Chapter 18 Nyx
NYX
The SUV smelled like leather and Kairo’s cologne, warm from the vents and sharp at the edges.
Kairo drove one-handed, the other resting on my thigh and it was comfortable. His gaze kept flicking to the mirrors, to the dark behind us, to the stretch of road ahead. Not panicked. Calculating.
My omega pressed close to the front of my ribs, listening. I liked that he was watching. It liked that he wasn’t pretending this was safe.
Kairo glanced at me again, that quick check he’d been doing since we left Malachi. “You still good?”
“I’m here,” I said, because it was the only answer that didn’t turn into a conversation I couldn’t afford.
His jaw flexed once. Then his thumb tapped the steering wheel in a small, restless rhythm.
The shooting range was first, and the smell of gun oil already clung to him when he turned the wheel toward it. The city slid past the windows.
We could have gone alone. He could have pretended all play, no work meant no precautions, but Kairo did not do that with me.
Instead, as we rolled toward the next stop, he lifted his chin and spoke into his phone.
“Jabari,” he said. “Elijah. You’re on us today. Two cars back, eyes up, no hero shit.”
There was a pause. Then Jabari’s voice, amused and sharp, the polite that carried teeth. “On you how, now?”
“Keep your distance,” Kairo replied. “Do not interfere unless someone does something catastrophically stupid.”
Elijah cut in, dry as ever. “You know that your definition of catastrophic is flexible.”
“Extremely,” Kairo said cheerfully. “That is why I trust you.”
I watched him end the call, watched the satisfaction flicker across his face.
“You are using them as bodyguards,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied.
“And you are doing it publicly.”
“Also yes,” he said. The corner of his mouth lifted, and his grip on my hand stayed steady. He glanced at me, eyes bright. “Is that a problem?”
I considered it, and my omega did too. Visibility meant scent, and scent meant attention, and attention was a currency Meridian men spent like bullets. With my heat climbing closer, the rules got sharper: stay covered, stay close, don’t give strangers a clean read of me.
The visibility. The message it sent. That I was not being hidden or managed or quietly absorbed into Meridian’s machinery.
“No,” I said. “It is not.” My omega lifted her head again, pleased.
The shooting range was first, because Kairo trusted metal and routine more than crowds. It wasn’t Meridian’s private facility, all concrete and silence and expectation, but one set far enough outside the city that the land opened up around it instead of closing in.
Gravel crunched beneath our feet as we stepped out of the car, the air sharp with oil, dust, and sun-warmed metal, clean enough that my scent didn’t get lost in it.
That should have made me nervous. Instead, it made me aware, in a controlled way, of how carefully Kairo kept himself angled between me and everyone else.
The sky stretched wide and blue overhead, and only then did I realize how tightly I had been holding my shoulders. They loosened without my permission, breath coming easier as space replaced walls.
Kairo took it in like a kid unleashed in a candy store.
He rocked forward on his heels, then back again, fingers lifting to toy with the end of one braid before he seemed to catch himself and drop his hand. The grin he flashed me was bright but edged with nerves.
“I have been dying to see you shoot,” he said, handing me ear protection with a flourish that nearly made him fumble it. “You have the posture of someone who does not miss.”
“That is a bold assumption,” I replied, fitting the protection over my ears.
“Confidence,” he corrected quickly, scratching at the back of his neck. “I bring it out in people.”
Jabari leaned against a truck a good distance away, arms crossed, gaze sweeping the perimeter with lazy precision.
I had not seen him in days. Not since Malachi had pulled him off house rotation after the incident and put him where Meridian put men who needed reminding: outside the penthouse, outside my orbit, on runs that kept his hands busy and his mouth shut.
Elijah stood farther back, still as a shadow, attention split between us and the land beyond the range. They were present without pressing, exactly as promised.
Kairo noticed my glance and worried about his lower lip between his teeth before speaking.
“They will not hover,” he said. “I promise.”
“They are already hovering,” I pointed out.
“They are hovering respectfully,” he argued, lifting his hands in mock surrender.
I shook my head, amused, and something in my chest eased.
When he stepped behind me to help with my stance, he moved slowly, giving me time to adjust to his proximity.
His hands hovered for a beat, asking without words, before settling lightly at my wrists to correct my grip and then at my shoulder to angle it just so.
