36. Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Hound closed his hand around her throat, squeezing as the mark’s hands came up to grip his wrist.
Her mesmerizing green eyes were wide, fixed on him. “Remember,” she choked out. “Remember me, Finn.”
For a second, the world tilted. What was she doing to him?
“Please,” she ground out, her voice breathy as she wheezed, fighting for breath.
Her head fell forward, and he felt the soft fall of her hair brushing across the back of his hand. He breathed deep, and he could detect that scent again, the faint smell of coconut. The same as the lock of hair. Blindly, he leaned closer.
Something soft touched his jaw. Her fingers, and the sensation… it felt…
Before he could find a name for it, pain flared through his groin and radiated out through his body. Everything seized, and he dropped.
She withdrew her knee and turned to run, but the Hound was quicker. Even with the pain, he could function at full capacity. He lunged, catching her ankle and pulling her to the ground. She landed with an audible grunt, turning over and kicking at him with her other foot. He caught that, too, and crawled up her body, keeping her pinned with ease as she writhed, trying unsuccessfully to buck him off.
His body pressed into hers as he leaned over her. She was warm and soft. His hand settled at her throat.
Kill her, the Handler ordered.
She was not afraid of him. She should be. His gut was tight. It had been ever since she shot him, and though the medical team had treated him, he knew something was still wrong.
This, though—the feel of her underneath him? Her warmth. Her eyes. This felt familiar in a way he couldn’t articulate. He couldn’t find the words. He heard her voice in his head. I need you to know that if you ever want or need me to stop whatever is happening, you can just say so. And if you can’t say it, touch me here and squeeze, and I’ll know. You never have to explain why.
His hand eased from its hold on her throat, shaking, and he touched her shoulder, squeezing.
She wheezed as air rattled through her lungs, but the second she noticed the pressure of his hand on her shoulder, her green eyes widened. It was like a switch. He knew fear, but what shone in her eyes was the opposite of that. It made his insides flutter, made him want to curl around her, into her.
Her hands came up, one touching his jaw, the other twisting into the hair at the back of his neck, and she pulled him against her. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling, and for the first time he could remember, it felt like he could breathe freely. Her scent filled his nostrils, and the tension of his body leeched away as her fingers stroked his neck.
Certainty steeled over him. This was where he was meant to be.
Finn Kingsley. Not the Hound.
“Hound, you have your orders. Kill her!” the Handler snapped.
“I don’t want to kill anymore,” Finn whispered.
“Then don’t,” she answered, her breath tickling his ear. Her fingers smoothed over his hair. “Don’t, Finn.”
Hearing those words spoken with his name—his name!—brought a sense of freedom. To be allowed to do something other than what he was ordered to do. He didn’t know how to describe the lightness he felt, the calmness that stole over him.
And then he heard it. It was faint, a sound only another Agent would hear: the racking of a gun, the sound of approaching footsteps.
He didn’t want to kill. But he couldn’t let her be killed.
“Kathleen.”
He heard the shivering in her voice, turning breathless after he whispered her name. “Yes, Finn.”
“Hound,” The Handler’s voice felt like driven spikes slicing into him and seeking purchase.
Finn’s body shuddered as he struggled to fight it. He focused on her eyes, lifting his head to stare into them. Brilliant green met his, her eyes glimmering with a faint trace of liquid as if she were fighting something.
“You make me better,” he murmured. “You make me want to be better. But I can feel him pulling me back.”
“No.” Kathleen exhaled, and her smile felt like a physical warmth that spilled over him. Her hands shifted, cupping his face as her gaze remained fixed on his, holding him there by sheer will. “Just breathe. Listen to my breathing. Stay in the moment. Stay with me, Finn.”
The footsteps drew closer. He didn’t know how much time they had left. Seconds, maybe. He should have prepared, but all he wanted to do was lose himself in her.
So he did.
Their faces were inches apart, and when Finn claimed Kathleen’s lips, she was ready, waiting, eager. Heat sparked inside of him as her lips parted, yielding to him, and the kiss deepened into something passionate and desperate. They had seconds, and he made every second count. He had never been good with words, so he told her in all the wordless ways he could how he felt about her, pouring himself into the kiss. He could feel the moans she gave thrum through him as her hips pressed into his. He wanted nothing but her and this moment to last forever.
