rolled in. He was on it before it had fully stopped. Gripping the door handle, he yanked the door clean off the car. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d lost all control.
Luna sat in the back. “I’m okay,” she said, trying to undo her seat belt.
He growled, it was all he was capable of, and reached into the back of the car, tore the seat belt in half, and lifted her out, holding her to him. He tried not to crush her, but having her back when he thought he might never see her again was making it hard to be gentle.
He glanced at James as he approached and gave him a chin lift and somehow managed actual words. “Glad to see you as well, brother.”
James did the same, lips curling up on one side.
Gunner motioned to Spencer. “Take him. Put him in a cell. I’ll deal with him later.” Because that fucker was the reason Luna had been captured, and he would pay for it.
Luna shook her head, taking his face in her hands. “He didn’t do anything wrong, Gunner, I promise. Don’t lock him in a cell. I’ll explain everything, but please, you need to help Ronan, you need to help my brother.”
Gunner's head snapped back. “Your brother?”
“He held Azel off so we could escape,” James said.
Luna stared up at him wide-eyed. “He’s alive. He’s been alive this whole time.” She clutched him tighter. “He’s fighting Azel on his own. I don’t know how much longer he can hold him off.”
Boots thudding on the concrete floor echoed around the cavernous space. His brothers.
He pressed his mouth to the shell of her ear. “I want you in my apartment and I don’t want you to leave it. Wait for me there, love,” Gunner said in as gentle a voice as he could manage while relief and fury battled it out inside him.
“Azel’s still strong, you need to be careful.”
He buried his nose against her hair and breathed deep. When he lifted his head, there was no missing the fear in her eyes.
“You will come back to me, won’t you?” Luna whispered.
His body went from trembling with rage to full-out shaking. “Nothing could stop me.”
Her hand lifted, and she cupped his bearded cheek. “Being parted from you felt like dying.”
There she went, rocking him to his fucking core.
“Luna,” he rasped.
“I know I’m new to this and I’m still learning about my emotions and how they feel, but before my brother took me, I was pretty sure I’d fallen in love with you, Gunner. I did quite a bit of reading about it and a lot of the…symptoms, I have, pointed to love. And when I thought I’d never see you again, I knew I was right. Because for the first time since you found me, I didn’t have to analyze my physical reactions or my thoughts, I just…knew.”
He pulled her in tighter, and fuck shaking, he was quaking, breath damn near rattling from his lungs, muscles jumping, veins pulsing, ears buzzing. “You love me?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation or reservation.
Gunner pressed his lips to the delicate skin just below her ear and squeezed his eyes closed, breathing roughly through his nose to hold it together.
He pressed another kiss there, then lifted his head, his gaze locking on hers. “I love you too, Luna. But that word seems too small to describe the way you make me feel, the way I feel about you.”
They stared into each other’s eyes, neither one saying a word but saying so damn much at the same time.
“We need to get going,” Chaos said, breaking the spell.
James was with his brothers, had filled them in.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He pressed a soft kiss to her lips, then lowered her to her feet. Grace was there, Mia with her, and both females wrapped their arms around Luna before leading her away.
Luna turned back, not taking her eyes off Gunner until she walked through the door and he was out of sight.
Gunner stood in the room that Luna had been held in—he could still smell her scent—and kicked over the bedside table. The room was already trashed.
The whole apartment was fucked, furniture broken and tossed around, curtains torn down, and blood, lots of blood smeared everywhere.
He had no idea who it belonged to, Luna’s brother or Azel. But with the amount of blood around the place, whoever had been injured would be either dead or would need a fuck of a long time to