Singe (Guardian Protection #1)

No way.

But the possibility of him being there enabled me to keep holding on.

Pete kept his fight up, trying to forcefully remove my hands from his shirt.

And I kept mine up, my fingers becoming numb from squeezing so tight.

My pulse skyrocketed as I caught sight of the figment of my imagination swiftly lowering himself and then dropping to his feet beside us onto the balcony.

“What the fuck…” was all Pete got out before he suddenly disappeared.

I saw it happen, yet I still couldn’t believe it.

Jude grabbed my arm at the same time he wrapped his bicep around Pete’s neck. The ground reappeared beneath my feet as Jude swept his leg out, sending Pete crashing down hard.

I couldn’t move.

I wasn’t even sure I was breathing when Jude shoved a knee into his back and twisted Pete’s arm behind him.

It felt like a dream, whispers of details my brain had made up as I plummeted to my death.

This was proven when I heard a loud bang and looked up. The broken door swung open and Apollo stormed in with Johnson, Alex, and Lark—and they weren’t even carrying his lifeless body.

Definitely not real.

“Oh God,” I cried, sinking down to the ground and wrapping my arms around my legs. “I’m dead.”

Johnson moved straight to Pete and lifted him off the ground only to slam him back down.

Jude’s muscular body suddenly filled my vision as he squatted in front of me. “Rhion,” he whispered.

Tears streamed down my face and off my chin as I looked up at him. “Are…” I croaked. After clearing my throat, I finished with, “Are you real?”

A slow smile pulled at his lips as he replied, “I am. And so are you, my beautiful Butterfly.”

A sob tore from my throat. “Oh God, you’re not. The real Jude would never say that.”

He chuckled and dragged me into his arms. “He does now.”

I blinked.

And then blinked again.

But he never disappeared.

“This can’t be real,” I whispered against his neck.

“It’s real, Rhion,” he replied with a tight squeeze.

“It has to be a dream. Pete just tried to kill me. Apollo is here and he has hasn’t tried to kill me. And you appeared out of thin air on a roof seconds before I fell. This definitely isn’t real, Jude.”

His arms spasmed around me as he breathed in deeply, his chest expanding between us to bring our upper bodies flush.

And then Jude proved he was better than any version of him I could ever write.

“I only said it was real, Butterfly. I never said it wasn’t a dream.”





“You son of a bitch!” Rhion screamed as she dove across the Guardian dining room table after her brother.

“Little help, guys?” Apollo called out as most of the crew stood around watching them, a smile on our faces.

Mine was a mask for the emotional upheaval going on in my chest, and I suspected that Johnson’s was too. My pulse had slowed and the adrenaline was ebbing from my system, but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to calm down again.

I’d never forget seeing her on the ledge the night of the fire. It had haunted me for years.

But the moment I had seen her on that balcony, so perilously close to going over, I had known that, if she fell, I’d never be able to close my eyes again.

Not to blink, and certainly not to sleep.

If she fell, I was going down with her.

Luckily—or, as Rhion liked to say, as fate would have it—I’d gotten there in time.

But having saved her didn’t feel like redemption for the night of the fire.

Not all scars faded with time.

During that brief second when I’d stared down at her, my Butterfly fighting a monster off, I’d finally realized that not all scars were bad.

Without mine, I never would have met her.

That crazy, crazy woman who had lit my life up in a million shades of vibrant color.

And, for that alone, the moment I’d gotten her safe, I’d made my peace with the past.

“I did it for you!” Apollo yelled, dodging Rhion’s tiny flying fists.

“You scared the shit out of me for two damn years.”

“Yes, and it was time consuming. I’m looking forward to a vacation.”

It could be said that either Apollo had a death wish or he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the Park family box, because he’d been goading Rhion for over twenty minutes with shit like that.

But, if his wide grin or her twitching lips were any indication, it was only pent-up sibling torment they needed to work out of their systems.

“Gah!” she huffed, diving back after him.

Shaking my head, I looped an arm around her hips and lifted her off her feet. “Okay, Ronda Rousey. It’s been a long day. Let’s save the fight club for another night.”

She turned her angry scowl on me, but when I smirked and arched an eyebrow, it transformed into a glowing smile.

After the police had hauled Pete off, an ambulance had come for Rhion.

We had no idea what kind of drugs Pete had given her, and while she seemed to be snapping out of it, I wasn’t taking any chances. Bruises covered her body, and it terrified me to think of what could have been going on inside. A few-dozen blood tests later, she was given a clean bill of health and we were on our way before the sun had set. Apollo was waiting for us at Guardian, and while I wanted to lock her away in her apartment for a month, Rhion wanted to talk to her brother.

It wasn’t an easy conversation for anyone, and Apollo asked if they could talk in private, but there was no fucking way I was leaving her side. Good guy or bad—I didn’t trust anyone with Rhion anymore.

Rhion cried as he recounted the things Pete had done to him as a kid. I didn’t even know Apollo, but it was all I could not to drive down to the jail and destroy Peter Higgins.

“Tell Apollo goodnight and let’s go home,” I ordered.

“Fine,” she said to me before swinging a glare to her brother. “But this is not over.”

He shrugged and then looked around the room. “Anyone want to go for a beer?”

Johnson took a step toward him, cupped him on the shoulder, and gave him a hard shove toward the door. “I wouldn’t press your luck, kid. Just because none of us have decapitated you doesn’t mean we don’t still have the thirst for your blood.”

Rhion giggled as Johnson hauled him to the door, but before they made it out, she called out, “Thanks, Apollo.”

His smile widened, but his eyes filled with regret. “Anything for you, Rhion.”

Her body sagged as she pressed into my side, never tearing her gaze off his back until the door had closed behind him.

“You okay?” I murmured into the top of her hair.

“Surreal,” she whispered back.

And right then, four years after the night that had nearly ruined us both, with her tucked in my arms, an entire future ahead of us, I couldn’t say she was wrong.





Two years later…