Shattered (The Protectors 11)

I felt Jace nodding against me. He tucked me back against his body. “Thank God I found you,” he whispered. “Can’t ever lose you.”

I wanted to comfort him, because I’d never heard him sound so broken, not even when he’d learned of his sister’s death, but I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. “How… how find me?” I mumbled.

I felt Jace reach down my body. He placed something in my hand, but it took me a second to figure out what it was.

It was Aleks’s bracelet. His tracking bracelet.

“How?” I asked.

“He put it in your pocket,” Jace explained. I remembered the moment where Aleks had grabbed a hold of my pants. I’d thought it’d been so he could stop me, but he’d been trying to give me the bracelet instead. If he hadn’t managed to stick it into my pocket…

I was too tired to try to make sense of anything else. Willa was safe. Aleks was safe.

And Jace was here.

As far as I was concerned, life was fucking perfect.

Epilogue

Jace

Six Months Later

“God, it’s cold,” I muttered.

“Watch your step,” Caleb responded.

“You know this is crazy, right?” I asked. “It will still be a surprise if you take this thing off now.”

“Not yet,” Caleb said as he reached for the hand I was touching the blindfold with. “Just a little longer. Please?”

“Fine,” I said. “But for future reference, I hate the cold. And surprises.”

“Noted,” Caleb said.

I listened as Caleb told me when to step. There weren’t too many steps leading from the body of the plane to the ground, but it was still off-putting, since I couldn’t see for shit through the piece of fabric Caleb had wrapped around my eyes.

The whole thing had started this morning when Caleb had woken me up with what he’d called my birthday morning blow job. Since he’d added the morning part in, I’d assumed, well, hoped, actually, that there’d be more coming throughout the day. Breakfast in bed had been next, along with a strict order for me to stay in bed while Caleb took Willa to Mav and Eli’s house for the day.

I’d hoped that his return would lead to blowjob number two followed by a marathon of all-day sex, but no such luck.

As soon as he’d gotten back to our house, he’d pulled an already packed suitcase out of our closet and had told me to get dressed.

I’d been in the dark since then, both figuratively and now, literally.

No matter how much cajoling I’d done in the car, Caleb hadn’t spoken a word about our destination.

Which had ended up being an airstrip just south of the city.

I hadn’t had to wear the blindfold on the plane, but Caleb had closed all the window shades so I couldn’t look outside, and the pilots hadn’t mentioned our destination even once. However, I had gotten blowjob number two in the small bedroom at the back of the plane. I’d gotten a lot more than that, actually.

To say that Caleb had embraced his sexual awakening was an understatement. Admittedly, we’d had some rough spots as he’d recovered from Rush’s attack, but we’d taken things slow and eventually Caleb had been able to put the terrifying encounter behind him.

Me, not so much.

There were still days when I didn’t want to let Caleb or Willa out of the house, despite the threat to Caleb being truly gone now. Ronan, Dante, and I had killed all the men waiting outside the warehouse and Rush had bled out within a minute of Caleb stabbing him. Caleb had only had to spend one night in the hospital, but I’d kept him in bed for several days after that. Eli and Mav had returned from their honeymoon early, despite Caleb’s protests. When Eli had asked Caleb if he would have been able to stay away if the situation had been reversed, Caleb had promptly shut up and hugged his brother and told him he was okay.

As the trauma had faded, Caleb and I had settled into a new normal. We’d found a house that was near Mav and Eli’s that gave us some room to grow into. It was also close to the university where Caleb had enrolled for the fall semester after getting his GED. Willa had become the light of our lives and we reveled in every milestone she hit. We were eagerly awaiting her first words, which each of us were equally sure would be our respective titles.

Dada for Caleb and Papa for me.

The only checkbox I had left to tick off was getting my ring on Caleb’s finger – something that would be a lot easier now that I’d finally found the perfect one.

And fortunately, I’d had the sense to grab it from my dresser drawer right before Caleb had dragged me out the door. Even now, I could feel the weight of it in my pocket.