For the Bond (Romantic Suspense) (Beyond Blood, #3) (15 page)

Losing Jacob.

“Do you promise that you'll never abandon me?” I blurted.

He stiffened, laying the edge of the knife on my skin. “Abandon you?” The seriousness in his voice could have cut me as easily as that blade. “Kite, I would never. I
will never
. What we did tonight... and what we'll always do for each other...” Were his eyes wet? “We're like brothers, right?”

Smiling sideways, my head bobbed. “Yeah. Brothers.” I pushed my palm into the knife, encouraging him. “Blood Brothers, we'll never betray each other.”

“Never,” he agreed, sliding the blade down my skin. Redness pooled, spilling over and to the ground.

Taking the knife, I held his wrist and copied the wound he'd made on me. Neither of us grimaced. We felt too alive, too indestructible, to crumble. “We'll never put each other at risk.”

Jacob pushed his fingers into mine, palms linking, blood mixing. We were connected in a fashion that extended beyond family. “Why do people fight?” he asked me, but it didn't sound like a question.

“Greed,” I said. “Suffering.”

Nodding, he gripped my palm so fiercely his knuckles went pale. “People fight and hurt each other because of jealousy. We'll be different, okay? Let's make a pact.”

The wind felt good on my damp throat. “Our rule...” I thought of that birthday cake, our names sharing the frosting. No greed. No suffering. “We'll share everything. Okay?”

With a new world stretching before us, our lives on a road painted with the tainted brush of murder and sin, Jacob and I shook hands. We wouldn't be like the people who had tormented us. We would take care of each other.

We would share everything.

This was our one rule. This was who we were.

Life had been hard. We'd made a choice we couldn't take back. The murder would weigh heavy on both of us, in different ways. But our bond—it was unbreakable. It was special. No one would ever make us question it.

And if someone learned what we'd done—who we were—they had to die.

No risks. No mistakes.

The bond was all we'd ever had.

Marina

––––––––

“U
ntil now,” Kite said, standing over me on the edge of the bridge. Jacob still held the knife, the tip leveled on my chest. I stared at it. It was hard to see, my tears made everything blurry.

Their story was painful. Kids who had fallen through the cracks and been forgotten. Two young boys who had committed an act so violent, they'd had to abandon their old lives, abandon the capacity to have a normal life.

Boys who'd become men that trusted no one, because no one had ever helped them when they'd reached out for it. They'd been determined to cut a place for themselves in a world that had been so cruel to them. I understood who they were. I was the only one who'd been given a chance to understand.

At age ten, they were already killers. The night in the car with Kite, it scratched at my memory. How he had held his gun to my temple and told me so confidently that I would never be ready to shoot Lars. He'd spoken from experience. If Jacob hadn't stepped in, Kite would have been murdered by his own uncle.
He
would have been the body left in that construction site.

Lifting my head, I stared at the river rushing under us. “It was here,” I whispered. “This was where you killed him.”

“Yes,” Kite said. He was having trouble looking at me.

I wiped my face on my shoulder, sniffling helplessly. “What happened to you guys... it was fucking awful. I'm so sorry.”

Fingers cupped my chin. Jacob rubbed the tears away, staring straight into the centers of my eyes—into my beating heart. “Don't be sorry. That was a long time ago. We didn't tell you the story so you would pity us.”

A twinge went through my chest.
That's why Kite won't look at me.
Glancing at the man where he faced away, his hands buried in his jacket, I understood. “I don't pity you,” I said, desperation making me raspy. Kite twitched, his jaw turning—I could see his profile now. “I just never knew how... how similar we all were.” Dammit, I just kept crying. Speaking was a chore. “I'm sorry for you because—because I'm sorry for me.” The strain in my ribs was at the breaking point. I'd sob if I didn't control myself. “Please... I don't want to die like him.”

Kite spun, a tornado of charcoal and copper. He embraced me roughly, his nose in my hair and his cheek damp. Was it just my tears soaking us? “Idiot,” he hissed at me. “You won't die alone in a hole. That way was for him.
Only
him.”

