Chapter Nine
Katriona
My eyes and heart are sending mixed messages. It can’t be. My heart screams for it to be true. But my head says I saw his body fall to the ground.
Didn’t I? Tears wet my lashes and I can’t seem to take a breath.
“Grey? Grey, is that really you?” I fist the front of Sylan’s shirt and he wraps his protective arms around me, lending me his strength. And I need all I can get.
Sylan leans down until his lips are by my ear. “Go to him, Mo chroi. Go to him. He’s waited so long to see you again.”
As soon as Grey steps from the darkness, my knees became rubber and unreliable.
I take several uncertain steps. But the closer I get the more I come to terms with the fact I’m not seeing a ghost.
“It’s you.”
I practiced saying a million things to say to Grey—to all of them actually—but nothing comes out when my mouth opens.
I exchange glances with Drake and Sylan before turning quickly back to Grey fearing he might disappear.
My heart races so fast I’m having a hard time catching my breath. Seeing Drake and Sylan again was a rush, but to know Grey hadn’t died trying to save me changes my whole outlook.
Grey’s mouth widens with a big smile and little crinkles along the edges of his eyes deepen.
“Come here, sweetheart. God, I missed you, baby. Let me feel you in my arms. Are they giving you hell in here?”
I turn to look at Drake and Sylan over my shoulders and feel a surge of warmth through my body when our eyes connect.
“I wanted to come with Drake tonight but business kept me here.”
Grey wraps his strong arms around me and I throw mine around his neck. I inhale several times, filling my memory with his scent. Last time I was like this all I could smell was blood. His blood. Copper and gunpowder.
I raise to my tiptoes, gliding my fingers through his hair.
“Thank you,” I whisper just for his ears only. “Thank you for protecting me when you didn’t have to.”
We’re across the room, standing with Sylan and Drake flanking me on either side, Grey in front of me. So wrapped up in my moment, I didn’t realize we’d moved at all. He’s picked me up and carried me to his friends.
He cups my face, slipping a kiss over my lips. “I only did what any three of us would have done. Protect what’s ours. Protect you. The most precious gift we could have stumbled upon.”
“The three of you keep saying that a lot.”
Grey pulls something out of his back pocket and hands it to me.
“What is this?” I start reading and it only takes a few seconds for me to understand.
Boom. There drops my heart on the floor again.
He might as well have detonated an atomic bomb over my head. The aftershocks send my heart into a stammering stutter of chaotic twitching.
I make a small choking sound as I try to swallow my hysterical laughter, but I botch the job and nearly fall off my stilettos laughing. It’s that or fall over from sudden heart failure. “The contract you have with my father. Why would you show me this? Are you kidding me,” I choke out.
He taps the edges. “Marriage proposal actually.” His expression is matter of fact.
Hope crashes around my feet shattering into a million pieces. Well, I scan the document to the end. Make that ten million pieces. They didn’t want me for me. Just me for being a Kane. A trophy, I guess.
“This is utter bullshit,” I start. “Like I don’t have enough problems.” I pause and nail Sylan with a glare. “This is not my problem. He dumped me before I had a chance to really call him daddy. Honoring this…no thank you. I’d like to go home now.” It’s worth a shot so I eye him uneasily for a long moment, and I can tell the second his shields snap into place. True, I couldn’t see them. Not like some faceted crystal wall I could reach out and run a finger over. No, the slight change is subtle like the shift in temperature that has me shivering.