Eternal Refuge

by Annabelle McInnes

  Nick didn’t think, he simply reached out and snatched it from the hand that held it.

  It rested in his palm, warm and cool, just like he remembered. The roman numerals, the black hands, the chip in the glass just above the three …

  It was a sense of dread that slowly pervaded his senses that made him look up. An internal warning that somehow filtered through the elation of finding what had once been lost.

  His eyes lifted from the watch to the man that had held it.

  Blond hair, brown eyes, high cheekbones. A mouth that curved in triumph.

  Parker West stood before him.

  ‘Hello, Nicky. I’m so glad you decided to welcome me on your knees.’

  Chapter 21

  Euan

  When he had called for volunteers. All those who could stand, did.

  Dishevelled, burned, scarred, they obeyed his orders. He did not know the outcome, only that they went in search of those that needed rescue. He gave his directives, assigned roles, planned an attack on a compound that was well-stocked, well-defended and well-armed. Their spines straightened, their resolve hardened, and their gazes had cleared. They were not an army and their numbers were small. But they were loyal, hardworking and brave. It was all Euan could hope for. The preparation had been agony. Every moment spent in planning was a moment that Kira endured pain. She suffered, and he would see vengeance done in her name. But his time was well-spent. It enabled more hours to be spent to play out how he would end this.

  The sun’s light was bright against the black road. Shards of light glimmered yellow, orange and violet. Gold lit up the lingering clouds, the new leaves on the trees were still glossy from the rain. Blossoms budded, birds chirped, a single engine rumbled as crumbling tarmac crunched under four oversized tyres. Euan had held up his end of the bargain. His hope lay in a slim possibility that Nick had been able to see his side completed too.

  As they drove, the anticipation developed into a wretched plume of sawdust inside him.

  Knight was in the driver’s seat of the truck that took them to a fate unknown. The cab was awash in expectant sentiment. It hung heavy in the air, infiltrated the lungs, hunched the shoulders and kept their thoughts voiceless. As the light bloomed over the landscape, dark hands gripped the wheel, fingers danced and stretched before they gripped it again. The leather groaned.

  Euan asked, ‘How did you bring her back?’

  Knight kept his gaze forward, but Euan saw the quirk in his lips. ‘She brought herself back. Something about taking control as we fled the explosion changed her, or maybe it was losing her father. She roared at them when they tried to take us. Roared, like a lioness. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed she had that much power still left in her body. Before we left, I told her that I loved her. For the first time since she was captured, I could see she believed it.’

  Euan nodded, allowed the small seed of hope to grow in his heart. He tapped his fingers against his knee.

  Knight asked, ‘What are you going to do if it’s too late?’

  The breath Euan took was long. The exhale drawn out. He didn’t take his gaze from the white line that stretched out before them. He knew what he would do.

  ‘If I’m too late, they’ll simply die sooner.’

  Knight’s response was instant. ‘You can’t kill everyone, McKay.’

  Euan didn’t reply. His fists were clenched again, he loosened them, shook them out. He was tired. Exhausted. But he would not sleep until he saw this done.

  Beside him, Knight gripped the steering wheel and the silence in the cab stretched and folded over itself until it was thick and nauseating. Euan glanced out the side window.

  Scrub, intermittent trees. The warehouses of tin, concrete and blue-board were becoming more frequent. Hidden by nature, they stood as silent sentries to industry. This was what humanity should be fighting for. Regeneration. To take what was destroyed and erect it again. To find those that still lived who retained the skill to build, to repair, to create. Instead, they squabbled like animals for scraps of a meagre carcass. Weapons, fuel, women.

  Euan didn’t care that he was now part of the systematic problem.

  He needed Kira. He needed Nick. In all of this, everything, without them, this world, his life, pointless. What did he care if the world read books or burned them if his two rays of sunshine weren’t in it with him?

  Inside him, a battle raged. There was violence, there was hope, there was fear. Three opposing angles that jockeyed for prominence in his heart. He needed Nick and Kira’s guidance to pull himself out of the swamp his boots were stuck in.

