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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Angel Lawson
Read between
July 8 - July 11, 2024
“Lex…” I sigh, fighting the urge to squirm. “You know the answer to all of these.” “If you think I’m taking shortcuts with your recovery, then you got hit harder on the head than I realized.” He stands over me, hands firm as he measures my belly, a lock of auburn hair falling by the side of his face. I reach up and push it back,
I swallow, throat clicking. “He’s moving around a lot.” “A good sign,” he says, lips curving into a slow grin. “He’s strong. I know it.” The barely-hidden softness in his eyes is too much to bear, and I find myself reaching for that lock of hair again, rubbing it between my fingers. It’s stupid to miss someone I live with. Someone who’s barely been nice to me until recently. Someone I can hardly get off my back now that he occasionally is nice to me. But I do miss him.
Lagan. This is what he keeps from me at night. It’s the reason he gives me to Wicker or Pace in the hallway every evening before bed, leaving me with a slow, searing kiss before he goes to lock himself up tight in his room. Protecting me and our son from himself.
It’s hard for them, I think, to acknowledge the parts of themselves their father has built over his years of cruelty. Pace, and the way he seeks out isolation. Wicker, and the way he craves to binge on touch. And Lex… Lex wants to create.
“Verity,” he says, voice thick and gruff as he cups a palm against my center as if he’s holding it all in. “Do you ever think… after you have the baby…”
“Whatever you want,” I promise, “I’ll do it.” “Good girl.” His approving stare
Wicker nods, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Cool, but what’s the status on anal?” He doesn’t even flinch when my throw pillow slams into his face. “I am right here, you know!” “You’re always right here,” he stresses, batting the pillow away. “It’s driving me fucking insane!”
🤣🤣🤣
“You’re all worthless if you couldn’t figure that out. I’m even more disappointed in you than usual, Pace. If you were half the Prince you think you are, you’d know what this number means by now.” Pace looks both furious and lost as he glances at his brothers, only getting their confused shrugs in response. But my eyes never once leave Ashby’s gaunt face, a bitter taste lingering in the back of my throat. “It’s my birthday.”
“The Matryoshka doll.”
“But there was something in her life she didn’t want us to know,”
“I’m going to find out what happened to her and who’s responsible, and then I’m going to make them regret it.” I see it then, maybe for the first time. The DKS. My blood runs cold at the casual malignance in his gray eyes, and it doesn’t matter that I know him in my heart as the sweet, scrawny West End pledge who first stumbled into the gym. Right now, I believe he’s capable of the threat. Slowly, I nod. “Good.”
GO EUGENE! I love youuu!!!
For my Princes, family doesn’t mean DNA. It means secrets, isolation, and suspicion. It’s a club so exclusive that it only includes the three of them.
“You’re not scary, you’re just protective. It’s sweet,” I decide, but then amend, “annoying, but sweet.”
But as soon as I take a step in that direction, Pace takes one, too. And when the Dukes see Pace following me to their Duchess, Nick and Remy jolt forward to do the same.
This is hilarious 😂😂😂
“Your bird’s got a filthy mouth.” Pace’s jaw tightens. “Filthier since you had her.”
😂😂😂
Remington’s trying to learn to cook. I’m not sure my kitchen will ever recover.”
I catch the glance she casts toward Remy, whose attention is fixed on a sketchbook, and I don’t miss the soft grin on her face when she piles up with extra garlic bread.
I watch Pace shrink away from the warmth of my home—my people, my family—and it doesn’t just make me sad. It scares the crap out of me. The thought of raising our son in all that stiff coldness is galling. It becomes a mission then, the thought of making the palace into a home blooming outward in my mind just as delicate and thorny as the roses in its garden. Maybe it’s impossible. Perhaps all the grand rooms and dark nooks of the palace are too obstinate and haunted to shed any warmth into. But now that its halls are free of Rufus Ashby, I resolve to try.
