Page 127 of Captive Bride

“Tristan,” she breathes into my mouth. “I want you.”

Her words strike me as courageous. Instead of cowering in the corner waiting for death to arrive, to break down the door, she wants to focus on love instead.

I wish I could tell her it’ll all be all right. I wish I could say that I can save her from this mess. But none of that is the truth.

I don’t know what will happen.

But how could I’ve known that my angel was alive? If I didn’t think Isobel was already dead and that I was going to die, too, I might’ve set this thing up a little more carefully.

It had been a suicide mission—and now it just might end that way, too.

Benny and Merc are out there somewhere with my guys. But I have no idea if they’re even alive.

All I care about, during what may be my last moments on earth, is savoring the woman I love.

“Isobel,” I say to her. “I thought you had died. I thought you, my life, my one love had vanished. And I was going to die with you.”

She kisses me harder now, knowing how close I had been to death.

She kisses me hard, as if she can’t get enough.

“Tristan,” she says solemnly. “I almost died, too. I almost drove a dagger into my own heart, thinking that I’d never see you again.”

Silently, I thank the gods of fate for intervening. She and I had both wanted to die when we thought we’d never see each other again.

That’s how deep our love is.

I hold her face in my hands before saying, “Baby, don’t you ever say that. Things will always work themselves out. You have to trust that.”

“I just can’t believe I’m really seeing you. I was so afraid.”

I look down and take in her beautiful body.

I hope I go out with this last vision in my mind, because she looks fucking perfect.

Life takes on a whole new meaning to us, knowing how close we came to losing each other.

And now, this might be it.

If I wasn’t so in love with her, I might be more okay with dying and going out with a bang. As it is, my baby needs me, and I intend to stay breathing in this world.

I’ll fight to the death to protect her.

But the odds are against us. I know that.

It’s a cold, hard world to show me such happiness and then to snatch it away so quickly.

“Just focus on me, Isobel.”

She looks into my eyes, and even though the war is culminating just beyond the door, a heat is raging between us.

My love.

My angel.

I want her till the end.

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