He did not press his body against mine. He did not cage me.
He guided, then stepped back immediately, rocking on his heels again, fingers returning to his braids as he watched.
“Trust your body,” he said softly. “It already knows what to do.”
It did. My muscles remembered before my mind tried to complicate it.
The crack of the first shot tore through the air, sharp and clean, vibrating down my arms and into my spine. Adrenaline surged hot and bright, and my mouth curved into a smile before I could stop it. The target bore the mark neatly, exactly where I had aimed.
Kairo whooped.
“That was perfect,” he said, clapping his hands once, eyes shining.
“I know,” I replied, and his laugh burst out, loud and unrestrained, the sound carrying across the range.
We fell into a peaceful rhythm after that.
Shoot. Reset. Breathe. Between rounds, we sat side by side on the bench, shoulders almost touching, passing a bottle of water back and forth.
Kairo talked when the quiet stretched too long, voice easy but his hands restless, fingers twisting his braids when the stories edged closer to truth.
He told me about sneaking out as a teenager, about borrowed IDs and too much confidence, about learning early that he could smile his way past guards who would have stopped someone else cold. As he spoke, his grin faded, replaced by something more thoughtful.
He admitted, haltingly, that it had taken him years to realize people liked him more when he was easy, and how dangerous that had been once he understood what people will take from someone who never pushed back.
I listened, watching the way his shoulders hunched when he said it, the way his fingers stilled to see if I would recoil. I did not.
Instead, I told him about numbers and patterns, about how safety had always lived in predictability for me. I described the comfort of spreadsheets and ledgers; the way following a trail of figures felt safer than trusting people ever had.
I admitted Meridian had terrified me at first, not because of the violence, but because of how efficiently it functioned, how smoothly it swallowed variables.
He did not interrupt. He did not fill the space. He just listened, eyes steady on my face, attention fixed on me instead of the men nearby or the world beyond the range. That quiet focus settled into me, warm and steady, and something inside my chest shifted in a way that felt irreversible.
When we finally left the range, my arms ached pleasantly and my thoughts felt clear. My omega lay calm and satisfied beneath my ribs, instincts soothed by the balance of autonomy and proximity, by the unfamiliar relief of being heard without being evaluated.
By the time we climbed back into the SUV, that calm started to shift.
Heat did not slam into me, but it rose in a slow, stubborn crawl, the kind that made my skin feel too tight and my thoughts too loud.
My scent sweetened with it, peaches turning sharper at the edges, and I hated how quickly my body tried to turn biology into a decision.
Kairo caught it anyway. He kept his hands on the wheel, posture easy on the outside, but his jaw set. He did not touch me. He just asked, quiet and steady, “You need to stop at the tower first?”
I stared out the window for a long beat, forcing my breathing into something controlled. “Yes,” I said. “And I need you to hear me before your instincts start telling you stories.”
His eyes flicked to mine, then back to the road. “Talk to me.”
“I am not going to be managed,” I said, voice level. “I am not going to be handled because my body is reacting. I want relief because I chose it, not because I got cornered into it.”
Kairo’s throat worked. He nodded once. “Okay,” he said. “Your call. Your rules.”
When we got back, he did not escort me like a prisoner. He walked me in like a date, close enough that I could reach him if I wanted, far enough that I still had air. Jabari came in behind us and Elijah stayed by the elevator, presence at the edges, eyes up, quiet as promised.
I stopped in the hallway outside the nest suite in the tower. I didn’t go in. I turned instead, looking at Jabari.
He went still. His face stayed polite, but the hunger under it was a live wire, and I could tell he expected me to flinch away from him. I didn’t.
“Jabari,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered immediately. His voice was careful.
Kairo’s posture tightened, then eased as he chose restraint. “I’m going to be in the kitchen,” he said, and he headed toward the tower kitchen. “Yell if you want me.”
I held Kairo’s gaze long enough to make sure we understood each other. Then I looked back at Jabari. “Follow me,” I said. “And you are not touching me with your hands.”
Jabari’s eyes dropped for half a second. Something in him flexed hard, then contained.
“Yes, darlin’,” he said quietly.
Inside, I did not let him loom. I pointed to the floor.
“On your knees,” I told him.