hannah as she rose from Sersie’s lap and headed for him. The man enjoyed a calmer reunion, simply pulling her into a tight embrace. As Ren buried his head into her hair, he sighed as if all the anger in him literally drained away.
Vaughn knew the feeling. Or he would if she’d greet him. She hadn’t even glanced at him yet.
Old fears returned. She’d spent weeks with Ky’Li, having only him to rely on, to talk to, touch, share her hopes and dreams. . . to bond to. And now she was here, resting comfortably in Ren’s arms, as if she had no need or desire to leave him.
The front door shut with a slight clap. Ky’Li, not brooding, not mad, but heavy-handed, more than he needed to be. Vaughn tore his gaze from watching the happy reunion between Hannah and Ren.
“Vaughn,” Ky’Li said.
Vaughn caught Ky’Li’s subtle nod. Not good news, then. Foley had locked Hannah up with no explanation except an explicit order that Ky’Li should be the one to retrieve her. Vaughn and Ky’Li suspected Foley knew the truth. . . that Ky’Li had killed the men in Griggs’s unit.
The unit couldn’t afford any slip-ups now. Something big was coming. Vaughn could smell it in the air as easily as he could smell zurlite rot on a miner.
“The manager introduced himself to Hannah,” Ky’Li announced to the room. “Nothing more. Then he let her go. No announcement of a punishment for her or our unit.”
“That’s great!” Sersie said.
Another raised eyebrow from Ky’Li, this time to Ren who’d lifted his head while Hannah slipped free from his grasp.
Vaughn forced a smile on his face as Hannah approached. Their relationship felt strained all of a sudden. When he’d lost her to the jungle, he’d grieved, but he’d never been shocked. He never expected to have someone like her in his life. It’s why he’d never opened up to her fully.
He let his hand trail down her arm. She’d returned. She was really here, alive and well and watching him with those dark green eyes that revealed a caution to her she hadn’t had before.
A soft hand cupped his cheek. One graceful finger slid back and forth over his chest, his heart precisely. A finger grazed his lips. He opened his mouth, but the words remained trapped in his throat.
“I didn’t forget you,” she said. “Never. Thought of you, longed for you every day.”
She stole his breath with those words. It was what he’d hoped to hear, and yet he wasn’t convinced. Something deep inside wouldn’t allow him to open up to her. She’d left. Out of necessity, but he’d slammed a door shut that day, fearing he’d never see her again, never feel her skin against his, or breathe in that unique scent of hers.
That damn finger continued to stroke his bottom lip. It would only take one flick of his tongue, one tiny move of his jaw to trap her finger between his lips and suck on that wayward digit.
The only sound Vaughn heard was his blood pulsing in his ears. The room behind him had emptied out. Ky’Li, Ren, Sersie. . . all gone. Likely to their rooms. He hadn’t asked them to leave. They’d decided that on their own. Odd how this group, this unit that Hannah had assembled, had started to think as one, each member knowing what the others needed and providing it.
When the hell had that happened? Certainly not while Hannah was gone. He and Ren had barely spoken during those weeks, except to coordinate the water and supply drops. Always, when it came to protecting Hannah and Ky’Li, they’d worked together, been of like mind. Even Sersie—who wore his worry on his sleeve to the point of being like a constant knife in Vaughn’s gut.
As Hannah’s hands gently unfolded his arms, which he’d crossed over his chest at some point, Vaughn finally realized what Hannah’s role was in this unit of theirs. She was by no means their leader. That fell to him, Ren, Ky’Li and even Sersie, depending on the matter at hand. But she was the heart of their unit. They were a dead, languishing organism with four heads and multiple appendages without her. They worked, consumed food, expended energy, but without her, there was no life, no blood coursing through their veins, no love giving meaning to their life.
“You’re mad at me,” she said, as she ran her hands down his arms, only to twine her fingers in his.
“Not mad.” Except he was. At himself. At Ren, Sersie, Ky’Li. At fucking Dresden who’d nearly gotten her killed and at Foley who would destroy them if Vaughn understood Ky’Li’s nod correctly.
“Very clipped. Two words. You sound more like Ky’Li than Vaughn.”
