The Flame (sequel to Kidnapped by Kylo Ren)

Chapter 21

I bust into the hangar and the first thing I looked into were the eyes of Kylo Ren.

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My feet stopped -- no, my heart stopped.

I stood there, frozen where I was. My eyes were wide with disbelief and my jaw hung open stupidly. But I couldn't believe it.

The man whose name I worked so hard to avoid even thinking stood ten feet from me, staring into my eyes with those deep midnight irises. The man who had sent his organization after me, the man who probably lusted for my arrest and punishment, the man whose trust I broke, the man who married me, the man who attacked me -- whatever you want to call him works fine. Kylo Ren fits a lot of definitions.

In my peripheral vision I could see the large open space for ships to fly out of the hangar behind Kylo, and the grassy hills beyond that. But I could only look at him.

The breeze ran through his dark wavy hair, causing it to ripple. His face was serious and he stood tall. Kylo's thick and rosy lips were pressed tightly together.

I couldn't move under his gaze. We were going to be at this stalemate for quite a while unless Kylo made the first move.

And then his eyes fell from mine down to my stomach -- my stomach full of our child that he didn't know about.

I saw the realization dawn over him, first with a small dip in his dark eyebrows, and then a slow countenance of recognition waving over his face. And slowly, Kylo looked back into my eyes, his lips parted in genuine surprise and --

And all I had to do was make eye contact once more with him to realize that nothing had ever dissipated between the two of us.

In two short seconds Kylo had closed the space between us, wrapped his big arms around my body and tucked me tightly against him. Then I was weeping into his chest with zero control, my chest heaving, tears running down my cheeks, sobs falling from my lips in continuous intervals.

I don't know why I was sobbing. Was I happy? Sad? Confused? Simply relieving myself from the stress of the past two weeks? Maybe a bit of everything.

Kylo tightly wound one set of his fingers through the hair on the back of my head, the other hand pressed against my back, keeping us without an inch of space between our bodies. His arms were tense around me, letting me know I was safe. His head rested on top of mine and he released shaky breaths as if he, too, were releasing the sufferings of the time without me.

I vaguely heard the sound of the door to the hangar opening and people entering, but I could only focus on Kylo, and he I. Nothing was interrupting our reuniting.

Except for Giano.

"Nira! Nira!" I heard his voice shout somewhere to my right, and I reluctantly pulled myself partially from Kylo's arms (but not completely) to turn and look at him.

Giano was held by his arms, knocked onto his knees, by a pair of stormtroopers. Now that I looked around, the rest of the stormtroopers had entered the hangar as well, standing around with their blasters readied.

When I looked closer at Giano I saw that there was blood falling from his nose and he had a split lip. He had gone through quite a scuffle with the troopers to save me.

Kylo scoffed and ordered, "Do away with him."

I gasped as one of the stormtroopers holding Giano began raising his blaster toward the blonde's head and Giano looked defeatedly into my eyes. This reminded me all too much of the first time I had met Kylo Ren, back on Tunstead, with my mother, where we didn't love each other or even know each other and I lost my home town.