“We’re going to figure everything out, Korrie.” It was said quietly, and I wondered exactly what he was referring to. Trace and I didn’t need anyone, but the thought that he meant we would figure out how to be a family made me all bubbly and stupid inside.
“My mother is going to find out we left,” I murmured softly. He unbuckled and stood. Watching him curiously, I was surprised to see him reach over and unbuckle me. Visions of him taking me to the bathroom to join the mile-high club flashed through my dirty mind.
“What are you doing?” I whispered furiously.
“Get up, I’m going to help you stretch him out across the seats so he’s more comfortable, then I want you to sit by me to talk so the entire plane can’t hear us.” His patient explanation as he smirked made my cheeks flush, because it was like he’d read my mind.
We did as he offered, and once I settled in next to him, my heart was nearly exploding through my chest wall. When he tipped his head close to mine and the scent of his cologne hit me, I leaned in slightly and almost whimpered.
Snap out of it! What the fuck is wrong with you? You are a strong, independent woman! Stop acting like a lovesick teenager!
My pep-talk to myself wasn’t working.
“Are you okay?” he asked and gave a half smile when I choked on my muttered response.
“Did you develop any other, uh, gifts over the years?” I whispered with narrowed eyes.
His head canted, and his hair fell boyishly over his brow. Out of instinct, I lifted my hand to brush it back, but froze and curled my fingers in before dropping my hand to my lap.
“What other gifts would I have?” His husky, mesmerizingly delicious voice spilled over me. Everything he did was playing havoc on my senses. When my head tipped in the opposite direction so my lips could fit with his, I jolted back and cleared my throat.
A deep breath ended in a shuddering exhale as I tried my damnedest to collect myself. His chuckle ruffled my hair and spilled across my cheek, destroying the progress I’d made with my wayward emotions.
Jude Bearheart was my greatest weakness, even after everything.
“It feels like you can read my mind,” I muttered. He chuckled as his perfect lips curled into a sardonic smile.
“No, but what I wouldn’t give to be able to do that right now.” He chewed on his lower lip as his eyes bored into me, making me squirm in my seat. He was too much. Too intense. Too alluring. I wanted to climb in his lap and do things I shouldn’t. Damn him.
“You wanted to talk,” I prompt, waiting for him to tell me what he wanted to discuss. Instead of leaning back in his seat, he seductively trailed his nose along the shell of my ear before whispering to me.
“I never saw the letter, and I sure as hell didn’t reply to a letter I didn’t see. Someone fucked us over. We’re going to fix that.”
I startled. “Fix it how?”
“I don’t appreciate my life being fucked with,” he said with gritted teeth. “Stealing my son from me is the lowest thing someone could do.”
I was startled at his vehemence. “Jude, you left. Not once in the past seven plus years have you tried to contact me. Regardless of whether you knew about Trace or not.”
The internal battle he was fighting was apparent in his troubled brown eyes before he leaned back in his seat and closed them. For a moment, I thought he was done talking. Then he spoke softly. So softly, I had to sit up in my seat and lean toward him to hear.
“By then, you deserved so much better than me. No matter my job was a medic in the army, there were too many times I had to let my brothers die because there was too much damage to repair. For some of them, I could’ve slowed it down, but for what? For them to suffer longer? I knew they weren’t going to make it—perks of the gift. Then the time that we were ambushed and I killed countless men during that horrible six hours.” He took a shuddering breath. “I was a healer, yet I killed without remorse.”
Instinctively, I reached out and clasped his large hand in mine. “Jude. Surely you can’t blame yourself for that. You were in a combat situation. I can only imagine it was life or death.”
He opened his eyes and turned my direction. It put our faces close enough that his breath feathered across my cheek. “And after I got out and joined the Bastards?”
“But they call you Angel,” I argued.
He gave a humorless laugh as his dark eyes locked with mine. “Because I’m the Angel of Death.”
“AngelWithoutWings”—SavingAbel
Icould see in her eyes when what I said clicked with her.
“Lester?” she asked in a shaky whisper. I’d have given anything for her not to look at me like I was a monster. Yet I wouldn’t base anything between us on lies. She needed to know what she was getting with me, but I wasn’t losing her again. I’d figure it out.
Seeing her again after so long only drove home how much my soul had been shriveling up and dying without her. Because in that split second before she shot me, and every second since, I had a light blooming within me.