Tom will not stop fussing over me.

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“You have contusions all over your head,” he scowls at me. “When I get you home, you’re going straight into the bath, little girl, and then to bed.”

“I am a stone cold killer,” I remind him. “Assassins don’t have bed times.”

“This one does,” Tom rumbles. “And she has a daddy to make sure she gets there on time too. Ken is going to be out of commission for a little while. So you’re going to be answering to me at home.”

“Boring,” I pout, even though I am secretly thrilled. I need home. I need comfort. I need to feel just a little domestic. It’s not that I feel bad for what I did today. It’s that sometimes, the fact that I don’t feel bad scares me. Tom is my one connection to the world of typical humans. When I’m with him, I feel like I have some access to the realm of the ordinary.

Tom’s arms wrap around me. He pulls me onto his lap and cuddles me right there in the doctor’s office. I snuggle into his embrace and rest my head on his chest. This is more therapeutic than a thousand painkillers and stitches.

“Ken’s not going to want me anymore,” I say softly.

“What?”

“He saw me do those things today,” I mumble, my fingers playing with Tom’s shirt. “He won’t like me after that.”

“I guarantee you Ken has seen worse.”

“Yeah, but he hasn’t seen his girlfriend do it.”

“You looked phenomenal.”

Ken must have heard the tail end of the conversation as he came in the door.

“What are you talking about, Mary?”

Shit. Hearing him say my name sends a tremor right through to the core of me.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

“Tell him, little girl,” Tom prompts me.

“Yes, tell me, little girl,” Ken echoes.

I am trapped between two Ares men with no way out. Surrender is the only option, even though it involves confessing my biggest fear for a second time.

I avoid Ken’s gaze as I repeat what I said to Tom in a mumble. “I know you don’t want to be with me now.”

“What?”

“You don’t want to…”

“I heard what you said,” Ken interrupts me, incredulous. “How could you possibly think that?”

“I mean, you saw… what I did.”

“Your job?” He shifts uncomfortably and grimaces to let me know it’s not because of me. Broken ribs hurt like a bitch, and there’s basically nothing anybody can do. “Girl, I could watch that all day.”

“But… it was… I was…” I mime stabbing and blood spurting with splayed fingers.

He frowns and tries to cross his arms over his chest, only to remember that hurts like hell, and put them back by his side.

“You saved both our lives,” he rumbles. “You saved yourself. And me. And you did it quick and clean. You didn’t do anything wrong, Mary. You were perfect.”

“I was?”

Tom rubs my back as Ken reassures me from his uncomfortably stiff position.

“You were everything I needed you to be. You understand that? Those men needed to die. They were going to kill us both. You did what you should have done. Hell, you did what I should have done. I should be apologizing to you. Don’t…” his voice breaks just a little. “Don’t ever think I don’t want you.”

Tom’s arms snug around me, giving me the hug I know Ken would if it didn’t risk puncturing his lung with a shard of shattered rib.

Suddenly I understand something I think I’ve known from the first time our eyes met in that fucked up hospital. Ken is just like me. He’s my soulmate. He understands me. There is no part of me, no thought, no fear, no scar, that could change his love for me. And there is absolutely nothing that could change my love for him.

Hot tears run down my face. They hurt, coming from one sore and swollen eye and one good one, but they are tears of joy which is bursting through my body. I am loved. I am loved to the very core of me. And no matter what happens in life, that will always be true.