I couldn't breathe, and not because of how fiercely he held me. Cold metal brushed my wrists. The ropes fell away, my cells tingling as sensation returned. Jacob crouched behind me, his chin on top of my head. “Do you understand what we're offering you?” he asked me.

So many things,
I thought in silent amazement. I couldn't have voiced them all. My lips moved, the single word a cracking wheeze. “Life.”

“More than that,” Jacob whispered. “Beyond life itself.” Gently, he pried Kite off of me. Both men helped me to my feet. Together, they blocked out the moon and the stars. That was fine. To me, they were their own source of light. “Lift your hand.”

The blade was razor-sharp, but it didn't scare me. Nothing compared to what I'd been through. There would be no pain here, only hope. I offered them my palm.

Kite clasped my forearm, Jacob sliced my flesh. It was a burst of heat that shot up my spine. In wonder, I saw my own blood fall to the ground. The same spot these two men had made their pact so long ago.

Flipping the handle towards me, the pocketknife was offered. They weren't smiling, their eyes hard diamonds to reflect the intensity of this moment. Taking the pommel, I cut Jacob's hand, then Kite's. My body was awash with hyper-senses. Shocking chills, fresh air, the scent of our rusty essence. I didn't resist when they took my fingers, our palms caressing, blood mixing.

“Why are you crying?” Jacob asked.

My laugh was fragile on the corners. “I'm just really happy right now. I thought... part of me was sure I was going to die tonight.”

Kite released me. Using a rag from his pocket, he washed my hand—it stung, but I didn't flinch. “I thought you weren't scared of dying?”

I glanced at Jacob.
You're no ghost.
That was what he'd told me when he'd first kissed me. “I wasn't,” I said. “Not until you both gave me something I could actually lose.” Clutching the rag to my chest, I shivered. I couldn't stop, genuine relief had turned my muscles to jelly. “I had nothing. For so long, I just... I didn't care. No one else did, so why should I?” It was hard to see anything. Fuck, the tears were too much. “Then you two changed it. You changed everything for me. I didn't—I
don't
want to die.” Pressure built in my skull. Lifting my chin proudly, I challenged them to deny my words. “I didn't think I could love
anyone,
and here I am... caught up in you two at once.”

“You love us?” Kite's voice was husky. His hand still dripped a pattern of red.

“More than anything,” I said. I held my forehead, spreading bloody smudges and fingerprints from my wound. I was a mess, inside and out. It was their fault, so they should see this for what it was.

I was a woman who had given up everything, faced down death, and then realized that the one thing keeping me going was no longer an urge to kill...

But an urge to be with them.

My potential murderers.

My saviors.

Jacob was a void, closing in on me until I saw just darkness. His lips were sweet, but god, his words were more delicious than anything out there. “You're connected to us, now. This blood bond... it's unbreakable. Our love will last as long as we all breathe.”

My lungs heard him, they filled with air then exhaled with my surprise. Kite had pushed Jacob aside, his own mouth demanding it reach mine. Teeth and redemption, that was his flavor. “I love you, Marina. I'll love you beyond this life. Beyond whatever fucking grave waits for me at the end of everything.”

His promise was ink in my ears, a needle tattooing on my heart. The three of us had been brought together by death. By fury and hatred and vengeance. All of us were damaged, but together, we had become whole.

What a messed up love this was. I wouldn't have changed any of it.

On that river's edge, we sat and listened to the water running. Kite's knuckles, his bold tattoo, I finally grasped the meaning. This river was symbolic to him. It was the place it had all began. Here, Kite and Jacob had plunged down their murderous path. They had done it to escape one life, but it had kept pulling them into the dark depths as they grew older.

Swim, his tattoo proclaimed. If you didn't swim, you would drown. I'd stepped into their lives when they thought they had finally gotten away from here—out of the damn river. It was my fault they'd had to dive back in.

But if I hadn't... I would never have been free.

I wouldn't have gone on living.

They had saved each other, and then in the end, they had saved me.

With their warm bodies on either side of my shoulders, our breathing in sync with the cuts throbbing on our palms, I wondered if maybe... just maybe...

I had saved them, too.

