Page 34 of Fuse

Yes. Yes. I’m really going to do it.

Until suddenly, an epiphany blares.

No. It’s the fucking fireworks show of epiphanies.

I’m not Alpha Two anymore.

I am Bolt.

I have a city to protect. A code to follow. A whole damn backup team.

A team.

Including the man I’ve nearly strangled.

The man who, even with waning air and a weakening body, blinks hard up at me—with eyelashes that have returned to their normal texture. In his purposeful gaze, the pupils are back to being nearly black, just like always.

With a stunned grunt, I slacken my clutch—only to have Kane hiss so loud in protest that I freeze. “Goddamnit, Richards,” he rasps. “D-Don’t l-let up!”

I bug out my glare. Or funnel it in. I’m not sure of anything, especially the order I’ve just been given. “You’ve… You’ve been deprived of air, man. You don’t know—”

“I know damn f-fucking well what I’m asking!”

I stare harder. Yeah, definitely going for bugged-out. “But I’m killing you.”

“N-N-No. You’ve brought me…b-back.”

Riding a surge of comprehension, I squeeze my hand back in. “Shit.” Sure enough, the luster of his eyes strengthens as the air in his throat thins. “You’re right.”

He smirks. Only a little. A look completely worthy of the real Kane Alighieri. “Usually…am.”

I want to laugh. I can tell he wants to as well. He’s as freaked about this conundrum as I am. Letting him physically live will keep him bound by Faline’s shackles. But setting him free means—

“Damn it.”

Appropriate. I really am damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

“Richards!” Even as he croak-bellows it, I know I’ve vacillated too long. Like a superhero suit in reverse, the shell of the bitch’s control snaps back over his huge body and his formidable face. His stare is back to silver; his smirk is back to a prurient preen.

Fuck.

Faline’s back in.

“Are we having fun yet?” She’s enjoying every second of the thrill, even pulsing the glow of Kane’s eyelashes in time to the strains of some frothy pop song that’s burst out along the streets below. The voice of the artist, a throaty alto who’s crooning about dancing all night long in her killer shoes, is distorted into a ghostly moan that mixes in with the nonstop siren wails along the empty city streets. “You know that girls just want to have fun, Richards. Why can’t boys do the same?”

I drop my head. “Fuck me.”

“Hmmm. I’d rather not. Though I wouldn’t rule it out at this point. Our darling does enjoy embracing her inner voyeur, doesn’t she?” While he weaves a relishing chuckle atop my exploding grimace that’s a confusing mix of his Kane husk with a Faline lilt, he wastes no more than two seconds on it. At once, his gaze is determined atomic light aimed directly at me. “Though at the moment, she’s more interested in penetration of a different sort…”

And what the living fuck does that mean?

Though I’m hardly finished processing the words in my mind, let alone worried about churning them out to my lips, Kane’s already acting on cues that have clearly come somehow from Faline. With one eye-popping sweep, he’s got a hand buried in my hair and my head jerked around to the side. And though my hands are still fitted around his neck, he’s the one who may as well have my goddamned balls in his palm.

The next moment, I wish that were the case.

He wrenches my head back harder so my jaw and ear are facing the sky.

Clearly preparing to invade some part of me with the item in his other hand.