Page 62 of The Vigilant

I’d known this fact for a long time. Longer than most facts children learn at a young age. But never had I felt the conviction so strongly as I did in this moment: driving a beast of a Harley at questionable speeds along the fringes of Big Sur with one of said idiots half-consciously holding onto my back.

I wanted to go faster, but I couldn’t. Ty wasn’t strong enough to hang on the way he needed to for me to go faster. Then again, going slower was killing him.

I should be used to the catch-22s encircling this man by now. The fact that he was both my father’s friend and yet irresistible to me. That he could demand my submission but only to the degree that allowed him to serve me. And that he could both punish and pleasure me with the same hand.

And yet, here I was again, surprised by each new contradiction that made my heartbeats jump a little faster.

Especially how I both hated him for protecting me and loved him for it.

Not loved him likelovelove.

No. Definitely not. But secretly, indiscreetly, I loved him for the way he cared for me because no one had done that for me before. Not even my father.

If Dad were alive, maybe he would argue that, of course, he’d give his life for me. Except he hadn’t. He’d had the choice time and again to give up his military life to be in mine, and he’d always chosen the fight.

My dad was a hero. He’d just never been mine.

I took the turn off the highway that led to the garage, and then slowed with a stifled curse as Tynan’s weight almost toppled the bike.

“Hang on. We’re almost there.” I pulled straight and then floored it for the home stretch. Hopefully, whoever he called when we were in the garage was there waiting because there was no way I could lift this brute of a man.

I’d always known men were idiots, but the difference with this one was that he was the first man to have been an idiot for me.

The garage looked different at the end of the drive. Every other day we’d come, our positions had been reversed. Our power, too. Tynan had always been in front, and the building represented nothing more than a purgatory. A place I waited to know more about my friend and was tormented by the presence of my guardian.

But today, it was a haven, and there was no measure for the breath that released from my chest when the garage bay door started to open, a slender redhead in all black rushing out to meet us.

No sooner did I stop the bike than Tynan started to slide off the side.

“Jesus Christ, Ty—” the other woman swore as she caught him.

I was off the seat in another second, grabbing his other arm and wrapping it around my shoulder.

Even with the two of us, we struggled to keep his deadweight upright. There was no way we could carry him anywhere.

“Come on, Ty,” she grunted. “Stay with us, old man.”

I felt the urge to punch her for that.

“He was stabbed. I tied his jacket as tight as I could…”

“Got it. Doc’s on the way, but we need to get him inside.” She squinted. “Wonder if we leave him on the bike and roll him as far as we can?—”

We both turned at the sound of a vehicle speeding up the driveway. The pitch-black SUV squealing to a halt beside us.

A Goliath pale man with pale hair and even more colorless eyes slipped out from the driver’s seat.

“I’ve got a gurney,” he called and opened his trunk.

It was hard to see anything over Tynan’s shoulders, so I settled for not seeing. I didn’t care what was happening as long as someone was going to help him.

“Just stay with me, alright? We made it back,” I breathed next to his ear, wondering where the swell of tender words had come from and why I couldn’t stop them. “And you were the one worried about me. Stupid man.”

“Alright, we need to get him off the bike,” a low, soft voice said from closer.

I blinked several times, feeling an unfamiliar burn in my eyes. I looked at the two people on the other side of Tynan. Strangers. But he’d called them—he trusted them. And for that, I could, too.

“Lay him back along the seat, then we can slide him onto the gurney.”

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