Trajen crossed his arms over his chest. “Let them meet. See if they get along.”
He made it sound easy, but Jullien knew better. He also knew better than to argue with the two of them. They invariably won. Trajen because he wouldn’t give in. Ushara because she fought dirty.
Jullien tossed the towel in a bin. “Fine. I don’t want him to do this alone anyway.”
Bastien came out of the shower with a weird feeling in his gut. Something wasn’t right. He didn’t know what, but something in the air had changed.
By the time they were in the North Bay, his skin was crawling as if it were alive.
Was some hidden instinct trying to tell him to forego this trip?
Jullien tried again to get him to stay, at least for the night. “You sure you want to do this? You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
Bastien clapped him on the back. “And you make it tempting. But I have to do this. I owe it to my family.”
“I understand. If you need anything else…”
Bastien cast a playful grin at Ushara. “Really appreciate it, but I won’t take you from your family. They need you more than I do.” He held his hand out to Jullien. “You take care, drey.”
“And you.”
He inclined his head to Ushara, then shook Trajen’s hand.
*
Ember couldn’t breathe as she entered the North Bay. At first, she thought she was hallucinating. But there was no mistaking the man who’d haunted her, night and day, since the first moment she’d first met his reckless hide. That tall, lean, and ripped body that made her mouth water and body hum …
Only one badass warrior stood like that. Cocksure and approachable. Serious and fun-loving. A total contradiction that had to be experienced to be understood.
Tears welled in her eyes as she heard his deep, rumbling cadence of a refined Kirovarian accent. No longer the highly polished aristocrat she’d fallen in love with, this Bastien held an even more dangerous edge to him. One that said he wouldn’t hesitate to take a life. And it wasn’t just the long brown hair with creamy blond highlights he had pulled back from his sculpted face. Or that shadowed jawline that sported a few days’ growth of whiskers—something the polished Bastien of old would never have tolerated.
No, this stranger was more barbarian than visir.
More villain than hero. Damn you to hell.…
*
Suddenly, a voice cut through the bay that left Bastien stunned completely numb.
“Bastien Cabarro … you lousy, worthless piece of human shit!”
No …
The color fled from his cheeks as he stepped away from Trajen and turned to see the absolute last person he’d ever dreamed of seeing again.
Dressed in the Hadean Corps officer uniform that was preferred by the police division of the Tavali Nation, it was Ember.…
And she was as devastating to him today as she’d been the moment he’d first seen her trying to get to her trapped sister. Only thing missing was the smudge of dirt across her cheek and the panic in her fiery green eyes.
He couldn’t breathe as every hormone in his body went into overdrive and left him hard and aching, and completely unable to think straight. She still had that familiar military swagger that was ingrained in any Gyron Force officer. And she stalked toward Bastien like she fully intended to gut him.
With a rusted-out nail file.
Bastien didn’t move or speak. He just stood there, gaping at the slender, auburn-haired Tavali who meant everything to him.
She stopped in front of him, hands on hips. “Have you nothing to say to me?”
Yeah, but he didn’t know where to begin, so he spoke the first idiotic sentence that came to his blood-drained mind. “I thought you were dead?”
Sneering at his answer, she grabbed his jacket and jerked him forward. Instead of racking him, as Bastien fully expected, she gave him a kiss that blistered his lips and left him harder than he’d ever been in his life. Growling, he fisted his hands in her uniform and pulled her closer to him, reveling in her lush curves that fit against his body to absolute perfection. It was as if the gods had created her specifically for him alone. Nothing in the universe could please him more, except finding a private corner so that he could sate the need he had to taste every inch of her.
Wide-eyed, Ushara glanced at Trajen, then Jullien. “I think they know each other.”
With a stifled smile, Jullien ran his thumb over his bottom lip. “Uh, yeah, I’m going to bet on that, too. Either that, or the greetings on Kirovar have vastly improved since the last time I visited.”
His entire body electrified, Bastien finally came up for air. Not that he wanted to. Indeed, his only thought now was stripping her uniform off and showing her exactly how much he’d missed her.
Or better yet, ripping it off with his teeth.