Page 150 of The Rut in the Road

I still wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say, so I stayed silent.

“I let my worries take over, and I didn’t see how much strength you have. How much power. How much ability.” He raised that golden-brown gaze and stared into my eyes, his own somehow impossibly deep. “I’m still terrified,” he whispered. “Because I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you. But what you’re capable of…” He trailed off. Took a hesitant step towards me. “I’m in awe.”

I swallowed, struggling to keep myself under control.

“I’m still going to worry,” he said softly. “And, if I’m honest, I’m going to worry whether you’re willing to give me another chance or not. Because I do love you, and that’s not going to stop just because I’m fucking stupid enough to have ruined this.” He closed his eyes again, took a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to give me another chance. At least not now, because I—I really fucked up. But I needed you to know. That I know I was wrong. I was selfish and overprotective… and I’m sorry.” He nodded once, eyes on the floor. “So, thank you for listening.”

And then he turned.

“Raj.” I don’t remember deciding to say his name.

He froze, far more still than I could ever have been.

“Stay,” I whispered.

Only a shifter could have heard me.

And he did.

I barely had time to blink before I was in his arms, his lips on mine, my body melting into the heat of his. Then he pulled back, his expression chagrined. “I—I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “You didn’t say?—”

I grabbed his face with both hands, awkward as that was with my cast, and kissed him back, and those big, warm hands wrapped around me, pulling me against him.

He pulled back again. “Rayn,” he whispered, nuzzling against my neck. “Jaanu.”

“What does that mean?” I asked him, breathless. He pulled back, looking at me.

His lips twitched. “My love,” he replied, his voice soft and low. He ran his fingers around the edge of my face, brushing back locks of hair, touching my features as though trying to reassure himself that I was real. “I—are you willing to give me another chance?”

I nodded.

He pulled me close, burying his face in the side of my neck, breathing deeply. “I promise,” he murmured into my skin. “I trust you. I believe in you. I love you.”

I rested my cheek against his soft hair, wanting so desperately to believe him. “I love you,” I whispered back, my arms around his shoulders.

This time, I wasn’t going to let go.

EPILOGUE

They would become martyrs.She could see that now. The dead were rising from their graves, just as the scriptures said would happen in the End Times. She would not leave this room alive, but she trusted that God would raise her up to His bosom.

She closed her eyes, waiting. She knew that the others would continue the work. Their brothers and sisters they had never met from other congregations, in other places. They would see what had happened here, and they would rise up.

They would continue the purge.

Starting with the senator who kept trying to bring the monsters into society. Who kept trying to pretend that they were anything other than demons.

He would have to die, she knew that.

She knew, too, that his soul would not trouble hers. That the only place he was going was full of fire and the screams of the damned.

She would be among the blessed.

They all would.

I set the cross,the chain broken, back down on the paper towel Raj had put on the table. I’d stayed silent as I’d read the thoughts in the cross, uncertain of what I would find. Now I looked up at him. “This is part of a larger movement,” I said softly, and he nodded. “Do you know who’s behind it?” I asked him.

“I wish we knew,” he replied, his voice low and serious. “What we do know is that whoever was bankrolling the Church of Holy Judgment is also tied up with the MFM.”