The external door into the kitchen burst open.
His hands snapped down, pushing away from her with a regret he shelved. He pulled the Ka-Bar from its sheath. It was a last-minute, deliberate choice that had him aiming for the Aide’s gun hand rather than the throat as his first instinct suggested.
The agonized scream told him the Aide was no longer a threat. Some people did not take to pain well. The training insisted he make sure, and a single kick sent the man into a quiet slump. Another figure pushed through the door, holding a gun Finn recognized with trepidation. Tranquilizer darts. He knew he couldn’t let any contact him. Shoot him, Finn’s training urged, but he resisted. Instead, he closed, two long strides carrying him over the distance in the blink of an eye.
Finn closed his hand around the Aide’s and squeezed. He heard bones breaking, and the man screamed. He increased the pressure until he heard the shatter of the glass vial housed in the gun. The man’s eyes turned from pain to anger. In another life, he would have made an Agent. Not in this one, though. The Aide was reaching for a backup gun even as Finn slammed the man’s head against the wall.
The Aide collapsed, losing consciousness.
Finn had no warning of the next assailant. One moment, he was standing. The next, a weight slammed into his chest, knocking him off balance. He fell hard, landing on his back, as an extra weight pinned him to the ground. Pain shot through him, but he ignored it. He shoved the heel of his hand toward his assailant’s face, but the man anticipated the move. His assailant was impossibly fast, like Finn.
He knew Finn. And Finn knew him.
Apollo wore a hard expression as he drew his fist back.
“She is not the mission,” Finn said, and he noted a second of hesitation in the blond Agent’s eyes. A second was all the opening he needed. He shoved with all his strength and sent Apollo flying across the room.
Apollo was quick and lithe, landing on his feet and sliding backward until the wall braced him.
“Apollo,” the Handler said. “The Hound is defective. He refuses to obey orders to kill the woman. You were sent here to protect me. You will complete the mission.”
Apollo’s eyes flickered to the Handler and from him to Kathleen. She had found her feet… and her gun. She lifted the weapon, leveling it at the Handler, and pulled the trigger.
The blond Agent and Finn moved simultaneously. Apollo was closer, and Finn saw him smack her hand downward. Kathleen was still squeezing the trigger, and it went off, the round slamming into the ground. She tried to bring the gun up again, but Apollo grabbed for her wrist.
He never made contact.
Finn’s shoulder slammed into Apollo’s side, and the latter stumbled. Finn was not about to let the blond get the advantage, and he flicked his elbow upward at the other Agent’s chin. He heard the satisfying click of teeth as the blond’s head snapped backward.
Apollo countered with a slam of outstretched fingers underneath Finn’s arm, right into his armpit.
Pain surged through Finn, but there was no time to acknowledge it. He swung his fist at Apollo’s elbow, aiming to fracture his arm, but he pulled back enough that the blow landed hard but broke nothing.
Finn scented blood before he saw it; his earlier blow had cut Apollo’s lip. Finn couldn’t determine if that slight curve of Apollo’s mouth represented a smile or if it was just his imagination. Confusing either way. Finn pressed his attack, and the blond countered, falling into a defensive stance.
“Hound,” the Handler’s voice found him in the midst of battle, insidious. “You are a weapon. You were made for Command to—” His voice cut off with the thud of wood against flesh.
Finn couldn’t turn immediately because Apollo had the entirety of his attention. Apollo looked over his shoulder, though, and the tick of the other Agent’s brow read as genuine surprise. Finn backed off to give them both some room. By the time he got space to look, the Handler was on the ground. His head was bleeding, and his eyes were unfocused. Kathleen was standing over him, a half-broken chair in her hands.
“Hound,” the Handler said, and Finn’s attention snapped toward him.
But only for a second. Finn’s gaze lifted, seeking hers. Kathleen’s eyes were on him for a second. Green. Knowing. Seeing all. No fear in her, but something harder. She lifted the chair again.
The Handler sucked in a fearful breath, gasping, “Kill—”
Kathleen swung with all her weight, the wood descending before the Handler could finish the order.
Finn watched it happen.
