Primal Defense
The estate felt different after the club.
Indie lay in Kael’s bed with the collar still warm around her throat and the echoes of the night still moving through her body.
The rage and release in the private room had left her raw and strangely lighter, as if some poison had been drawn out of her.
Kael had held her through the aftermath, stroking her hair and whispering promises she was only beginning to believe.
But the message he had shown her before they left the club still sat in the back of her mind like a shadow.
She knows now. Good. It will make breaking her so much sweeter when I take her from you.
Kael hadn’t let her see the full screen. He had powered the phone off and pulled her closer, but she had felt the shift in him. The cold, lethal focus that replaced the tenderness for a few seconds. She knew he was already planning. Already hunting.
She couldn’t sleep.
Sometime after midnight she slipped out of bed and pulled on one of his shirts. It hung to mid-thigh, smelling like him.
The collar stayed on. She padded barefoot through the quiet hallways, past the library where he had first claimed her on the piano, and out onto the terrace.
The rain had finally stopped. The air smelled like wet earth and night-blooming flowers. The grounds stretched out below in silver and shadow under the security lights. Indie walked down the stone steps into the garden, needing space to breathe.
Needing to feel the ground under her feet after everything that had been revealed.
She didn’t notice the shadows moving near the tree line until it was too late.
A hand clamped over her mouth from behind.
Indie’s scream was muffled. Strong arms dragged her back ward into the deeper darkness between the trees.
She fought on instinct—kicking, twisting, clawing at the arm around her waist.
The man was bigger than her, dressed in black, face covered.
He didn’t speak. He just hauled her deeper into the garden, away from the lights of the house.
Panic flooded her system.
Then another voice cut through the night.
“Get your fucking hands off her.”
Kael.
The man holding her spun, dragging her in front of him like a shield. Indie saw Kael step out of the shadows near the terrace.
He was shirtless, barefoot, wearing only black pants. In his hand was a gun she hadn’t known he carried. His eyes were ice.
Two more figures emerged from the trees. Armed. Moving toward Kael.
Indie’s heart slammed against her ribs.
The man holding her tightened his grip and started backing toward the far edge of the garden. “One more step and she dies right here.”
Kael didn’t hesitate.
He moved like liquid violence.
The first shot was suppressed but still loud in the quiet night.
One of the approaching men dropped. The second raised his weapon. Kael was already on him, closing the distance with terrifying speed. A short, brutal fight ended with the second man on the ground and Kael’s gun pressed to the temple of the one holding Indie.
“Let her go.”
The man hesitated.
Kael’s voice dropped into something colder than death. “You have three seconds before I paint the grass with your brains. One.”
The grip on Indie loosened.
“Two.”
The man shoved her forward and tried to run.
Kael shot him in the leg.
The man went down with a choked cry. Kael was on him in an instant, kicking the gun away and pressing his own weapon to the back of the man’s head.
“Crowe sent you,” Kael said. It wasn’t a question.
The man spat blood. “He wants the girl. Said you’d be distracted tonight.”
Kael’s laugh was low and dark. “He was right about one thing.”
He glanced at Indie. She was standing a few feet away, shaking, Kael’s shirt torn at the shoulder from the struggle. Her eyes were wide but steady. No panic. Just rage. The same rage she had unleashed in the club.
Kael looked back at the man on the ground.
“Tell Crowe the next time he sends someone for her, I’ll send their heads back in a box.”
He pulled the trigger.
The night went quiet again.
Kael stood slowly and turned to Indie. Blood streaked his chest and arms. His eyes were still that lethal ice until they landed on her. Then something in them cracked.
He crossed the space between them in three strides and pulled her into his chest. One hand fisted in her hair. The other wrapped around her waist so tightly she could barely breathe.
“You’re safe,” he said against her temple. His voice was rough.
“I’ve got you.”
Indie clung to him. The adrenaline was still crashing through her system. She could feel his heart hammering against her cheek. Could smell gunpowder and blood and him.
Kael pulled back just enough to look at her. His gaze dropped to the torn shirt, to the scratch on her arm, to the way she was still shaking.
Something dark and primal moved behind his eyes.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It was possession and fear and relief all at once.
His mouth claimed hers like he needed to prove she was still breathing. Indie kissed him back just as hard, fingers digging into his shoulders.
When he broke the kiss he rested his forehead against hers.
“Run,” he said.
Indie blinked. “What?”
“Run.” His voice was low. Rough. “Into the garden. Now.”
Understanding hit her like lightning.
This wasn’t just comfort. This was him needing to reclaim her in the most primal way after almost losing her. And she needed it too.
Indie turned and ran.
She didn’t go far. Just deep enough into the garden that the lights of the house were dim behind the trees. Her bare feet sank into the wet grass. The shirt fluttered around her thighs.
She could hear Kael behind her—steady footsteps, controlled breathing. He was letting her have the head start. Letting the chase build.
Indie’s heart pounded for an entirely different reason now.
She darted between two tall hedges and into a small clearing near an old stone wall. The moonlight caught on the wet leaves.
She pressed her back to the rough bark of a large tree, breathing hard, waiting.
Kael appeared at the edge of the clearing.
He didn’t speak.
He simply moved.
Indie tried to run again but he was faster. He caught her around the waist and spun her, pinning her front against the tree.
The bark was cool and rough against her cheek. Kael’s body pressed against her back—solid, hot, still streaked with blood and violence.
His hand fisted in her hair and pulled her head back.
“Mine,” he growled against her ear.
Indie pushed back against him, the fight still in her blood from the attack. “Prove it.”
Kael yanked the shirt up and over her head in one motion. She was naked underneath. He kicked her legs wider and reached between her thighs. She was already wet. Soaked from the adrenaline and the chase and the way he had looked at her like she was the only thing keeping him breathing.
He freed his cock and thrust into her in one brutal stroke.
Indie cried out against the tree. The stretch burned in the best way. Kael didn’t give her time to adjust. He fucked her hard and deep, one hand in her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. Every thrust drove her against the bark.
Every thrust pulled a broken sound from her throat.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“Yours,” she gasped. “I’m yours.”
He pulled her hair harder and fucked her faster. “Louder.”
“I’m yours!”
Kael reached around and rubbed her clit in rough circles.
“Come. Now.”
Indie shattered with a scream that echoed through the garden.
Her walls clenched around him so hard Kael groaned and followed her over the edge, burying himself deep and filling her with hot pulses.
He stayed inside her, breathing hard against the back of her neck.
Neither of them moved for a long moment.
Then Kael turned her gently and lifted her into his arms. He carried her back toward the house without a word, her naked body pressed against his blood-streaked chest. The bodies in the garden were already being handled by his men. The threat had been neutralized for now.
But the message still burned in his mind.
When they reached his bedroom he laid her on the bed and cleaned her with careful hands. He checked every scratch and bruise from the attack and from the tree. Then he pulled her against his chest and wrapped the blankets around them both.
Indie traced one of the scars on his shoulder with her fingertip.
“They’re not going to stop,” she said quietly.
“No.” Kael’s voice was steady. “They’re not.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “Then we end it. Together.”
Kael’s eyes met hers in the dark. The ice was still there, but underneath it was something warmer. Something that looked like hope.
“Together,” he agreed.
He kissed her then—slow and deep and full of everything they had survived tonight.
Outside the bedroom windows the garden was quiet again.
Inside, with the collar warm against her throat and Kael’s arms locked around her like he would burn the world before letting anyone take her, Indie Vale finally let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t running anymore.
She was home.
And the war that had shaped both their lives was about to meet the one thing it had never counted on.
Two people who had already lost too much.
And who were no longer willing to lose each other.