8 - Kilian
Kilian
SHE’S WATCHING ME. I can tell. Years of military training do that to a man, wire the back of his neck into a second pair of eyes. I don’t need to turn around to confirm it.
I walk the perimeter one more time, kicking at the blackened earth, checking for any glow still hiding in the soil. Only when I’m satisfied do I let myself turn toward her.
She’s inside the rock alcove. Her blonde hair is falling loose from that clip she always wears. Her hands are shaking. She’s small against those rocks.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I cross my arms over my chest, and it’s not to intimidate her. My hands want to reach out and check that she’s okay, and I can’t let them do that, so I give them something else to do.
When I saw her following me out here, and then the blaze tore through, my hands went cold with dread. They haven’t recovered from that yet. The rest of me hasn’t either.
Her mouth opens to answer, but her gaze slips past me to the burned ground, then returns to my face.
“These fires,” she says finally, her voice steadier than her hands. “They happen a lot out here?”
I drag a hand over my jaw. Easier question than the one I want to ask.
“The natural kind? Not often. But the malicious kind… all the time.”
I glance back at the blackened patch of ground. Outsiders come here in our mountains, bored or pissed, thinking it’s funny to light up the woods and watch the show. They think it’s a joke, the way a fire like this could destroy homes, lives. But we don’t let it happen. The club keeps watch.
The radio on my belt crackles. Ronan’s voice. “Prez, you good? Over.”
I unclip it without breaking eye contact with her. “I’ve got it handled. I’m monitoring for a while. Over.”
“Copy that. On standby. Out.”
I clip it back. She’s still watching me, her brows drawn together in that soft frown that makes her look too damn beautiful.
“I’m a volunteer firefighter,” I say. The words come out before I can question why I’m explaining myself to her.
I tell myself it’s to justify what she just heard.
“We patrol these paths. Sometimes it’s kids with nothing better to do, sometimes it’s assholes looking to cause trouble.
We shut it down before it gets out of hand. ”
The wariness in her expression shifts slightly. Curiosity moving in to replace it. “We? You mean your… club? A gang?”
I grunt quietly. Gang. It’s always gang.
“Brotherhood,” I correct. “We were in the military together. They followed me out here after discharge.”
She nods thoughtfully, fingers loosening their grip on the cardigan a fraction. I can see the tension easing from her shoulders.
“Shouldn’t the police handle that? Stopping people with ill intent?”
“Police take twenty minutes to get up here. That fire you just witnessed,”—I motion back—“five minutes from spark to unstoppable. We don’t wait for permission to save what’s ours. We live here. It’s our home.”
Her face softens further, and damn if it doesn’t chip away at the resolve I’ve been clinging to. I drag a breath, releasing it slow, and notice my fists are clenched at my sides. I open them. Force the fingers straight.
“And Sara?” she asks. “How are you her guardian? How are you related?”
I don’t talk about this.
Not unless I have to. Not with civilians, not with anyone who hasn’t worn the same cut I have. But she’s standing here in the woods, asking me a direct question, and the answer comes out of me before the walls go up.
“Her dad was my best friend. Simon. We enlisted together.” I look at the shrub at the mouth of the alcove. It’s easier than looking at her. “He didn’t make it back. So I moved here and became her legal guardian.” I pause. “Even if I’m shit at it most days.”
The last part wasn’t supposed to come out. But it’s true. Most days, I have no clue what I’m doing with that kid. We share the same wound, but I don’t know what to say to her.
Thea brushes the dirt from her dress, hands still tremble faintly.
“You’re trying. That counts too. Don’t be too tough on yourself, Kilian,” she says, and her voice has a warmth that catches me off guard.
I stare at her, the same way her hazel eyes hold mine without blinking. Why does her saying my name—
Damn it. I’m supposed to be scaring her off. That’s the plan. Keep the distance, make her uncomfortable, make her smart enough to stay away from a man like me before I drag her somewhere she can’t come back from. But here I am, splintering, reaching for the salvation that she is.
She drops her gaze first. Her fingers twist together again, and I watch the conflict move across her face before she speaks.
“I… I need to be honest.” She takes a shaky breath. “I’ve been worried about Sara. That’s why I’m here following you. I thought… I thought maybe she was in danger.”
I suspected she had a theory, some schoolteacher’s hunch about me being a shitty guardian. But danger?
She must read the shock on my face because her eyes go wide. Her shoulders hunch up, seemingly bracing for me to explode, and that look, it puts a knife in me.
I step back without thinking.
I don’t want that on her face. I don’t want her scared of me. “You think I’m a threat?”
She swallows. I watch the movement in her throat.
“I mean… don’t be angry. I sort of suspected you were a sexual predator.”
What the fuck? Of all things imaginable, a sexual predator? Is she for real?
Just as I’m processing the blow, it dawns on me. She’s scared shitless, it’s obvious, and yet she followed me. Alone. She followed me because she believed I was a predator and she thought Sara was in danger. It’s more than I expected from a new teacher. It’s more than most people would do, period.
I drag a breath, releasing it slow. My jaw is tight enough to ache, and I force it loose.
“I can’t blame you, I guess,” I say, meeting her gaze.
“And I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I was out of line.
” I hold it there for a beat. Let her see that I mean the apology.
“But I swear, on everything I’ve got left, I won’t ever hurt Sara.
She’s all I have of Simon. I’d lay down my life for that girl. ”
Her face crumples a little. I catch the flicker of guilt before she lowers her eyes.
“I-I didn’t mean to assume the worst. I just…
I saw things, and I got worried, and I didn’t know what else to do.
” She stammers, the words tumbling out in a rush.
Her gaze lifts again, landing on my mouth for half a second.
Maybe it’s the unexpected concern for Sara, but the blood pumping in my veins sets off a drumbeat.
My pulse is in my ears, in my throat, in my teeth.
I move closer without thinking, closing the gap until I’m right in her face, close enough to smell her shampoo.
The magnetic pull dragging me to her since that first moment, it’s impossible to resist now. She’s everything I shouldn’t want, everything that I could break. But the last thread of my control snaps, and there’s nothing left holding me back now.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I rasp, my voice low and jagged. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near a man like me.”
The words are supposed to be a warning, but they sound hollow, because even as I say them, my hands are already moving. I drop my cut to the ground and grab her jaw. I tilt her face up, and then my mouth crashes into hers. It’s hunger and heat and desperation I can’t rein in.
I’m lost, drowning, forgetting every damn reason this is wrong.