  He couldn’t do this on his own. His soul could not bear it alone. All he wanted was refuge; all he got was torment.

  The trees thinned, so did the vegetation. Tar, cement and wire began to take prominence. Knight tapped his fingers in a rhythm known only to him.

  Then, a flash of white-gold.

  Euan blinked and frowned.

  He sat back into his seat, the vinyl squeaked. The crease in his brow remained and his eye never left the landscape.

  But his body would not relent. His heart beat to a wild tempo, his fingertips prickled. There was a metallic tang on the tip of his tongue.

  His hands wanted to press the glass, his nose close in on the window. He considered that his desperate wishes had come to fruition. He’d been so focused on their rescue and subsequent reuniting that his mind had conjured up images of feral blonde women roaming the landscape. Ghosts that were just figments, unreal. He tapped the window with a knuckle while the kick of adrenaline produced a melody of longing in his veins.

  Until he saw it again. A brilliant halo of wild, platinum blonde hair as it ducked between two burned out cars.

  ‘Stop the truck.’

  He was out of the door with his feet on the tarmac before the engine had slowed, the cries from Knight were in his ear, but he ignored them.

  It could be exhaustion, it could be insanity. It could be his mind was finally giving out and going to dust. It was a reckless concept, an impossible theory. Maybe it was a resurgence of a memory from a time she had dashed in the forest after him and Nick, when he had roared to run, to flee the tiny blonde sun-sprite that had shadowed them through the trees.

  There was no way that it could be true. But something intrinsic inside him whispered words to say that it was.

  He ran in the direction he had last seen the flash of white. His long legs ate up the distance. Pain, fatigue, confusion, all distractions were gone. They had evaporated in the presence of a single, frivolous, impossible hope.

  Her name was on his lips, only loud enough for the nearby birds to hear. He might be mad, but he wasn’t a fool. Yet, his stomach pitched and rocked from the mixture of possibilities, both truth and deceptions.

  Then, she stood. A goddess. A woman.

  Kira.

  Dishevelled, blood-spattered. Her clothes and skin depicted trauma. Crystal blue eyes were bright with tears. A perfect hand was pressed to a perfect mouth.

  All the fight went out of him. One moment he was stone, the next, liquid. Knees weak, he took a step, his hand reached out to her, a move to lessen the distance between them. His fingers ached with the stretch, his muscles quivered. His stomach pitched with the possibility that she could not be real, and what he saw was her ghost, a remnant to her corporal self. One last possibility to see her before she left him to take her place in heaven.

  The apparition moved. His Kira, his stunning little sun-sprite began to run towards him. She flew on the wings of angels, so fast and so direct he was sure that he still dreamt and would wake up the moment their skin touched.

  Instincts finally kicked in. His arms were open wide, ready for the epitome of perfection and wonderment to run and jump right into him. Her flight towards him was brilliant to behold.

  She leapt, just like he knew she would, and she was in his arms.

  She was genuine. She was whole.

  She was alive.

  Th
ere was a giddiness that surged through him, a disorientation that eclipsed the euphoria. There were no words, he simply gripped her, held her so close that her breath squeezed out from her lungs on a moan. In his arms, he was able to crush her tiny body to his and spin her around and around until sobs turned into squeals of happiness.

  He stopped, but it was only so he could nudge her chin and fuse his lips to hers. She tasted of iron, gunpowder and salt. She tasted of sunshine, lavender, and rose. Her tongue was in his mouth, soft, sweet, perfect. He had a hand in her hair, the other around her waist, then he devoured her. His tongue thrust and slid, his hands gripped, his heart thundered, his blood fucking sung. Every muscle vibrated with the effort to hold back and not press her into the concrete at their feet and take everything that she offered. Kira returned the madness. She nipped, bit and more blood was spilt. But the sting in Euan’s lip told him that it was his. The ache, the terrible fear was gone, lost. His chest fully expanded under the realisation that against all the odds, she had survived, and she had escaped.

