CHAPTER 6: THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE END OF THE WORLD

CHAPTER 6: THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE END OF THE WORLD

I kissed him back. Because in an apocalypse, you don't need a hero. You need a monster who loves you more than the world. And Killian Thorne kissed like the world was already dead and I was the only living thing left in it. His hand was in my hair, pulling, not gentle. His other hand on my waist, holding me so tight I could feel every gun and knife he had strapped to his body. He tasted like black coffee and danger.

Outside, on the monitors we turned off, the city was screaming. Inside, 100 feet underground, in his bed, I was finally breathing. He pulled away first. His forehead rested against mine. Both of us breathing hard. "You have no idea," he whispered, his grey eyes dark, almost black in the low bunker light. "Do you? How long I've wanted to do that." "Killian..." "Three years," he said. "In my last life. After you died. I would come to this bed, in this bunker, alone. And I would imagine this. You, alive. In my bed. Kissing me back."

My heart broke. This man. This cold, ruthless billionaire who everyone feared, had been mourning me for three years in a dead world. I touched his face. His jaw was rough with stubble. He hadn't shaved. He leaned into my touch like a starved man. "I'm here now," I whispered. "I'm not dead. You saved me." He closed his eyes. "I didn't save you, Elena. You saved yourself. You came back. You remembered. You found me."

At 6:00 PM, the bunker AI, EVA, spoke. Her voice was calm, female. "Mr. Thorne, Ms. Voss, outside air is now toxic. All vents sealed. City power grid at 12%. Raven City Central Hospital quarantine failed. Estimated infected: 40,000. Damian Reid house power: out." Ms. Voss. I was still Elena Voss. Not yet Thorne. I looked at Killian. "I am still Voss. Damian Reid's wife, technically, until the divorce."

Killian stood up, fixing his holster. He looked down at me, that dangerous smile back. "Damian Reid is dead to the world from tonight. In two days, his house will be overrun. He didn't prepare. No food. No water. Bianca will leave him when she realizes there is no money. And you," he walked to a safe on the wall, opened it with his thumbprint, and brought out a small black velvet box. "You have been mine since three years ago I saw you on your wedding day."

He opened the box. Inside was a ring. Not a diamond. A black diamond. Huge. Surrounded by small red stones like blood. "I bought it the day you married him," he said. "Because I knew you'd be back. Widowed or divorced. I knew you'd come to your senses." I stared at the ring. "Killian, that's... that's insane. You bought a wedding ring for another man's wife?" "I buy things I want," he said simply. "And I have wanted you for three years, Elena. Seven years of watching you next door, watering your roses at 6 AM, crying in your garden at 2 AM when he cheated on you, bringing soup to my guards when it snowed. You thought I didn't see you. I saw everything."

Three years. That was how long he had been watching me. Three years of me thinking I was invisible, thinking no one saw the pain Damian Reid caused me. But Killian saw it all. Every tear, every sleepless night, every time I pretended to be happy when my marriage was falling apart. And he waited. He waited like a wolf waiting for winter to pass.

I didn't know whether to slap him or kiss him again. So I did neither. I just looked at the ring. It was beautiful in a dark, dangerous way. Like him. "Put it on me," I said. His eyes flashed with something dark and possessive. He took the ring, took my left hand - my hand still had the thin, cheap ring Damian Reid gave me three years ago - and he pulled Damian's ring off and dropped it on the floor like it was trash. Then he slid the black diamond on. It fit perfectly, like it was made for me. "Perfect fit," he murmured, kissing my finger where the ring sat. His lips were warm. "How did you know my size?" I asked, my voice shaking a little. "I measured your gardening gloves when you left them on the fence," he said, without shame. "I keep them in my drawer."

He kept my old gardening gloves. This man was not just obsessed. He was completely, utterly, terrifyingly obsessed with me. He had been collecting pieces of me for years while I was married to another man. And in an apocalypse, that was exactly what I needed. A man who would burn the world to keep me warm.

At 8:00 PM, we ate dinner in the bunker kitchen. Steak. Real steak. While the world outside starved and ate each other, we had steak and red wine. Killian cooked. I didn't know billionaires could cook. He moved around the kitchen like a soldier and a chef at the same time, precise, controlled. He owned everything down here, every can of food, every bottle of wine, every gun. And now, he owned me too, or at least he thought he did.

