“Have you met my girlfriend, Ali?” he asked Juliana.

She transformed from sweet to sour in a snap. “Yeah, I’ve had the displeasure. And I shouldn’t have to remind you that you’re not usually into blondes. I mean, weren’t you and Gavin boinking your way through the brunette population? What happened with that? Everyone needs a goal.”

O-kay. Wow.

“Mouth,” Cole said on a sigh.

“Yes,” Juliana said, nodding. “I have one.”

He wagged a finger in front of her face. “You shouldn’t talk about boinking. You don’t even need to think about it.”

“I’m fourteen, not a damn baby.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Would you rather I used the word fu—”

“No!” Cole released me to slap a hand over her mouth. “Never.”

She blinked up at him innocently.

“Just so you know, I’m all about the blondes now.” He tweaked her nose and dropped his arm. “This blonde in particular.”

Juliana made a face, said, “Whatever. You guys are gross” and flitted away, but not before looking back at me and sticking out her tongue.

“Real mature.” Clearly the girl had a crush on Cole. Just as clearly, he had no idea her feelings veered in a romantic direction. “She makes me feel like I’ve showered with sunlight and rainbows.”

“Don’t worry. She’ll grow on you.”

“Like fungus?”

Grinning, he grabbed me in a headlock with one hand and rubbed his knuckles into the crown of my head with the other. “No. Not like fungus.”

“Like mold?” I managed to say through my giggles.

He released me and as I straightened, framed my face, peering into my eyes, the intensity of his expression draining my mirth, making my insides tingle all over again. I’d missed him. Missed this. Us.

“Thank you, Ali.”

I blinked, the new direction of the conversation lost. “For what?”

“For finding my friends. For bringing them here.”

“They’re my friends, too.”

“I know, but you could have returned here and stayed safe, like part of me really wanted you to do. But you didn’t. You put my needs before my wants, your needs before your wants, and even above your own life, and I will be forever grateful.”

I rested my palms on the girth of his shoulders. Oh, the burdens these babies had always had to carry. But he wasn’t alone, not any longer. “That’s what love does. It gives.”

His gaze dipped to my lips. “Well, I want to give you something.” His voice was low, husky. “Reason fourteen. You are one smoking blonde. All this hair... I like it wrapped around my fists.”

“Yeah?” I asked, breathless.

“Oh, yeah. I like to have you under my control.” He fisted the strands, as he’d described, and angled my head the way he wanted it. “It’s the only time you do what I tell you.”

The sheer dominance of the action excited me. “I could say the same.”

On the battlefield, we were as tough as armor. In a fight, we never backed down. But when we were in each other’s arms, we could give and take and demand...beg...and it just made the moment sweeter.

Jaclyn moaned, capturing our attention, fragmenting the moment.

I moved to the bed, away from the temptation of Cole. Jaclyn hadn’t yet woken. Her dreams must have been plaguing her.

“She needs fire,” I said.

“That’s what I was doing when you arrived.”

His absence now made sense. “How did you find her?”

“I didn’t. She came to us. She says two guys broke into her home and drugged Justin. When she tried to stop them from leaving with him, she was thrown across the room. She pretended to be unconscious as Justin was carried to a van. She hot-wired a neighbor’s car and followed.”

“And?” I prompted.

“And she passed out before she could explain the rest.”

Dang. “If she knows where Anima took Justin, we can go in and get him.”

“And destroy Anima once and for all.” He moved beside me, pinched a lock of my hair. “I got sidetracked when everyone but you came upstairs.”

“That’s when you decided to go total Animal Planet and track me, right?”

His lips quirked at the corners. “That’s right. The hungry lion and the gimpy gazelle.”

“Please. You’re the one with the injury.”

“Not anymore.”

“You mean it’s gone completely?” Excited, I pushed back the collar of his shirt. A bandage was taped to his chest; it was white, without a single speck of blood. I lifted it to peek at his wound—or rather, his baby scratch. The center was already closed, without the aid of stitches, the edges pink and irritated rather than raw and angry.

“I just... I can’t... The fire works so quickly.”

What if we’d gotten to Lucas, Trina and Cruz in time? Could they have been saved, their lives spared?

Oh, glory. I loved the answer as much as I hated it. Yes. They could have been saved.

Guilt...so much guilt. The dark companion to “what if.” It choked me, made me feel like the one who’d pulled the trigger, the one who’d ended them.

“We can’t look back. We’ll never get anywhere,” Cole said, a catch in his voice. His mind must have traveled the same road as mine. “We can only move forward, learn from our mistakes.”