Chapter Ten
The children were finally asleep.
Diana stood in the doorway of the makeshift dormitory, watching the rise and fall of small chests, counting breaths like prayers.
Fifteen kids, all of them safe, none of them aware of how close they'd come to something terrible.
She'd turned gunfire into a game, made the safe room an adventure, sang songs until her throat ached.
Now the performance was over, and she had nowhere to put the fear still screaming through her veins.
The compound had gone quiet in the hours since the assault.
Brothers had retreated to lick wounds and count blessings.
Old ladies had reclaimed their spaces, turning chaos back into order through sheer force of will.
Someone had started cooking—the smell of food drifted through the halls, a signal that life continued despite the blood still staining the grass outside.
Diana couldn't eat. Couldn't rest. Couldn't stop seeing Vice's face when he'd burst through the safe room door, covered in blood that might have been his.
She found herself walking before she'd consciously decided to move.
The medical room light was on.
Diana pushed open the door and found Vice at the sink, washing blood from his hands with mechanical precision. His shirt was gone—she could see bandages wrapped around his ribs, white gauze already spotted with red. He'd been hurt and hadn't told her.
"You're injured."
Vice didn't look up. "Graze. Anvil's was worse—took a round through the shoulder. He'll be fine."
His voice was flat. Empty. The voice of a man who'd spent the morning killing people and then spent the afternoon putting his brothers back together, and had nothing left to feel.
Diana recognized that emptiness. She'd felt it herself, holding Maya while bullets flew, singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with steady voice and shaking hands.
She crossed to the sink and took his hands in hers.
Vice went still. "Diana—"
"Don't talk."
She held his hands under the warm water, washing away blood that wasn't all his, watching the pink swirl down the drain. His fingers were trembling—she could feel the fine tremors, the adrenaline crash finally hitting now that he'd stopped moving long enough to feel it.
"I spent three hours in that bunker," she said quietly. "Singing songs. Reading stories. Pretending everything was fine while I listened to gunfire and wondered if you were dying."
"Diana—"
"I said don't talk." She lifted his hands from the water and dried them carefully, her own fingers threaded through his. "I kept it together for the kids. I smiled and laughed and made them believe the world was safe. And now they're asleep, and I can finally stop pretending."
She looked up at him, and whatever Vice saw in her face made his breath catch.
"I need you," she said. "Right now. I need to feel you alive, I need proof that we both survived, I need—"
Vice kissed her.
Not gentle. Not careful. He kissed her like he was drowning and she was air, like survival wasn't enough, like he needed to consume her to believe any of this was real.
Diana kissed him back just as fiercely.
Her hands found his bare chest, tracing the edges of the bandage, feeling the heat of his skin and the pound of his heart beneath her palms. Alive. He was alive. They both were.
"Exam table," she gasped against his mouth. "Now."
Vice lifted her without breaking the kiss, crossing the room in three strides, setting her on the edge of the table with hands that weren't gentle. Good. She didn't want gentle. She wanted proof of life, wanted to burn away the fear with something hotter.
"The door—"
"Locked it behind me."
His laugh was rough, surprised. "You planned this?"
"I planned to find you." Diana pulled at his belt, fingers clumsy with urgency. "The rest is instinct."
Vice grabbed her wrists, stopping her. His eyes were dark, feral, the controlled man she knew stripped down to something raw.
"If we do this now, it won't be soft." His voice scraped like gravel. "I've got too much—I can't be careful right now, Diana. I need—"
"I don't want careful." She wrenched her hands free and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling his face down to hers. "I want you. All of you. Give me everything."
Something snapped behind his eyes.
Vice yanked her shirt over her head, barely giving her time to lift her arms. His mouth found her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her breast still covered by cotton. He wasn't gentle—teeth grazed, stubble scraped, and Diana arched into every point of contact.
"Mine." He growled the word against her skin like a war cry. "Say it."
"Yours."
"Again."
"Yours." She gasped as his hand found the button of her jeans, worked them down her hips. "Colton—please—"
He dropped to his knees.
Diana's head fell back as his mouth found her through the thin fabric of her underwear, hot breath and pressure making her cry out. He stripped the cotton away with zero finesse, and then his tongue was on her, in her, and she stopped being able to think at all.
"I spent the whole assault thinking about this," Vice said against her most sensitive flesh, the words vibrating through her. "About getting you alone. About proving we were both still alive."
"Less talking—" Diana's hand fisted in his hair. "More."
He gave her more.
His mouth was relentless, his hands gripping her thighs hard enough to bruise, holding her open for him while he drove her toward the edge with single-minded focus.
Diana writhed on the exam table, past shame, past moderation, chasing the release that would finally let her stop feeling so terrifyingly alive.