  ‘Christ, sweetheart. I never thought—’

  ‘Oh, heavens, Euan. I never thought—’

  Then there were tears. Sobs of joy as a dam of bravery finally broke. Euan kissed the wetness, wiped them from her face with his thumbs. He needed to be tender now, discover what inflictions she suffered. His voice was hoarse, dry, as brittle as he was in anticipation of her answer. ‘Did they hurt you?’

  She shook her head even as the tears continued to fall. Streaks of pale skin were revealed against bloody, grubby cheeks.

  The relief was so profound that there was nothing left in him to fight. He hitched her up his body, pressed her head to his neck and encouraged her to wrap her legs around his waist. When she complied without hesitation, his knees were on the tarmac and his lips were in her ear. ‘I was destroyed without you. You’re my heart, Kira. My soul. I thought I’d lost you.’

  His voice broke, her snuffles increased until she trembled in his arms. He kissed the whirls and indentations and continued. ‘Nothing is as precious to me as you. Every moment, every breath, is for you. I live for you. You’re my salvation. You’re my life. Christ, you and Nick are my everything.’

  Her hands were in his shirt, tiny fingers that pried and twisted. He helped her unfasten the zip so she could worm her trembling digits inside. When she pressed closer, words of love and adoration were on her lips. He returned them and hugged her close.

  Then she cried the tears of a woman who found cathartic release, who discovered safety, sanctuary and was able to let go. He savoured every beat of her heart against his chest. ‘Shh. It’s all right, I’ve got you.’ He allowed himself a brief moment to pull his face from her hair and glance about them. ‘Where’s Nicky? I need to hold that man too. Then kick his ass for scaring the shit outta me.’

  Kira pulled her wet face from his neck, confusion was bright in her eyes. A furrow creased her brow. ‘What?’ she asked.

  Euan’s stomach dropped, flopped and rolled. The glory of finding Kira instantly tarnished, weathered. He found it hard to form the words. ‘He’s not with you? He didn’t get you free?’

  Kira shook her head. Her hands cupped his cheeks, the tremor in them solidified the nightmares that rose inside his chest. He had found one, only to lose the other. As he stared into watery blue depths, a terrible suspicion bloomed inside of him. He remembered brown eyes that watched Nick too closely, a blond man who touched Nick often, played it down with wit and banter. He remembered a man that had always sat too close, been too intimate, showed no fear towards Euan’s gruff warnings.

  A man that had been the one to suggest the hunting trip in the first instance.

  Kira had saved herself. She had wrenched herself out of danger, without aid, and without Nick.

  Strong thighs were on his hips, resilient arms were around his neck, wild blonde hair was in his face. In her eyes, he saw the terror of what Nick faced. But she didn’t know, not the way Euan did. He breathed in and held her essence in his lungs. In all his imaginings, in all of his plans and counter plans and alternatives, he never envisioned that Nick had been the target all along.

  He should have.

  Wrapped in his embrace was a warrior, a strategist and a scrapper with a stout heart and a resilient mind. She would survive what she had seen, she would endure, not because she was a man. But because she was Kira, a woman.

  The cathartic tears would cease, and his little soldier would appear.

  Then together, side by side, they would save Nick from the predator who had likely planned Nick’s destruction from the first days they had met him.

  Chapter 22

  Euan

  He was on his knees in a deserted car park, his arms wrapped around a woman that had defied every probability of success. The heat created by her body as she pressed against him was in contrast to the intermittent breeze that cooled the sweat on his forehead. There was a restlessness that quivered through his muscles, tainted the blood that thrummed within his veins. Rational thought had vanished, there was nothing in its place. His mind was vacant, unable to process the transition from unadulterated joy, to the black despair that it eclipsed even the pleasure of holding Kira safe, whole and unbroken in his arms.

  It jarred him, shook the underpinnings to his soul. One half of him was secure, sheltered, uninjured. Safe. The other, he could not guess. Parker had Nick. Again. The unknown created its own terrible apprehension inside that gnawed and bit and terrorised.

