Chapter 14 Keira
FOURTEEN
KEIRA
We've been trudging through the forest for hours. The storm keeps falling, harder now, soaking through the seams of my jacket. Wet pine needles stick all over my boots.
We're lost and Tristan is refusing to admit it.
The courier we were tailing disappeared off the ridge. Someone extracted him, and somehow we missed it.
"You were supposed to hold back at the ridge," Tristan snaps from behind me. "You were point two, not point one."
I shove a branch aside. "I had eyes on him while you were trying to cut corners."
"You didn't get eyes on him. You lost him."
"Maybe if you'd moved faster—"
"Maybe if you'd listened once in your fucking life."
I stop so abruptly he almost crashes into me.
Rain slides down his face, carving sharp lines along his cheekbones. His copper-brown hair is plastered to his forehead. His jaw looks carved from stone, and his eyes are so light against the rain they're almost glowing.
Fuck him for looking the way he does.
Dangerous and way too beautiful and so not helpful considering I'm trying hard not to notice him.
"I listened to you in Prague, and our target shot an eighteen-year-old while you were off fumbling with a tracker. Forgive me if I'm not desperate for round two."
"That's not what happened," he grits out.
"No? Then what did happen, Tristan?"
His eyes harden. "Drop it, Red."
I press on, heat rising in my chest. "No, Teakwood. I'm done letting you get away with shit."
He closes his eyes, attempting to control himself. I jab my finger into his chest. "You love your own ego and being in charge more than anything else. You have such bad trust issues you'd rather lose a target than bend a little."
"That's enough."
"You think you're so much better than everyone else."
He grabs my wrist and slams me against a tree. The bark digs into my spine as his body cages mine.
"I wasn't fumbling with a tracker in Prague. I was distracting the target off you and onto someone else."
That catches me off guard.
"You're telling me you got an innocent person killed to save me? Why the fuck would you do that?"
Rain drums between us as I watch his chest heave. "There wasn't another option. Believe me, I tried."
His hand is still locked around my wrist, holding me like he's afraid I'll attack if he lets go. Water drips from his lashes onto my lips.
"You should have told me," I mutter. "I didn't need saving."
He scoffs. "You did. You still do."
The look in his eyes hurts more than the bark digging into my back.
"Tristan," I say his name without meaning to, and he flinches at the sound. "If you're so pissed off at me, why haven't you asked for reassignment?"
His grip shifts, fingers tightening as he angles his body further into me.
"What?"
"You heard me. If I'm such a pain in your ass, if I keep ruining your precious plans, why are you still here?"
He doesn't answer.
The forest hums around us as rain patters against leaves, soaking into the ground. Our breaths fog the inch of space between our mouths.
"I needed time to find something." He breaks the silence.
"What did you need to find? You thought I'd lead you to Doyle?"
He shakes his head. "No. You don't understand."
But he doesn't say anything else, and I'm left with all the disappointment in his unsaid words. For a second, I thought…
"I think under all that ice you're just as fucked up as I am. You just hide it better."
His breathing deepens. "Why haven't you left? You could have dropped this months ago. Why stick around?"
"I—" Honestly, I don't know.
He leans in. "Exactly."
"Fuck you," I snap, turning my face away because I can't breathe.
He steps away and I push off the tree, wanting to get as far away from him as possible.
But I only take two steps before his hand catches the back of my neck and he pulls me back.
"Don't." The word is barely sound, more breath than voice.
Tristan stares at me like I'm the last thing standing between him and total ruin. Like he's been holding onto control by his fingernails and I just kicked his hands out from under him.
His other hand slams against the tree beside my head, caging me in completely.
I hold my breath, watching something in him shatter.
"Fuck it."
His mouth crashes into mine and everything else stops mattering.
The rain pours down, sliding between our mouths, turning every breath into something more desperate than before. He angles my head exactly where he wants it, where he's clearly imagined it, because there's no hesitation in him.
I open for him on a gasp. He growls into my mouth, the sound vibrating through my chest.
His hand grips my hip, fingers digging through fabric as he yanks me toward him. My spine hits the tree again and he's right there with me.
The kiss deepens, turning fierce. I've never been kissed like this before, and I'm certain I will never be kissed like this again.
He tastes like rain and anger and everything I've tried not to want.
My hands slide up his chest. The heat of him is obscene compared to the cold storm, and my fingers clutch at his shoulders.
His grip tightens at my neck as he kisses me like he's trying to imprint himself there. His mouth drags, teeth grazing my lip before biting down hard enough to tear a moan loose.
That pushes him over the edge as he shoves me harder into the tree. His forehead drops to mine as our breaths tangle.
He leans down and kisses me again, only pausing for a second to catch his breath.
This one is even more overwhelming, and I completely submit to it.
To him.
To this want that's been building inside me for months.
I feel him everywhere.
In the tremor of his hand.
In the tremble of my core.
In the way the rain can't cool anything between us.
He kisses me like he's wanted this longer than he'll ever admit.
And I kiss him back because I'm certain that if I don't, I'll break.
The world goes silent and all I can feel is him.
And this moment that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I come back to the present slowly.
The carpet beneath my cheek. The cold air on my skin. The sound of Ewan's zipper pulling up.
I just lie here and try to go back to the memory I was lost in, but I can't. Reality stole that from me too.
He steps in front of me, smoothing down his shirt and adjusting his cuffs like he didn't just assault me.
"Get up and go fix yourself. You're disgusting."
He's almost at the door when he stops and turns around. "And Keira? Next time you want to play games at my table, remember Hale is only protected as long as you behave and follow the rules."
I push myself up slowly once Ewan is gone, palms flat against the rug to stop the shaking.
I sit here on the floor in my ruined dress and think of the forest. Of the first time Tristan kissed me like he'd been holding his breath for years and finally inhaled.
I didn't know then that it would be my lifeline. That one day my memories of him would be the only safe place I could run to.
The tears come without warning. Not because of what Ewan just did to me, but because I understand with perfect clarity that there was a time I was happy and I didn't even know it. That there was a man who touched me like I was more than all the terrible things I'd done.
And I hurt him. All because I was too afraid to tell him the truth.
Once I had a man who kissed me in the rain like I was the only true thing he'd ever held.
And I let it go because I thought survival was more important than love.
Now I know the difference.
Survival is breathing.
Love was living.
And I haven't been alive in years.
I stare at the candle until the flame blurs.
Tristan kissed me like I had a future.
Ewan reminds me it was never mine to begin with.