He didn’t stop her. And neither did Apollo; the Agent was watching in the same way Finn was, with a stunned wonder, like this was an impossible moment. Handlers were inviolate, yet neither of them felt the need to step in to protect Michael Milford.
He heard the moment the Handler’s heartbeat ceased, and felt nothing.
Kathleen’s hands were shaking as she let the chair clatter out of her grip, pupils wide as she stared down at the Handler’s body. Her expression was too complex for him to interpret, her heartbeat a thundering noise. The only thing he knew for certain was that she was unafraid.
By the time Kathleen mastered herself and looked at him, her eyes were as gentle as her voice. “You don’t ever have to kill again, Finn.”
The rush of sensation that washed over him was alien. No, not entirely alien. It felt familiar, and for once, he remembered the name for the ache in his heart, which had become something so warm and intense that he wanted to burst. He so rarely had the words to express himself, but tonight, they spilled out of him.
“I love you,” Finn said.
Kathleen stilled. It was impossible that her heartbeat could be any faster than moments ago, and yet it was. She crossed the floor to stand in front of him. A second of hesitation held her still as she tilted her head back to look at him.
Finn pulled her into his chest, arms wrapping around her lower back, enveloping her. The warmth of her body swayed against him as he buried his face in her hair, breathing her in. Her breath hitched before exhaling against his shoulder, her arms circling his neck. This was right. This was meant to be.
Kathleen was the one and only mission that mattered to him anymore.
A deliberate scuff snapped his attention to Apollo. The man was watching the two intently. He held his hands loosely at his sides.
Somehow, impossibly, Kathleen made him forget there was still a threat remaining in the room. Perhaps the same was true for her, too. He could feel Kathleen’s muscles stiffen under his hold, feel her shift as if preparing.
Apollo smiled briefly when their gazes met. The depths of the man's blue eyes still held that twinge of familiarity that eluded him. “Your loyalty to each other says a lot about both of you. She is not the mission, Finn. Not mine, anyway.”
Apollo turned his back—not as a sign of disrespect, but the opposite.
The voicing of his name from the lips of another Agent triggered an intense threat response that tensed Finn’s entire body. He could kill the other Agent in a heartbeat, he knew. He had two knives on him and one more gun. Yet the offering of Apollo’s back was a truce—one he accepted by letting Apollo leave unharmed.
Kathleen relaxed once the door shut behind the other Agent. Finn realized her hand was on the holster of his gun, prepared to draw. Prepared to fire. Prepared to kill again. For him.
He still didn’t understand why someone as amazing as her would make such a choice. Why someone like her would choose him at all.
Sensing his thoughts, she tilted her head, a tight gravity in her eyes. “Don’t ever leave me again, Finn.”
The thought of doing so felt impossible right now, yet Finn knew he’d made his choice. Doubt crowded over him, stilling his thoughts.
The words eluded him, but she continued to watch him, ever patient, until he found his voice in halting sentences. “I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy. I can’t ever be what you need, Kathleen. I won’t ever be normal.”
Kathleen’s lips thinned. “Finn, I don’t need normal. What I need is you. You, with all your jagged edges and beautiful broken pieces.” Her fingers tenderly caressed his jaw. “I need you to be you. Finn Kingsley. Not the Hound. Not the assassin of Command. Just you. That is who I need.”
His heart fluttered, almost a physical thing. He felt light and heady. Words failed him, as they often did. But there were other ways to speak beyond words, and he swept her in his arms, intending to carry her out of the house. She gave a gasp that made his cock twitch in response.
He needed to map every part of her body with his fingers and his mouth. He needed to learn every part of her all over again. Most of all, he felt an urgent need to bury himself deep inside of her.
“Finn,” her voice was soft. She sounded reluctant, touching his cheek. “There’s some work to do first.”
What could possibly be more important than showing her how he felt? Finn followed her gaze, and he saw the body of the Handler. The murder weapon that had her prints. The unconscious Aides. Other threat awarenesses rolled in: he needed to remove his tracker, any local camera footage, and fingerprints.
Leave no trace. For once, it wasn’t the Handler’s thoughts but his own.
“We have work to do,” Finn agreed, setting her down. Later, he would make it up to her.