She winced and closed her eyes, a miserable sound curling up from her throat.
Jehan couldn’t bear another second of her torment. He had to act. He had one chance to end this, but he couldn’t do it without her total faith in him.
“Seraphina.” He spoke her name softly, reverently. Hoping she could hear how much she meant to him. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
Her eyes opened and found his gaze through the dark.
He couldn’t say the words out loud without betraying his plan, but he needed her to understand. He needed her to trust him.
Do you trust me, Seraphina?
He said it with his eyes. With his heart.
Trust me, baby. Please...
She gave him a nearly imperceptible nod.
It was enough. It was all the permission he needed.
Moving with every ounce of Breed agility and speed he possessed, Jehan reached around to his back and pulled out the dagger he’d stashed there. He let it fly from his fingertips.
An instant later, Karsten Hemmings dropped to the ground, Jehan’s blade protruding from the space between his wide-open eyes.
Jehan ran to Seraphina and pulled her into his arms.
In that moment, nothing else mattered.
Not Karsten Hemmings. Not the Jeep full of UV grenades, or Opus Nostrum.
Not even the Order mattered as he drew Seraphina close and kissed her with all the relief and emotion—all the love—he felt for her.
He stroked her beautiful face and stared down into the soft brown eyes that now owned his heart and his soul. “Come on,” he said, drawing her under the protection of his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 13
Sera was still numb with shock and disbelief several hours later, after Jehan had driven them back to the villa.
Karsten’s betrayal cut deep. That he had used her to free up the supplies containing his hidden cargo was bad enough. But the idea that greed and hatred had poisoned his humanity so much that he was willing to kill—willing to traffic in weaponry designed for the wholesale slaughter of the Breed—was unthinkable. It was unforgivable.
Countless innocent lives were saved today, now that the UV grenades had been diverted from their buyer and stowed safely inside the villa.
As for Karsten and Massoud, when the other camp workers and residents came upon the scene and heard what the two men had been up to, there had been no shortage of volunteers offering to dispose of their bodies in the desert so that Sera and Jehan could get on the road as quickly as possible to beat the sunrise.
Sera had considered Karsten a friend for years, but there wasn’t any part of her that mourned his death today even for a second. If not for Jehan’s quick thinking and speed with his blade, she had no doubt that Karsten would have killed her.
He had almost killed Jehan too.
The terror she’d felt at that possibility had nearly gutted her as she’d stood helplessly in Karsten’s grasp. Even now, the reality of how close she’d come to losing Jehan left her physically and emotionally shaken.
But he was alive.
Because of his warrior skills, they both were alive.
“Are you all right, Sera?” His deep, caring voice wrapped around her as they stood inside the villa together. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
She shook her head but couldn’t keep from moving into the shelter of his arms. This was all she needed. His warmth enveloping her. His strong heartbeat pounding steadily against her ear as she rested her head on his muscled chest. She just needed...him.
“You should call your brother,” she murmured. Marcel had left two messages on her phone in the past couple of hours, asking them to contact him as soon as possible. “We should let him know we’ve returned, at least so he can stop worrying that we’re going to break the pact.”
Jehan’s chest rumbled with a sound of disregard. “I should call the Order too, and tell them what I’ll be bringing back to Rome with me in a few nights. But my brother and everyone else can wait. The only thing I’m concerned about right now is you.”
He pulled back and looked at her, a dark storm brewing in the pale blue of his eyes. When he lifted her chin and took her mouth in a slow, savoring kiss, it was easy to imagine that what she saw in his gaze—what she felt in his embrace and in his tender kiss—was something deeper than concern or simple affection.
It was easy to imagine it might be love.
“You’re trembling, Seraphina.” He reached out to caress her face and shoulder. “And you’re cold too. Come on. Let me take care of you.”
Maybe Leila had been right—that there was some brand of magic at work when it came to the pact between their families. Sera could almost believe it now because with Jehan leading her through the villa, his fingers laced with hers, it was far too easy to imagine that everything they shared since entering the handfast was somehow paving a path toward a future together. A future that might just last an eternity.
She hadn’t missed his reference to the life waiting for him at the end of the handfast. She couldn’t pretend that her own life wasn’t waiting for her too.
But for the next few nights, she wasn’t going to let reality intrude.
Jehan brought her into the cavernous bathing room with its towering marble columns and steaming, spring-fed bath the size of a swimming pool. He sat her down on the edge, then crouched down in front of her to remove her shoes. The soft leather flats were caked with sand and spattered with Karsten’s dried blood. Jehan hissed a low curse as he set them aside.
When he lifted his head to meet her gaze, there was doubt in his eyes. “Can you forgive me, Sera?”