Kite

––––––––

S
hoving the groceries onto the counter, I wiped my brow and sighed. Did this girl really need so much hot cocoa? Screwing up my face, I packed the boxes away, my pretend anger fading. I was beyond happy that I had a reason to buy this stuff. I'd fill my apartment with it, if she only asked.

The bandage on my hand crinkled, shiny in the light of the sun that streamed through my window. It had been a few days since the confrontation on that back road. At times, my heart still bounced rapidly when I thought about how we'd sped after Marina through the night.

Waking, finding her gone and discovering the letter... it had been a blur of decisive moments. Jacob had watched me when I held the paper out to him, stayed silent as I ranted about how stupid she was to hand it to us. I'd paced and raved and cracked my knuckles.

I'd been furious that we were forced to make a choice. The luxury of waiting was over with.

The part I hadn't expected... was Jacob. He'd taken the letter, held it to my stove's burner. With smoke curling, he dropped it in the sink and watched it burn. His words were flat, calm, and they rattled my brain. “We need to hurry. It might be too late.”

With my GPS guiding us, we'd burned rubber. I still didn't know what we were going to do. Hope that I'd torn to pieces had reformed with these rash actions. Jacob was never rash. Something had snapped in him.

The shot he made at Lars when we found him trying to choke her, it had been meant for the man's head. Jacob had planned to kill him, ignoring any promise we'd ever made to Marina. I understood his fury. Seeing her on the ground, struggling under that monster, had driven me mad. It was good for her I didn't have a useful weapon. Lars would have been stuffed with lead.

She deserved her right to exact revenge, in the end.

When we'd stood on the scene after that, her body tied in Jacob's trunk, he'd taken me by the hand. His grip was tight, brutal. The challenge in his face mirrored mine from that fateful morning, the time I'd sparred with him and stood up for Marina's life.

“She saved me,” he said, never breaking eye contact. “That bold, amazing woman... even if she broke her promise and failed our test... she saved my future. Our future. She didn't have to, that day in the club. She could have let me get found out, revealed I was a fraud. But she fucking
didn't
.” His forearm was bulging under his sleeve. He was bordering on crazed. “How can we sentence her to death after everything she's done to us, and for us?”

The buzzing in my head became a raging hurricane. Crushing his palm, I yanked him in and hugged him roughly. “You really want to save her?” I asked, willing my voice not to shake.

“Yes. I really do.”

While she struggled in the car, thinking her path was leading to her death, I met my best friend's stare and nodded. “Guess we better clean this shit up, then. What's the point in letting her live if the cops put us all in jail later?”

Speaking of which, it had been a hell of a scene. Lars had gotten his hands in Marina's hair, she'd cut him with his own hatchet and put a bullet in his brain. If we left him there on the road, it would have been a beacon to investigate.

With Marina in Jacob's trunk, we wrapped Lars tight in a plastic sheet and threw him and the ax into mine. His car we drove into the bushes, turning it off and leaving it to be discovered.

His body? Well, of course it couldn't ever be found. DNA, mistakes, you know the drill. That same night, before the sun rose, the three of us took him to the bar and repeated what had been done to Culver. It had been the right move. So far, there'd been no word in the news about Lars going missing. Eventually, we knew it'd come up. I doubted we'd ever be in the spotlight as suspects.

We hadn't asked Marina to help with the disposal. Amazingly, she'd insisted. That woman was stronger than any of us.

Strong. What a word. It had been a challenge for me to expose Marina to my past. My old life, my childhood, was the most vulnerable and hated part of me. Telling my story had left me hollow. But she had to know.

It was the only way.

Now, standing at my window, I made a fist. Two scars, old and new. One bond strong enough to defy logic and life. This wasn't the future I had dreamed of, but now, I couldn't remember anything else. Nothing was as right as what we shared.

Marina had been the one thing missing from my existence.

Finally... I had a purpose again.

––––––––

S
he stood with her back to me, a vision of ethereal beauty in a fitting setting. The graveyard was blossoming, green with the coming spring. Marina's hair was down, blowing in the breeze in lazy curls. I was filled with the desire to wrap my hands in it, brush it over my cheeks as I listened to her breathe.