  The crease between Kira’s brows was pronounced. A single droplet of blood had stained the skin there. He licked the pad of his thumb and smoothed it over the furrow. When he had finished, both the discolouration and the frown were gone. ‘We’ll save him,’ he murmured, the rocks in his stomach settling. ‘Just like before, together we’ll bring him back from whatever they do to him.’

  It echoed words Nick had said to him as Kira had been lost to them in a plume of exhaust. The reminder had him questioning everything. Their hopes, their dreams, their plans of a future together. Would he be forever fighting against hopelessness? Would he always dream of safety, only to constantly battle the effects of violence and torture? Would the walls they built to protect their souls eventually push everything out, including love? Their love?

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t endure another moment of this undefined torment where he prayed to gods he didn’t believe in for a future that seemed impossible to obtain.

  He was sick of it. Sick down to the cement pit of despair that had hardened in his stomach. He would not continue down this path, where the prize for success was the broken pieces of his heart. They would move forward with the original plan and it would soon be over. He would make it so.

  Resolved, he tightened his hold around Kira. She was a slight weight that clung to his larger body. One hand was in the tangled hair at her nape, her skin damp from the physical exertions of being lost and then found. He massaged the tight muscle in defined circles. Round and round, back and forth. It was a rhythm that calmed him, that centred his mind and directed the churn of his thoughts for their next steps.

  Around them, evening was taking hold. The moon was a crescent shape of white light in a cloudy sky. It would leave no illumination for those on the ground. Night time in the wasteland of the warehouses would be pitch black and all-encompassing. It would be perfect for their plans.

  ‘Euan?’ Her voice was soft, a whisper over the thunder in his chest, a splinter of starlight to intimidate the darkness that threatened to smother his heart.

  He tilted his head to look at her, study the features that were branded onto his retina. But he could hardly recognise her soft beauty through the bruises, the swelling, the blood that had dried to stain her skin the colour of rust. Her lip was split, what had leaked from it had dried in rivulets down her throat to be soaked into the neckline of her jacket.

  Parker’s parasites had done this. They had touched her with the single intent to hurt her. For that alone, they would
meet their apathetic gods and beg them for mercy, for Euan would show them none.

  His mouth was full of words he could not voice. His infinite love for her. The rage at her injuries. The despair at the loss of Nicky. The fear of what the man would suffer under Parker’s terror. They choked him, stabbed his throat and tore at his tongue. He couldn’t talk, suddenly, he couldn’t fucking breathe.

  Bloodstained hands were on his bearded cheeks. Kira’s forehead was pressed against his, her soothing murmurs touched warm air to his dry lips.

  His hands glided up her forearms and held tight. She was his anchor in the storm. Her lips were wet when she pressed them to his. He tilted his head to accept the kiss. When her tongue teased his lips, the surge of his own emotion nearly overwhelmed him. He groaned, clutched her, took the offering of her mouth so he could draw more of her essence into his body.

  In his arms, pressed against his chest, she shuddered as her emotion took hold. When a single sob broke from between their lips, his alpha instincts clicked back into place. Kira needed him, she needed his dominance, strength, and direction. She hurt as much as he did. She also feared for the man that they loved. What was worse, she was no longer naïve in knowing the types of horrors that he faced.

  His hands slid from her forearms until they could wrap around her body once again. His muscles stretched the fabric of his sleeves as she buried deep. He brushed his lips over the crown of her head, rested his chin there. In this position, he was able to squeeze her hip bones, the fabric crunching under his palm.

  He would hold her for eternity if he could. But Nick needed him. Them.

  He reluctantly loosened his hold, turned, and waved Knight over. Unseen, their guardian had been a lone sentry that had watched over and protected them as they fought emotions as big as themselves.

  Knight approached and Kira gasped. Euan allowed her to pull herself from his embrace and stumble to her feet. ‘Matthew,’ she cried.

  Legs still weak, she was only able to take two steps before Knight caught her. Strong arms wrapped her close, pulled her against his larger body. Like Euan, he was forced to bend around her so he could whisper words of comfort and celebration in her ear.