Page 97 of Xerxes Ascendant
Her eyes lowered and snagged on his throat. Inwardly cursing, Kyle clapped a belated hand to his neck to cover the hickey Akira had left him with. Sarah’s mouth twitched to one side, amused.
“Kyle,” she greeted warmly, and then narrowed her eyes accusingly at her husband. “It’s about time, Kira. And what’s this nonsense I hear from Robby about you hijacking cars and taking hostages?”
“Nonsense is an apt descriptor,” Akira said smoothly, gravitating to Kyle’s side. But his half-smile gave him away, which meant he hadn’t really been trying to lie. “We merely found ourselves in a series of...unfortunate situations. Much to Benedict Mackenroth’s dismay.”
“You’ll stay away from that man,” Sarah commanded, and then looked at Kyle with similarly intense conviction. “You’ll make sure he does.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kyle said.
“Just Sarah, if you please.” A trembling hand lifted from her lap and reached out to him. Swallowing, Kyle took the proffered hand, dropping to one knee so he wasn’t towering over her. She tugged him close.
“You thinkyou’renervous,” Sarah Miyasaki whispered to him, the gleam in her gaze almost conspiratorial. “Let me tell you how dreadfully fretful Kira has been about the prospect of bringing you home.”
Kyle glanced over his shoulder. Akira had wrangled his expression back into careful neutrality and stood with his hands clasped assiduously in front of him.
“I’m nervous,” Kyle admitted, looking back at the woman who had saved their man’s life...more than once, from how Akira had told it. She gazed back at him, physically unsteady from whatever illness was wracking her body, but without a trace of haze or disorientation in her expression. “Anyone brave enough to marry him is a force to be reckoned with.”
That brought a laugh to her pale lips, although she tempered it into fake sternness in a way he’d often seen Akira himself do. “And don’t you forget it. If you break his heart I promise you’ll regret it, even if it means climbing out of this chair to make that happen.”
Robby, at Sarah’s other side, groaned in embarrassment and covered her face with both hands. “Mum!”
“And if he breaks yours again, Kyle,” Sarah continued, undeterred, “I’ll see him done for.” She fixed her husband with a stern look. “And make his corpse mop up the blood afterwards.”
Akira’s fond answering smile made Kyle breathe a little easier. This kind of banter was soothingly familiar, mimicking how he and Indira talked, or the staff of House Epsilon. And Sarah was…remarkable. He could see how a teenage Akira, alone and abandoned, could have latched onto someone so tenacious. Had she built him to be the same, resulting in the competent, protective, terrifying man Kyle had fallen in love with?
“Would it help to hear it, Kyle, that you have my blessing?”
Kyle’s mouth dropped open but before he could respond to such a thing, Sarah broke off into a sudden flurry of coughs.
Robby was at her side in her instant. “Mum,” she murmured, stroking her mother’s back as the woman was wracked with violent coughing – and yet never let go of Kyle’s hand.
They all waited patiently for her to recover.
“I love my husband,” Sarah rasped, holding Kyle’s eye once more with her own piercing, intense gaze. “But I cannot give him everything a wife should.”
Kyle blanched. “I-”
“No, not because of this,” she spat, slapping the other arm of the wheelchair with a fragile hand. “It reminds me of how little time I have left, but it is not the reason why Kira and I have not made love since the night our daughter was conceived.”
The daughter herself made loud gagging noises.
“We are family, but not lovers. And knowing that I could not give that intimate piece of my heart to him, I gave Kira my approval years ago to find someone who would.”
Sarah shot a wry look over Kyle’s head. “He stubbornly refused.”
Kyle could imagine the stony glare Akira was likely sending her way.
“I know what he does for a living,” Sarah continued, another cough temporarily halting her words. “He has never lacked for physical satisfaction. But it wasn’t about that. It was about having someone to be there for him no matter what, when I am not. When I...will no longer be.”
Horror clogged Kyle’s throat.
“No, do not give me your pity. I have made peace with my death,” Sarah whispered, with a strength he wasn’t sure he’d have if he knew he was on a countdown to death. “It is what it is.”
Kyle swallowed. “I’m not going to take Akira away from you.”
“I would kill you if you tried,” Sarah promised, with such steely certainty in her voice that a chill ran up his spine. Beside him, Robby snorted out a dismissive laugh. “That is not what we offer.”
“He loves you both so much.”
