Page 117 of Reluctant Rebel

“You sleep with one of Sabre’s feathers under your pillow?” Jinx asked in bemusement. The animal part of her didn’t like the idea of their mate coveting something from another female. But Jinx’s human brain was more curious than anything else.

Mikhail mumbled something that she couldn’t understand, and she yanked the pillow away. She held the crimson feather up. “What’s the deal?”

“It’s not weird,” he said quickly. And loudly.Tooloudly.

Jinx’s lips twitched. He really was rather adorable when he was embarrassed. Which he clearly was. “I’m sure it’s not,” she agreed readily.

Mikhail held her eyes for a moment longer before his body lost its stiffness. He reached out, and Jinx handed the feather over. “The first time I met Sabre, I was still a baby. I couldn’t talk or walk, and I have no real memories from before I was perhaps three or four, just like a regular kid. But there’s a muscle memory, a feeling, aknowingthat has always been with me. It’s Sabre. She’s my first memory, my firstcorememory.”

“You have a special bond with her,” Jinx said, her voice tinged with wistfulness.

“So do you,” Mikhail reminded her kindly.

Jinx nodded, warmth infusing her. “You’re right. Tell me more.”

He propped himself against the headboard, saying, “She went there to kill someone, but she found me instead—and met Father. She took him at his word, accepting his vague prediction of the future and her need to remain at the assassin's den.” He twirled the feather between his fingers, his lips tilting in a smile. “She spread her wings before my father and baby brothers that day to protect me. The threat was non-existent, but it’s the thought that counts. This is the feather I took from her wings the very first time I met her. I’ve kept it all these years. When I feel lost, or scared, or worried, it brings me comfort.”

Jinx understood what he was saying. And also what he wasn’t. “It makes sense,” she said lightly. “You couldn’t be with her daily like other demons are with their guardians. She was a secret, and you were required to lie about her existence. It was a way to be close to her.”

“That’s a nice way of saying it’s a security blanket,” Mikhail drawled.

Jinx bit her lip, withholding her smile.

Mikhail hesitated, then ordered, “Don’t tell Sabre.”

“My lips are sealed.” She mimed buttoning up her lips. But the temptation was too much, and she teased, “So … do you hug it like a teddy bear?”

Mikhail's eyes narrowed, and a low, dangerous growl rumbled from his chest. In a flash, he lunged at her across the bed. Jinx shrieked with delight, her laughter echoing off the walls as she ducked out of his grasp. “I’m just kidding!” she protested.

Mikhail caught her by the ankle before she could run and pinned her hands to the mattress. The shadows of grief lifted from his face. He looked happy and unburdened. “I love you very much,” she told him.

“Do you?” He arched an imperious brow at her. “How much?”

“I love you more than all the stars in the sky,” Jinx murmured, her fingers flexing where they were trapped against the mattress.

Mikhail immediately released her, propping himself up on one elbow. “Oh really? Well, I love you more than all the grains of sand on every beach."

"Impossible," Jinx declared with mock seriousness. "For I love you more than every snowflake that has ever fallen.” She poked him playfully in the chest.

Mikhail laughed, the deep, warm sound filling the room. “That's quite a lot of love,” he said, his voice tinged with admiration. His eyes softened, and he pulled her closer. “I love you more than every moment we've spent together and every moment we ever will.”

Jinx's heart swelled with an overwhelming rush of emotion. She felt a surge of love so intense it almost hurt, a beautiful ache that made her want to cry and laugh simultaneously. “Okay, you win,” she whispered.

The room seemed to grow quieter, the early morning hour wrapping them in a cocoon of peace. The rising sun danced across Mikhail's face, highlighting the soft curve of his smile and his incredible cheekbones. She traced the line of his jaw with her fingertip, committing every detail to memory. “We’re both going to be okay,” she promised.

Mikhail kissed her forehead gently, his lips lingering with tender affection. “Yes. We’re going to be okay. Together.”

Together.

Epilogue

The pain was over in an instant. In fact, as the seconds ticked by, the pain of his death became nothing but a fuzzy, distant memory. Almost as if it was a dream. But Z knew it wasn’t. He was dead.

And he was in Hell.

Z clenched his jaw as he took in his surroundings, refusing to feel fear. In life, it hadn’t been an emotion he was familiar with.And I’ll be damned if it is now that I’m dead,he told himself silently.

The barren, dark red landscape, with its wide-open plains of sharp rocks and thick dirt, dipped into what looked to be a deep valley in the distance. All he could make out was an abrupt shift from red to black. Endless black.

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