"Not yet."
Vice pulled back just as she was about to shatter, rising to his feet, and Diana actually whimpered at the loss.
"Colton—"
"I need to be inside you when you come apart." He shed the rest of his clothes with rough efficiency, and Diana drank in the sight of him—hard and ready, scars and bruises and bandages, a warrior's body still running hot from battle. "I need to feel it. Need to know this is real."
"Then stop making me wait."
He pulled her to the edge of the table and drove into her with one hard thrust.
Diana's cry echoed off the medical room walls. There was nothing tender about this—he took her like a man possessed, his hands bruising her hips, his pace punishing. And she met him thrust for thrust, her legs wrapped around his waist, her nails scoring his back, giving as good as she got.
This wasn't making love. This was survival. This was two people who'd almost lost each other burning away the terror through the only means available.
"Harder," she demanded, and Vice obeyed.
The exam table creaked and shuddered beneath them. Supplies crashed from a nearby shelf—neither of them cared. Vice's hand found her throat, not squeezing, just holding, and Diana looked up into eyes gone black with need.
"You're mine." Each word punctuated with a thrust that made her see stars. "You hear me? Mine."
"Prove it."
His control shattered completely.
Vice pinned her flat to the table and took her with an intensity that bordered on violence—the good kind, the kind that said I almost lost you and I refuse to let that happen ever again.
His thumb found her clit, pressing and circling with ruthless precision, and Diana felt the orgasm building like a wildfire.
"Come for me." His voice was wrecked, desperate. "Diana—let go—"
She shattered.
The release tore through her with a force that blanked her vision, pleasure so intense it hurt, her whole body convulsing around him as she screamed his name—his real name, the one she'd earned the right to use.
Vice followed seconds later, groaning against her throat, hips stuttering through his own release, his entire body shuddering above her like he'd been broken apart and was trying to reassemble himself through sheer will.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Diana lay on the exam table, breathing hard, her body still pulsing with aftershocks. Vice braced above her on trembling arms, his forehead pressed to her shoulder, his chest heaving like he'd run a marathon.
Slowly, the frenzy receded. The desperate edge faded. What remained was warmth—his body pressed to hers, their hearts gradually slowing, two people who'd survived something terrible and found each other on the other side.
"I'm crushing you," Vice mumbled against her skin.
"I don't care."
He laughed, a broken sound, and rolled them so she was sprawled across his chest instead. The exam table was too narrow for two, but Diana didn't care about that either. She could feel his heartbeat against her cheek—alive, alive, alive—and that was the only thing that mattered.
"I thought I was going to lose you." His voice was quiet now, raw in a different way. "When Rader directed his men toward the main hall—toward the safe room—I couldn't breathe. All I could think about was getting to you before..."
"But you did." Diana lifted her head to meet his eyes. "You stopped them. All of them."
"I killed them." No pride in his voice. Just fact. "Twelve men, dead because of me."
"Twelve men who came to hurt children. Who would have broken into that safe room and—" She stopped, unable to finish the sentence. "You saved us, Colton. You saved all of us."
"That's what I do." Bitterness crept into his tone. "Save some people. Fail others. Keep a running tally of both."
Diana pushed herself up on one elbow, looking down at him with fierce intensity.
"That tally? Today you added fifteen children who will grow up safe because of you. Fifteen kids who have no idea how close they came, because you made sure the monsters never reached them."
"Diana—"
"Saving people is exactly what you should be doing." She pressed a hand over his heart, feeling it beat strong and steady beneath her palm. "And you're doing it. You're doing it every single day."
Vice stared up at her, something cracking behind his eyes. The walls. The guilt. The crushing weight of every face he couldn't save.
"How do you do that?" he asked quietly.
"Do what?"
"Make me believe you." His hand covered hers on his chest. "Make me think maybe I'm not as broken as I feel."
Diana leaned down and kissed him—soft this time, tender, completely different from the desperate claiming of minutes ago.
"You're not broken," she said against his lips. "You're a healer who carries the weight of every wound he couldn't fix. That's not the same thing."
Vice pulled her down against his chest and held on like she was the only thing keeping him tethered to earth. Maybe she was. Maybe they were doing that for each other—two people who'd spent their lives caring for everyone else, finally finding someone who would care for them.
The medical room was quiet around them, supplies scattered on the floor, the exam table still warm from their bodies. Outside, the compound was healing too—brothers resting, children sleeping, life continuing despite the violence of the morning.
Barron was still out there. The war wasn't over.
But right now, in this moment, wrapped around the man she loved, Diana let herself believe that everything was going to be okay.
They were alive.
They had each other.
And saving people was exactly what Colton Reed was meant to do.