Here she is, safe and sound, nestled into him, her fingers curled into his sweater, her warmth melting into him beneath the trapped heat of the duvet.
He surrenders entirely to the wonder of her. The more he feels her, the more he drifts into a state of pure,
unbroken bliss. His Angel, infinite and unfathomable.
At the same time, she is achingly familiar to him, more than he is to himself, as though their souls have always known, always waited, until they are bound as one,
becoming a love that breathes, deep and eternal.
She stirs against him, her breathing slow and even.
He brushes a kiss into her hair, pulling her deeper into his arms, his eyelids weighted with sleep.
Even then, he forces himself to remain awake, watchful, until dawn carries them far from here.
Fire crackles in the hearth, the snow muffling the gale outside, while worry tightens his chest.
She had such an abundance of dreams and hopes to realise, from wanting to host a holiday dinner for her friends,
achieve excellent results in her exams, writing poetry, and all the wedding preparations she had already begun to imagine with the blessings of her family.
On his side, though, there is no one. No friends or family.
Except Elk, his superior, the head of the Erriador Intelligence Services, and his late father's friend.
A man of few words, distant by nature, yet the middle-aged man tried to show up in his own way when his father died and he was only sixteen.
He doubts he's close enough to Elk for him to shirk a few hours of his schedule to attend a wedding, unmarried in his mid-fifties and wholly given to work.
He rubs the silk of her hair between his thumb and forefinger, unease creeping in as his thoughts drift back to the bizarre connection Sam Ishmael, who is also known as Raka, had spoken of.
Childhood friends, a grandfather who raised them together on an island, until she was gone. Was it?
Perhaps he mistook Neva for someone else. If he did, and the misunderstanding became evident, the circumstances wouldn't be as bad as he thought.
He's afraid he can't do more to guarantee the safety of his own fiancee, especially when Sam Ishmael is a kingpin with a name feared in the underworld, yet a powerful, respectable businessman to the world.
The stateless man has come onto the agency's radar through financial intelligence, criminal networks, and connections with influential people, but they haven't established the full extent of his operations. Hence, he isn't regarded as a direct national-security threat.
For now, he would have his most trusted agents investigate Raka, since there's nothing substantial enough to warrant EIS's intervention. Whatever he wants from her, he will deal with him himself.
Yet his spine stiffens at the memory of the line cutting off in a rush of noises, her terrified cry the last
thing he heard. He had been at the maintenance store then, dealing with a client dissatisfied with the
work, yet vague and unhelpful, turning everything into a matter of budget instead. It had been such a trivial matter, and it nearly cost him his Angel.
"Rhett..." Her soft, sleepy voice draws him back.
Drawing him back to the realisation that the dreadful silence has passed, that endless shadow of breathlessness in her absence. But just as his mind began fraying with fear and helplessness, he turned to God, asked Him for help, and prayed, operating
on pure adrenaline and the distilled instincts of an agent, until He finally brought her back into his arms.
He hadn't experienced anything so harrowing as seeing the lost footage Sky had recovered, in which his Angel had been unconsciously carried away by Ishmael and into a black Rolls-Royce.
He never wants to go through that again. Never.
"Yes, Angel?" he says, breathing in her familiar, sweet, delicate rose scent.
"You haven't slept..." Her voice fades, as if drifting in and out of sleep.
"I couldn't," he replies.
Drowsily, she tilts her chin, meeting his eyes, the luminous intensity in those starry cosmos soothing him, even as it kindles something fierce within him.
Her gaze follows the path of her fingers as they trail across his lips and down his chin.
Her eyes lift once more. "It's going to be fine."
He lifts her hand, brushing a lingering kiss across her fingers, praying it will be so.
"What time is it?" she murmurs, and a sudden emptiness seeps inside him as she shifts away to reach for his phone on the nightstand.
"It's almost five in the morning." Yawning like a kitten, she sets it back beside a vase, the screen going
dark before he pulls her into him almost immediately, holding her close as she settles against him.
"Where do we go from here?" she asks softly, a finger lazily stroking against his chest.
"Somewhere far," he murmurs. "Somewhere safe."
She sinks into quiet again, a lingering guilt for something he knows isn't her fault, something beyond her control.
He presses his cheek into her hair, holding her tighter, a silent reassurance: he's here,
he's got her, and none of this guilt belongs to her.
A sigh slips from her. "I hope we could settle somewhere in the countryside."
"A countryside?" he echoes.
"Mmhm," she answers.
"And what exactly are we doing in a countryside?" A playful lilt colours his voice.
"We'll get married," she whispers.
"And?" His fingers thread through the mellow, loose curls of her hair, gently easing out the knots.
"We'll live in a beautiful cottage," she continues, her voice drawn into a reverie.
"Maybe have a little garden."
"And?"
"We'll love and serve God and each other."
"And?"
"And a happily ever after."
"And?" he presses, still teasing.
He lets out a chuckle as she huffs.
"You tell me."
She tilts her chin against him, her eyes glinting with heartwarming excitement. "What's your plan for us?"
"Mine's very simple," he says quietly. "We'll get married, and settle into a beautiful cottage."
"And?" A teasing smile tugs at her lips.
"And... I'll make love to you until everything falls away," he says,
his breath deepening. "Until nothing remains but us."
A flush of pink colors her cheeks, her heart beating faster against him.
And the realization shudders through him: how close she is to him, her soft warmth is pressed against him.
With her, sheer willpower fails to tame the heat, the unguarded wildness that unravels inside him. All his life, he has remained careful, controlled, disciplined against the destructive habits the world lays in wait.
But with his fiancée, it is as though red poppies grow over the war-torn fields within him. And as much as the substances derived from them could be marvelously restorative, they can still cause terrible destruction if he allows himself to cross the line.
Only God can root him to any semblance of sanity.
For he is utterly, irrevocably in love with her, so protective, and so fiercely possessive of her.
"And?" she whispers, nestled against his chest.
"And…" he draws it out, and she looks up at him with adorable curiosity. "We will..." he starts, then stops as a low rumble of engines build in a distance.
She frowns as he sits up immediately, every muscle tensing within him.
He doesn't have to explain. She goes still beside him. The predatory growl rises louder, the air between them thickening, dark and heavy, like a storm nearing, about to break anything on its way.
His hand slips beneath the pillow, closing around the SIG.
A quick glance outside the window reveals headlights slicing through the dense blue fog and darkness of early dawn.
Neva is already moving, hurriedly putting on her dried clothes.
His own weapons settle into place before he pulls on his jacket and boots. When he turns, her composure slips as her trembling fingers fumble with her laces.
"Come on," Rhett says as she stands, her hand locked in his as they head for the door, and towards the rear of the inn, which leads to the parking lot, the ground vibrating beneath the approaching convoy.
They've found them.
But they won't reach them.
Not while he's alive.