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“Fuck, I thought I lost you.”
“I’m okay.”
He didn’t answer, his big hands cradling my head as he took in what had to be a nasty cut. The backhanded blow had rocked me, but it had really been just a glance. “Where else are you hurt?
“Nate.”
He couldn’t hear me, too focused on pulling at my shirt so he could check my sides, my arms, my hands. “I have to see where you’re hurt, angel. Is it your arm?”
Pretty sure he’s in shock. I tried again. “Nate.”
He shook his head, reaching for my buckle without a thought beyond making sure I was okay. “The others are coming soon. They’ll get us out of here?—”
“Nate.” He finally looked at me then, and I clutched his hand. “He’s dead. Cash is dead.”
“What?” He turned to the corpse beside us and stared at it in confusion. People often thought the nightmare ended when the demon died, but it was more difficult to recognize the end when you’d been trying so hard to survive the middle. The closing of a chapter felt as impossible as flying to the moon in a hot-air balloon.
But when it hit, it was euphoric.
It took Nate touching Cash, feeling for himself that he had no heartbeat, for him to realize it was truly over.
“Cash is dead.” Those three words preceded the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. A laugh crept between Nate’s lips, and he didn’t even try to stifle it. “He’s dead. He’s dead!”
Even with his voice raspy, eyes bloodshot, and a ring of purple creeping around his neck, Nate looked lighter than I’d ever seen him. It was as if his brother’s death had stolen back the weight that hadn’t been his to carry. He looked relieved and resolved and…free.
Nate looked free.
He hauled me into his arms and kissed me until we were both panting for air. “You did it.”
“We did it,” I corrected. “How does it feel?”
“Like I’m a new man.” He nuzzled my nose with his. “Your man.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Good, because I’ve decided I much prefer being a Marcosa to being a Black. You’re stuck with me.” He didn’t let me respond before he wrapped a hand around my neck and took my mouth again.
My body hurt and Nate looked like he was barely upright, but clearly, neither of us cared because we did it again. We smiled and laughed and kissed, and when the frantic calls of our names got louder, I wanted to cry because there they were. My other men. Probably bruised, maybe even broken, but they were alive.
We were alive.
I couldn’t say the same for everyone else, but my family had survived, and that meant everything to me.
“What are we going to do now?” Nate whispered, and I grinned.
The war was over. We’d won.
Now, it was time to live.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Mari
Two weeks later
It still hadn’t hit me that Cash was dead.
We’d hauled his body from the wreckage and had Dr. Grant ensure that there was no coming back, then we’d burned him to ash.
