Alias: The Doyen Series book 1

(33) YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME

PICTURE: New Orleans. aka the love of my life

1 week later, Kayde decides to address the 1 thing I want to keep hidden forever.

Devin.

We are in his lavish apartment. Kieran left to "run some errands across the river" hours ago. "Friends" is playing in the background on their large plasma screen television.

But my eyes are only focused on the Adonis in front of me.

"Love, I know you don't want to talk about it. But I need you to," he pleads with me for the 12th time since we left the cemetery.

I groan. Cover my face with my hands. Huff. "Why Kayde? Why do I need to talk about it? It happened, it's over now. It's fine."

Kayde's hands are around mine in the middle of my short tantrum, prying them from my eyes. His beautiful blue orbs are drowning themselves in tears, looking for an escape. "It's not fine! He..." Kayde begins and takes a large gulp. "He... touched..." He stops. Closes his eyes so tight I am 99% sure they are going to turn to stone and shatter any second. "I watched him do it. But you shut me out before—"

"Nothing happened after I shut you out," I interrupt him.

His eyes grow wider than I'd ever seen them. "What? He just stopped?"

I shake my head like a dog trying to dry off his fur after a rainstorm. "No. I put a pocketknife in his windpipe," I say with my head held high.

"Did you kill him?" he asks astonished, his beautiful mouth wide enough to fit an entire fist.

I give him the most "are-you-kidding?" look I can muster and roll my eyes. "No. For all I know, he's still there." I remember searching the faces of our dead enemies at the cemetery. Devin wasn't

among them. That either means that he didn't fight or he somehow escaped.

Either way, he's free.

And that horrifies me more than anything in the world.

"He's been obsessed with you for as long as I can remember," Kamila had told me in that small dungeon room. The thought covers my body in goosebumps.

"Hey," Kayde brings me out of my reverie by pulling me into his lap. His wide arms wrap around me and he holds me close. Places my head under his chin. It's the safest I have ever felt in my entire life. "He's not going to find you. I promise. He won't do anything to harm you ever again. I swear that to you Aisling."

I finally realize that my body is shaking, trembling, quacking, shuddering, quivering like I am in the middle of Antarctica.

In a swimsuit.

In January.

Although Kayde is trying his best to calm my frantic nerves, there is a small part of my brain telling me that I am not safe. Not from Devin, at least. He was so determined.

I feel like I am slowly falling into a deep, dark, unavoidable abyss with no way out.

But, for now, all I have to grasp is the trust of the wonderful, beautiful man that is holding me close to his chest like I am the most expensive diamond known to man.

Almost instantly I am suffocating in his anger at Devin, his love for me, and his disgust at what happened to me. He wants to kill Devin himself and make him suffer. He wonders what Grayson will do when he finds out what happened.