The flash hit—
—but Lara was already moving.
Without thinking. Without hesitation.
Muscle mory of training from long ago snapped into place like a blade locking into its sheath.
She dropped, twisting sideways, one arm coming up to shield her eyes while the other hooked around the base of the tree to control her fall. Her body hit the ground in a tight roll, using montum instead of fighting it.
White swallowed the world.
Sound vanished into a high, piercing whine.
It wasn’t lethal,
But disorienting.
Through the ringing in her ears, she felt it before she heard it: vibrations in the soil, multiple footfalls pounding through the orchard from different directions.
Not one intruder.
A team.
Her eyes snapped open, vision still washed out but rapidly sharpening. Shapes resolved into shadows between the trees — fast, coordinated, converging.
Four people. No... five.
All ard and clad in black.
All moving toward her.
Toward Ares.
Assassins! Her thoughts zeroed in on this one word.
Lara surged to her feet.
Not the uncertain movents of a farm girl.
It was clean and efficient.
Deadly.
A charging attacker swung the butt of his rifle toward her head.
She stepped inside the arc.
A sharp and precise palm strike to the jaw.
A pivot.
Then an elbow into the throat.
The assassin’s breath cut off in a wet choke as she ripped the weapon from his loosened grip and drove her knee into his abdon, sending him crashing backward into the dirt.
There was no wasted motion. No panic.
Just muscle mory written in violence.
Another attacker lunged from her blind side.
She spun, using the rifle like a staff, deflecting the blade aid at her ribs — tal shrieking against tal — then slamd the stock into his temple hard enough to stagger him.
For a split second, their eyes t. Recognition flickered in his.
Not of her face but of her skill.
"Target is hostile—"
He never finished.
Ares hit him from the side like a freight train.
The man lifted clear off his feet before slamming into a tree with bone-rattling force. The trunk shuddered. He did not get back up.
Ares didn’t even look at him.
His focus locked on Lara — on the weapon in her hands, the stance she hadn’t realized she’d taken, the cold precision still etched across her face.
Shock flashed through his eyes, then was replaced by fury.
Not at her but at the assassins.
More attackers burst into the clearing, weapons raised.
Gunfire shattered the orchard’s silence, but the bullets did not just co from the assassins but also from the mansion’s guards who had arrived when the security system reported a breach in the orchard.
Ares moved. Not away from danger but toward her.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her down just as bullets tore through the air where her head had been. Bark exploded from the tree behind them in violent sprays.
"Stay behind !" he barked.
She twisted, trying to break free. "I can fight—"
"I know."
The words ca out rough. Raw and terrified.
Another volley ripped through the clearing.
Ares pivoted, hauling her with him, then slamd his body between her and the shooters as they dove behind a low boulder.
Impact thudded into his back — not bullets, but debris, splinters, dirt raining down from rounds striking the boulder’s edge.
The bullets were too close...far too close.
He pulled her tight against his chest, one arm locked around her shoulders, forcing her head down beneath his chin.
Caging her. Shielding her.
His body curved over hers like armor made of flesh and bone.
"Don’t move," he murmured, voice low against her hair — not a command now, but sothing rougher, sothing urgent.
She could feel his heart hamring wildly.
A bullet ricocheted off stone with a vicious whine.
His grip tightened.
"Are you hit?" he demanded, pulling back just enough to scan her face, her shoulders, her arms — hands moving over her with blunt, searching urgency.
It was not intimate nor gentle, but desperate.
"I’m fine," she said, breathless.
He didn’t look convinced.
His thumb dragged across her cheek, saring dirt she hadn’t realized was there, as if confirming she was real and alive.
Behind the fury in his eyes was sothing far more frightening.
It was a relief so sharp it bordered on pain.
Another explosion sounded deeper in the orchard — not a flashbang this ti. Sothing heavier and coordinated.
It was a diversion. More reinforcents arrived.
Ares’s expression hardened into sothing cold and absolute.
"They’re here to take sothing," he said quietly. "And they would kill for it."
His gaze locked onto hers, intensity burning through the chaos.
"Is it sothing related to your work? Surely, it is not Shay again."
The word landed like a blow.
Before he could respond, movent flashed from behind the Narra tree — an attacker rushing to their position.
Ares turned, one hand still gripping her, the other reaching—
The man never made it.
A shot cracked from sowhere beyond the trees.
It was clean and precise. The attacker dropped mid-stride.
Ares didn’t look surprised.
Then silence followed, and the danger passed. Still, he didn’t release her.
If anything, he pulled her closer, pressing her fully against him as more gunfire erupted — his chin lowering to the top of her head, shielding her face from flying debris.
For one suspended mont, the world narrowed to heat, breath, and the iron strength of the arms around her.
"You shouldn’t have followed ," he said, voice rough, almost breaking beneath the control.
But his hold didn’t loosen.
Didn’t even consider it.
"If anything had happened to you—"
He stopped.
"Nothing happened to ..." Lara cut him
His hand slid to the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair, pressing her more securely into the space beneath his jaw — a gesture too instinctive, too intimate to be calculated.
It showed his possessiveness and protectiveness.
Around them, gunfire began to thin. Shouts echoed — his people closing in, sweeping the orchard.
But Ares stayed exactly where he was.
As if letting go would an risking her vanishing.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was low enough that only she could hear.
"Next ti," he said, breath warm against her temple, "when I tell you to run..."
His arm tightened fractionally.
"...run toward ."
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