Page 106 of Reluctant Rebel

Jinx laughed, winking over her shoulder as she sauntered into the hidden room. “I’m a woman of many depths.”

A growl rumbled in his chest as his gaze lasered onto her butt. “I’m aware.”

All further sexual innuendos fell to the wayside when he finally took in his surroundings. When Jinx mentioned having a weapons stash, he didn’t know what to expect. Perhaps a small arsenal in a locked cabinet or a few choice pieces in a wall safe. But the sight that greeted him as he followed her into the room left him momentarily speechless. It was a veritable arsenal.

“What do you think?” Jinx asked, spinning around in the centre of the room.

“I think we need to come back here so I can fuck you amongst all these weapons.” The husky words tumbled out without conscious thought, but he didn’t take them back.

Jinx sputtered out a laugh, her eyes sparkling with a mix of amusement and disbelief. “What? This is seriously turning you on?”

Mikhail thought about it for a moment. His dick was painfully and irrationally hard, and he shifted uncomfortably. “It is. How odd,” he added, almost as if he were a scientist observing an unexpected result in an experiment.

Jinx raised an eyebrow, a playful smirk tugging at her lips. “I don’t mind a little oddness.”

Mikhail reeled her in, tipping her face up. “That’s a good thing, considering you’re stuck with me for life.”

“For life, huh?” she repeated as if assessing the weight of the words. “I can live with that,” she decided, her lips close to his.

When Mikhail leaned in, she met him halfway, their kiss lingering and tender. When she tucked her head into the crook of his neck, the warmth of her breath on his skin sent a shiver down his spine. He closed his eyes, savouring the moment. How many kisses like this would they share? A thousand? Ten thousand? The thought of an infinite number of such moments made his heart happy.

Reluctantly, he released her, patting her arse. “Go on. Grab your exceedingly illegal toys. We can’t linger. And if I keep kissing you, you’ll be stripped and screaming my name in minutes.”

“My, someone has a high opinion of himself,” Jinx said with a chuckle. But she began gathering items. When she hesitated, Mikhail asked her if she was okay. She picked up a rather innocuous dagger. “This is the blade that killed my owner.”

He froze. “What?”

She turned it over in her fingers. “Sabre used this dagger to slit Asmodeus’s throat. She offered it to me so I could kill him myself. But I couldn’t do it.”

He heard the pain in her words and had to clear his throat before speaking. “There’s no shame in that.”

“Oh, I know that.” Jinx’s eyes met his. “And it wasn’t cowardice or out of kindness or forgiveness either. I chose not to kill him because I didn’t want him to control me anymore. And submitting to vengeance felt a whole lot like being powerless.”

She reached beneath a cabinet, pulling out a small sheath that buckled it to the belt loops on her pants. “I was so troubled, Mikhail, and killing him would have been so easy. But do you know what else would have been easy? To become like him—a monster consumed by hate and power. What if I liked it? What if I revelled in taking my power back through death, and I never got the chance to really live again? I wasn’t willing to take the risk. So, Sabre did it for me.”

He hadn’t thought he could love her more than he already did. But he found himself tumbling deeper into the love and light that Jinx embodied. She was phenomenal. “You made the harder choice, the one that takes true courage. You held back when most people would have given in to their anger and pain. You’re stronger than I ever realised and braver than anyone I know.”

“I’m working on believing that.” Jinx’s smile was small, but it was there. “Killing him might have given me immediate relief,” she continued, slipping the blade into the sheath. “But the long-term cost could have been too high. Life isn’t just about surviving, Mikhail. It's about who we become in the end.”

Mikhail placed his hands on her hips, his thumbs slipping beneath her shirt to caress her soft skin. “You became a miracle.” He closed his eyes, breathing steadily. “And my brother became a monster.”

Jinx didn’t say anything, and he was glad. After all, no words would change what was about to happen.

42

The wind whispered through the graveyard's ancient oaks, their gnarled branches casting eerie shadows across weathered tombstones. Mikhail stood silently among the graves, his dark coat billowing around him like the wings of a fallen angel. A frown crossed his forehead as he surveyed the scene before him.

Shovels bit into the earth with dull thuds, each strike bringing them closer to their target. Beside his mother’s grave, his father’s sat untouched, a silent witness to what was about to unfold. The trap was set. Brax's Horde were stationed at strategic points throughout the cemetery. They crouched behind mausoleums and peered around statues of weeping angels, their dark clothing rendering them almost invisible in the shadows. The anticipation was almost unbearable. If Z didn’t take the bait, they were all fucked.

The minutes stretched out, and it was only when a shovel hit the casket with a resounding bang that Z showed up. But he didn’t show up alone. So many people accompanied him that they seemed to pour into the graveyard like a flood. Mikhail's eyes widened as he took in the sheer number of figures, all silhouetted against the distant city lights. They had expected Z tobring some cronies, but this was an army of bodies moving with a terrifying unity.

“He can’t possibly be controlling all of them, can he?” Brax murmured lowly from beside him.

Mikhail sure hoped not. But … “If he’s not, why are they all in sync?”

“It’s creepy as fuck,” Sabre stated. She was so close behind Mikhail that he could feel her breath disturb his hair.

Mikhail couldn’t help but agree with her. He clenched his fists, forcing his fear and anxiety down. The trap was well-laid, and Brax’s soldiers were skilled. Not to mention, they had two angels on their side, plus a slew of badarse friends.

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