“They’ll be back,” he whispered, his voice nearly a hiss, the sound crawling up my spine. “Not four of them. Not six. More. A lot more. My brothers, they can take care of themselves one-on-one. Two-on-one, that’ll get dicey. More? No fuckin’ way. These fuckers have power and speed, but they also got skill. I want my brothers to find women. I want them to make babies. I want them to live lives where they aren’t movin’ around every few years, protectin’ me so no one will notice them age, but me not. I want them settled. I want them happy. I want them alive.”

Oh God, I got him.

I so got him.

And what I got broke my heart because he was right.

We had to go to keep the people we loved safe.

“Okay, baby,” I said quietly.

“You’ll have my back?” he asked tersely.

I nodded.

“With your dad?”

I swallowed through the lump in my throat.

God, Daddy.

He’d hate it. He was going to lose it when it was suggested.

But he’d give into it. He’d give me anything.

I nodded again.

“I fuckin’ hate this for us,” Abel said low, his voice vibrating with the depth of that hate.

“Me too,” I agreed, my voice shaking with the depth of my emotions, all of them.

“Found you, knew in my gut this is what we’d face. But wish like fuck I could give you somethin’ else. Family. Laughter. Happiness. Peace. Us just settling in, gettin’ to know each other, building a life together with your dad and all that comes with you, with my family and all that comes with me. But we can’t have that unless I know the threat is gone.”

“Okay,” I agreed again.

Abel came to me and pulled me tight into his arms.

“I hate this for us,” he murmured into the top of my hair.

I wrapped my arms around him and repeated, “Me too.”

He held me close.

I did the same.

I felt him take in a deep breath before he muttered, “French toast.”

I closed my eyes hard, opened them, forced lightness in my voice, suddenly not hungry in a way I didn’t think I’d want to eat again for the rest of my life, and replied, “Works for me.”

* * * * *

“That shit is not gonna happen,” Xun declared fiercely.

In fact, his fierceness was clogging the room.

I curled my fingers tighter around Abel’s thigh.

He’d just told his brothers, my father, and his boys what was going to happen. That being, Abel was going to search out a house somewhere far away and remote, Dad and his crew were going to take us almost there, then peel off, leaving us behind and leaving all of them without anyone knowing where we were.