Page 91 of Freedom Mine
He scooped her up and hugged her to his chest. “Are you okay?” he asked as his hand ran over her head and body. With all this mud, he couldn’t tell if she’d hit her head.
She nodded, apparently winded, but otherwise fine. She was gorgeous, despite the mud covering her from head to toe.
“I’d never been so scared,” he said, clearing gobs of mud from her face.
“Was it too fast?” she asked.
“I couldn’t find you.” She wasn’t a fragile child to be coddled, but for that split second, when he’d pictured her being thrown into a tree, or knocked out face down, drowning in the mud, he’d felt a terror explode in him and he knew what it would feel like to lose her.
She shook off some of the mud. “I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d get this muddy.”
He pulled her against him again, not sure what to say. He didn’t want to lose her. Hecouldn’tlose her.
Her arms tightened around him, and somehow the words were no longer necessary. She’d forgiven him, or maybe she hadn’t, but she still wanted him, as he wanted her. He loved her, he had from the first day he’d seen her, but he couldn’t accept that. He had been her owner.He had been an owner.The worst thing a person could be, and he’d been one for years, buying humans, controlling the fate of humans.
Mac had destined him to this life when he sold the property to him and made him promise to continue his mission. He would have done anything for Mac, as Mac had saved and then freed him. But Mac had condemned him the day he signed everything over to him. Mac had made Kayo what he despised. . . an owner.
It never seemed to matter how many men they’d freed. Owning people had never been something he could accept, and it had taken Alli to show him who he was meant to be, the man he’d buried a long time ago, the man who wanted to go home but feared doing so because of what he’d become.
“Thank you, Alli,” he whispered into her ear as he rested his head against hers.
“It was only fair, Kayo. After all, you’d freed me. It was time someone did the same for you.”
She knew him better than he’d known himself. He wouldn’t let them take her. If it was the last thing he did, he’d make sure they’d never touch her again.