"Eat," he ordered, putting the plate in front of me. "You are too thin. You didn't eat properly for five days, watching the monitors. You need strength." "I was nervous," I said, cutting the steak with a shaking hand. "Today was... today was the day I died before. In my last life, by this time, I was already locked out, freezing." He sat across from me, watching me eat. He didn't eat. He just watched me like I might disappear if he blinked. Like if he looked away, I would be gone and he would be alone again in this big palace under the ground.

"Tell me about how you died," he said quietly, his voice rough. "I want to know what he did to you."

I stopped chewing. The memory came back sharp and cold. Cold floor. Locked bunker door. Banging my fists until they bled. Damian Reid's helicopter taking off without me. Bianca's laugh on the phone when I called for help. "Sorry Elena, Damian said no extra space. And you are barren anyway, why save you?" My feet freezing, turning blue. My voice gone from screaming for hours. Then the infected breaking the window of the house. Teeth. So many teeth. The pain.

I put down my fork. My hand was shaking badly again, the fork clattering against the plate. Killian was instantly beside me, kneeling on the cold floor, holding my hands in his big warm ones. "Don't," I whispered, tears in my eyes. "I don't want to remember tonight. Tonight, I want to be alive. Please, I just want to be alive tonight. Not dead Elena." He nodded. He understood. He didn't push. He picked me up - like I weighed nothing, like I was a doll - and carried me back to the master bedroom. His bedroom. Our bedroom now.

At 10:00 PM, the bunker was silent. EVA dimmed the lights to a soft warm glow. Outside was dead silent too, no sirens anymore, no cars. Just wind blowing through an empty burning city. The world had gone quiet. Killian lay next to me on top of the covers, fully clothed, his gun still on his belt, his boots still on. He didn't touch me except for my hand, which he held tight, his thumb rubbing circles on my skin where the black diamond now sat. He was guarding me.

"Sleep," he said, his voice low in the dark. "I will watch." "Watch what? The monitors are off. The city is dead." "You," he said. "I will watch you breathe. For three years in my last life, I listened to an empty bunker. No sound except the machines. I would have given everything to hear one person breathe. Now I get to hear you breathe. So sleep, Elena Voss. Breathe for me."

Elena Voss. He said my name like a prayer.

I smiled in the dark, tears drying on my cheeks. My broken past was dead, like the city above. My life as the barren, forgotten wife of Damian Reid was over. My new life, with a monster who measured my gloves and kept them in his drawer and bought a black diamond ring seven years ago and waited, had just started.

I fell asleep to the sound of his heart beating, steady and strong, like a generator that would never run out of power, like a war drum that would protect me from the monsters outside.

Outside, the world ended on June 19th.

Inside, I, Elena Voss, was reborn again.

But at 3:00 AM, EVA woke us. Her calm voice was suddenly sharp and loud. "Mr. Thorne. Movement at Gate 3. Human. Two. One male, one female. Male is injured. Female is pregnant. Facial recognition: Damian Reid and Bianca Cole. They are banging on the outer steel door. Audio: male shouting your name, Elena."

My eyes snapped open, my heart pounding like crazy. Killian was already standing, gun in his hand in one second, eyes cold and awake like he never slept at all. He was a soldier. He was always ready.

"They found us," I whispered, my voice shaking. "How did they find us?"

He looked at me, his face hard. "The drone. He saw the drone yesterday. He followed it. Stupid man got lucky."

"Do you want me to let them in?" he asked me, giving me the choice. Giving me the power.

Outside, in the dead world, in the freezing night, the two people who left me to die, who mocked me, who stole my house and my life, were banging on our bunker door, begging to be saved. The man who called me barren and left me to be eaten, and the woman who took my husband.

And I had to decide - in the first night of the end of the world - if I was still Elena Voss, the forgiving, stupid, kind wife, or the wolf he said I was, the angry female wolf who slaps mistresses and steals bunkers.

I got out of bed, my black diamond glinting in the dark like a weapon. My hands stopped shaking.

"Open the outside camera," I told EVA, my voice cold and clear. "I want to see their faces when they beg. I want to see Damian Reid on his knees."