Matt waited for her to exit the car and took her hand before he led her, angled behind his wide shoulders, toward the cabin. This moment right here was completely surreal. Her legs were floating across the grass and wild flowers. Pink and orange and yellow. And Red. Grass dyed crimson. Burgundy speckles on the delicate petals, and little by little Matt’s grip tightened around her hand until it should’ve hurt. Her bones ground together, but she couldn’t feel anything. There was blood on the toes of her boots, glossy red on matte black.
A man met them at the door, startling her to a stop on the porch, her legs splayed over a dark smear. He was tall and lean. Black hair gone silver at the temples with dark eyes and a young face. He wore dark gray dress pants and a button-up white collared shirt. Red on white. Red on his hands as he wiped them over and over with a ruined washcloth.
“Damon,” Matt said in a choked voice. “Where is he?”
“He needs time.”
“Does he live?”
Damon nodded his chin once. “There were three of them.”
“Fuck.” Matt’s voice shook. “Bodies?”
Damon’s lips turned up in a thin, wry smile. “Gone. Is this her? Mate of the Kong?”
Matt pulled Layla from behind and pushed her in front of him, hands clamped tightly around her shoulders. “This is Layla.”
Damon studied her with black, bottomless eyes that would miss nothing. At last, he placed his hands behind his back and bowed slightly. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
“The honor is mine,” she whispered. Damon Daye, owner of the mountains, protector of the shifters. The last immortal dragon if rumors were true. And apparently, he’d had a hand in helping Kong. “Can I see him?”
Damon looked troubled, but stepped aside to let her pass. She followed the red to an open door. There was a hand print smeared onto the white paint, and a phone lay on the wooden floor. The screen of the discarded cell phone was covered in sticky fingerprints.
Kong lay on his side in the bed, skin clean but covered in stitches. His chest rose and fell slowly, a soft rattling sound ending each breath. He cracked his eyes open. Green and inhuman. Beautiful. Layla covered her mouth with her hands, and her shoulders shook with the relieved sob that wrenched from her throat. He was alive. Barely, but it counted.
“You stitched him?” Matt asked low.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Damon said. “He’d lost too much blood by the time I got to him, and he wasn’t healing like he should’ve been. He was wide open—”
A long rattling growl sounded from Kong as he blinked and dragged a warning gaze to Damon.
Damon cleared his throat. “Come on, Matt. Let’s give them a moment.”
The sound of scuffling shoes faded away as she approached the bed. Kneeling beside him, she held his hand. “You silly monkey, what have you done?” Her voice was nothing but a wisp of air as she smiled at him through her tears.
“Mac is avenged,” he said hoarsely. “Rhett’s dead.”
“Damon said there were three.”
“Fiona sent the silverbacks that had broken me.”
“Kong,” she whispered in horror, her heart aching for him.
“It’s over now.” He squeezed her hand in a much stronger grip than she’d expected. “I’m not leaving you, Layla. I’m here now, in this. I’ll fight for us. I’m going to keep you safe.”
Layla’s face crumpled as she nuzzled her cheek against his hand. “You scared me last night. I thought…I thought I lost you, too.”
He grunted an inhuman sound and gripped the back of her neck. Pulling gently, he guided her onto the bed next to him. Fists curled in against his chest, she lay her head in the cradle of his arm.
“I have this vision of us now,” he whispered against her ear. “I imagine you holding our firstborn. I imagine you laughing and looking at me just like you were looking at me now. Like I’m everything. You’re all the family I need, Layla.” He let his lips linger on her cheek. “I love you more than my own life. I’m not going anywhere.”
As another tear slipped from the corner of her eye and dampened the pillow underneath, she smiled and relaxed against him. She wouldn’t deal with Mac’s loss alone. Kong would be here until she was strong again.
He’d chosen her.
He loved her.
He’d sacrificed himself for her.
Layla pressed her hand over his heartbeat, thrumming steady and strong—a song that was pivotal to her existence now.
No matter what came after this, they would face it together.
Chapter Twelve
There was a break in the rain just long enough for Mac’s funeral. Layla lifted her eyes to the sunrays coming down on the valley beyond the cemetery and smiled. Maybe that was Mac, telling her that he was with his Gloria again, and that everything would be okay.