Page 86 of Brawler
“You feed all my hunger, my pixie SEAL. I’ll take that chance. I’ll take all the goddamned chances.”
Emily dug into his ribs, and he folded like a cheap chair. “Dammit!” he barked, right before she smacked him hard in the face with her pillow. Then, like the pixie she was, she scrambled off the bed.
“Too slow, jumbo!” she called, sprinting for the door.
He thundered after her, catching her in the hall, and she shrieked with laughter as he lifted her off her feet. His mouth found hers, and she kissed him back, breathless and giddy, both reveling in what they had discovered, first in a jungle in Ecuador, now here, in the quiet of home.
Her life had truly begun there, with him, and it would flow forward into their future, not only that gorgeous joy, but with love and respect, and often silly, wonderful nicknames.
EPILOGUE
The dark pulledBrawler down like water, heavy and relentless. For a moment he thought he was back in the jungle, lungs straining for air thick with heat and rot. But when he blinked, the world shifted. Trenches clawed into the earth, mud sucking at boots, men’s faces hollow with hunger and fear. Artillery thundered, the air sharp with cordite and screams.
Flash staggered through it, no helmet, no rifle, just his bare hands and those wild, dark eyes that had always hidden more than they revealed. He dropped to his knees in the muck, fingers digging into the earth as if he could hold the whole war together.
“Christian!” His voice tore across the chaos, raw, desperate. He lifted his head, and his eyes locked on Brawler’s. “Don’t let me go.”
The world bled again. Bombers streaked overhead, a city burning beneath them. Flash was there too, crumpled on the cobblestones of another war, chest heaving, blood on his lips. His hand reached out, trembling, reaching for Brawler as if across time itself. “Brother…”
Brawler lurched forward, arm outstretched?—
“Christian!”
His eyes snapped open to the dim light of Emily’s apartment. The hum of the city pressed through the window, taxis honking far below. Sweat slicked his chest, his breath ragged.
Emily was beside him, pale in the lamplight, eyes wide with fear. Her hands gripped his shoulders, anchoring him. “You were dreaming. God, you were thrashing. You scared me.”
He dragged in a breath, the phantom mud and fire still clinging to him. “Flash.” His voice was rough. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “He’s fighting. I saw him. Both wars, like he was…losing himself. He called for me.”
Emily brushed damp hair from his temple, her touch soft but steady. “It was just a dream.”
“No,” he rasped, lowering his hands, fixing her with storm-dark eyes. “It wasn’t. I felt him. He’s slipping.”
The room held still. Emily swallowed hard. “Then you need to go to him. Do you want me to come with you?”
Brawler cupped the back of her neck and kissed her, slow and lingering, as if he could memorize the taste of her in one last moment. When he pulled back, his forehead pressed to hers, he whispered, “I’ll call you. But your mission is here. Finish what you started. Take care of your dissertation.” He rose, got dressed and ready to leave.
Her eyes glistened, but she nodded as she followed him to the door. “Come back to me.”
“Nothing will keep me from you, Emily. Ever.”
Brawler grabbed his bag, gave Emily one last look, firelit hair, fierce heart, the only home he’d ever wanted, and stepped into the waiting night. He could feel his teammates before the SUV pulled up to the curb.
Flash landedhard on wet boards slick with slime.
The air was a choking wall of stench, mud, rot, blood, shit, gas. Trenches stretched like scars carved across a ruined landscape, narrow walls dripping with slime. Artillery boomed overhead, the ground shaking as if the earth itself were trying to vomit the war back up.
His body was wrapped in scratchy wool, a steel pot helmet pressing into his forehead. A bolt-action rifle weighed down his hands. Mud sucked at his boots with every step, cold seeping bone deep.
A whistle shrilled. Men climbed ladders into hell.
He followed. Instinct drove him, not choice. He scrambled over the lip into no man’s land, mud and wire and craters swallowing men alive. Bullets shredded the air, machine guns hammering relentlessly. The man beside him jerked, blood spraying, and fell face down in the muck.
He stumbled forward, lungs searing, and then the hiss reached him. A yellow-green cloud slithered low, rolling toward the line. His chest clenched, his eyes burned, and he coughed hard enough to tear muscle.
He dropped to his knees, chest heaving, gagging on the reek of rot and gas.
Suddenly, hands were there, big, thick hands, and he looked up through his tearing eyes to see…Bondo’s craggy, stoic face behind a gas mask.
