Red Awakening (Red Zone 2)

The sound of the door closing after them seemed ominous. And still, Keiko stood frozen, staring at Mace. He was alive. Healthy. Larger than life. And for the first time since they’d met, she didn’t know what to do with him.

Mace didn’t seem to have the same problem. “Princess, get over here,” he ordered.

Keiko didn’t move. “You nearly died.”

It was an accusation, and he heard it as such. “I’m sorry. Now get over here.”

Like it would be that easy. “You can’t drag me into this freaky world of yours and leave me alone in it.”

“I know. I won’t do it again.”

Her heart fluttered at his words. “You’d better not.”

“If you don’t come over here, I’m coming over there.”

And then her heart started to pound loud enough for her to hear. “We have things we need to discuss.”

He was on his feet, prowling toward her, his gaze so hot it made her melt. “We can talk after.”

“Mace…” Anything she had to say was lost as he stood in front of her. Her massive Viking of a man, rippling with strength and power, seemingly indestructible.

Slowly, gently, he reached out to cup her cheeks. “Thought I’d lost you,” he whispered. “Said goodbye in my head while I watched you shoot your way across the terrace, running to get to me when you should have been running away. I told you everything when I was sure I was dying. And now that I know I’m gonna live, I need to tell you again, making sure you hear me this time. I love you, Keiko Sato. I love everything about you.”

“Mace,” she whispered as she drowned in the depth of emotion in his eyes.

“I want you to stay with me, baby, to spend your life with me. I can’t promise you an easy life, but I can promise that I will love you through every minute of it. You know everything there is to know about me. I don’t belong in this time, and I doubt I ever will. I’m an outlaw without a country. And because of my weird-ass DNA, I don’t know what the future will hold. In all honesty, I’ve got nothing but negative prospects to offer you, and yet I’m still asking you to stay. I’ll beg, if that’s what it takes. Because I don’t want to deal with this new world without you.”

Keiko sniffed back tears that threatened. “How am I supposed to tell you no when you say things like that?”

His thumb gently stroked over her bottom lip. “Were you planning on saying no?”

“That’s not the point. I have things I need to shout at you about.”

His lips twitched. “Can you tell me that you love me first, and that you’re going to stay with me, because I’m kind of hanging here?”

Reaching up, Keiko wrapped her arms around his neck. Instantly, Mace grasped her hips and lifted her, allowing her to wrap her legs around him. As he pressed her against the cool, hard wall, she ran her fingers through the overgrown hair she loved. Just like she loved the man.

“You’d better not disappoint me, Mace Armstrong,” she ordered.

“I wouldn’t dare.” His smile was devastating. “I have it on good authority that you know kung fu.”

Now that was just cheeky. She bent her head and bit his chest, hard.

“Hey.” He tugged her hair to angle her head back. “What was that for?”

“For sassing me and to even things out.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Seems I have a bite mark, too. One your bat planted on me when we were in Houston.”

“Oh, that.” His cheeks turned pink. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t notice that before I woke up.”

“Which means you already knew about it.” Something she’d guessed after putting two and two together over his strange reaction in the communications room when he’d first explained about his bat.

“To be fair,” he said. “If you’re going to be mad at someone, it should be the bat. It wasn’t my idea to bite you.”

She tried to frown at him, which was hard because she was wrapped around him, feeling all those wonderful muscles, hot against her. “That’s a convenient argument. I thought you were one entity. Something new. A hybrid. Your bat bit me and infected me. Which means you’re both to blame. And now my genes are changing, and Friday is treating me like her own personal lab rat. I don’t think I like Friday very much.”

“Welcome to the club,” he muttered. “What did Friday say?”

And this was the part that made her stomach clench and her need to hyperventilate go into overdrive. “She thinks the same thing is happening to me that happened to her. She thinks I’m becoming half bat, that I’ll have an animal to match yours.”