Demon's Embrace by Abby Blake Page B

and say what Ronan needed to hear. “I love you.”
    “It’s okay, Kali,” Ronan said, sounding like the soldier he was—professional, polite, and distant. “We’ll make sure you’re safe. You don’t need to pretend.”
    The man was infuriating. “I’m not pretending.” She wanted to stamp her foot like a five-year-old, but it probably wouldn’t help convince him that she knew her own mind. The silly man had probably decided that what they’d shared at the cabin had simply been stress relief.
    But as angry as she was feeling, that flash of hurt crossed his features again, and she wanted to grab him and shake him, and maybe kiss him all over, until he understood what she’d meant earlier.
    “Ronan, I phrased it badly.” She stood right in front of him and waited until he finally looked down at her. “I love you, and I love Alex, and while I might be stubborn enough to want to contribute to the family income, I want to do it as part of our family. Our family—yours, mine, and Alex’s.”
    “You want to marry me?” His reaction seemed so shocked that Kali suddenly wondered if Alex had any clue what he was talking about. Maybe Ronan’s reaction to her carelessly chosen words was him taking the opportunity to end things before they got too complicated. Pain, like a knife plunged through her chest, had her gasping for air. “Kali,” Ronan said, sounding very serious once more. He lifted a hand to either side of her face, caressing her cheeks softly as a tear escaped her control and slid down her cheek. “Please marry me and Alex. Please have our babies. Please let us spend the rest of our lives sorting out the misunderstandings.”
    Alex moved to stand behind her, pressed a kiss to her shoulder, and repeated Ronan’s words in a voice thick with emotion. “We both love you, Kali. Marry us, please.”
    Relief flooded through her as she fell more deeply in love with both her men. And then Kali nodded and said the only word zipping through her mind. “Yes.”
     

Epilogue
    “Okay,” Alex said as he came through the front door. “Everything at the fortress is ready.”
    Kali smiled at the nickname he’d given the heavily protected home they were moving into. It was basically a house in the middle of a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, but it would be perfect for raising a family. Of course that was as long as they made her “death” believable. Between the three of them, they’d decided that she needed a new identity. Since nobody, other than the pixie who’d attacked her, knew what Kali looked like, they’d felt safe enough hiding her in plain sight but had decided that setting up a home in the tiny, deserted town of Sugarvale would offer added protection.
    Alex’s mission report had listed his protection detail as a complete failure. Kali had hated that he’d needed to blot his flawless work history, but as Alex had pointed out over and over, it was the report his supervisors had expected anyway. Nobody had ever managed to survive a pixie assassination once they’d been targeted. Only Kali’s brother and Alex’s PUP squad knew that she’d survived. Officially, even in human records, Kali had been one of the pixie’s victims. The only person who could tell them otherwise was currently residing in a glass jar stored under a kitchen sink.
    But it was very chilling to realize just how lucky she’d been—especially since they still hadn’t been able to find the others. So far, Alex’s PUP squad had only found one of the women on the list, and she’d already been targeted by the pixie. Hopefully Nathan and Brody would be able to explain the situation to Ava without scaring her to death. Then they somehow had to convince her to leave her old life behind just as Kali had done. Even if Kali was the Oracle’s receptacle, Ava and the others would still be targets if anyone else noticed the pattern of the pixie’s human murders and discovered the reason behind them.
    “Ready to go?” Alex