Pauly gives an impressed grin. “Nice reflexes. You train?” “I play hockey,” Pace replies gruffly, eyes narrowed at Grant. The frat boy shakes his fist and wiggles his fingers, glaring daggers. “That’s right, that’s right.” Pauly nods, sizing Pace up. “You’re the one who stuck Maddox during the Fury.” Pace shrugs, raising his chin. “Yeah, so?” Pauly has always been a no-nonsense sort of guy, so he meets Pace’s challenging stare with one of his own. “So with reflexes like that, you don’t need to mess with blades.” The older man chews on his bottom lip, then jerks his chin. “Get over here. I’ll
...more
Pace meets my eyes, faltering. “Will you—” “Don’t worry,” Ballsack says. “I’ll watch her.” An odd feeling washes over me as Ballsy slides up on the table next to me and Lavinia, my Prince assuming a fighting stance. He looks up at Pauly and says, “Okay, old man, show me what you’ve got.”
when things had begun feeling more settled between us, their touch became soothing instead of bruising. I want that, more than anything.
It’s the way his face collapses in awed rapture. The curl of his forefinger beneath my chin, so gentle.
We’ve got a King down there in the midst of a mutiny, and that makes other Kings nervous.” Especially Kings of the old generation. They’re disappearing like smoke.
“I’m going to see if she and Effie want to get some air.”
“Maybe he’s loyal to Father, but don’t forget, he’s also the one who actually took care of us.”
I sleep beside her every fucking night! And where the hell are you and Pace? Too obsessed with keeping her safe to bother realizing she’s in that big, stupid bed waiting for you.”
The feel of the three of us all in the bed at once, surrounding her, and keeping her safe—we didn’t get many of those nights before everything went to hell in a handbasket, but it was enough to make me crave more.
Hey,” I ask, nodding to the center screen, “does she really sneak candy when I’m not looking?” Without the slightest hesitation, he says, “Yes.” I groan. “Seriously? That’s not on her meal plan.” “Dude, it’s been a stressful few weeks—for all of us. Don’t even think about taking those from her.”
It’s primal, beyond sense or logic or concepts like love.
It’s primal for sure but Ver has him under controlllll😫
It’s never difficult with him, as if our bodies have known what they wanted long before our brains ever caught up.
“No one touches me like you do, you know,” he murmurs,
Wick gets back in and quickly clears the distance, dragging us together.
“Fuck it. He can have my room.” At the ensuing, stunned silence, Wicker just shrugs. “Pace needs his room for the equipment, and Lex needs his for the lock. But let’s be real, I almost never use mine. It’s mostly just there to hold all my clothes.”
I found a weak link in one of Forsyth’s strongest foundations.”
“No.” Wicker wears a path from one side of the room to the other, flexing his fists in tight, tense bursts. “He’s doing it again.” Shivering, I hug my middle. “Who? Ashby?” His blue eyes blaze into mine. “Maddox. That motherfucker!” With a crash, he sends everything on the low table to the floor. Pliers, the whip, a large knife. I skitter back, stunned. “First my grandfather, then my dad, and now my son. He won’t stop until he’s exterminated my whole fucking bloodline!”
“Stop looking at me like that,” she says. I look at her exactly like that. “Like what?”
😂😍
My lips tip up. “You’re kind of a badass, aren’t you?” She opens the door. “You just figured that out?”
There’s this thumping in my heart, a beat different than I’ve ever felt before. Not for my brothers. Not for anyone.
When I make a decision that’s that. Like how I knew the first time I saw your picture that you belonged to me.” I push a soft tendril of hair behind her ear.
Related to Tristian
Oh wowwww
Probably like me when I see people I was in prison with, like seeing DK the other day on my way into the courtroom. It’s like meeting a fellow combat soldier. Names, territory lines, kingdoms, loyalties… for a second, it’s like they don’t even matter. There’s a connection you can’t dismiss.
It’s how I catch the movement in the shadows near the back, without even having to break Maddox’s eerie stare. There’s another to our left, and while I don’t see the shadow shifting behind me, I can sense it, like a prickle on the back of my neck. Beside me, Verity’s throat clicks with a swallow. But Maddox just raises a hand, gesturing casually with two fingers. “I don’t know anything about a contract,” he says, the figures in the dark corners bleeding away, “and I never gave such an order. My Barons are as faithful to me as the shadows.”
Oh my lord I cannot wait for their book. Their house intrigues me the most because there’s so much mystery!
“I don’t keep tabs on Whitaker because I’m threatened by him,”
👀
“Five points,” Maddox says, dragging his fingertip through the pooling blood. He then presses it to the table, drawing a crude star with the blood. “One for each Royal house. North, south, east, west, and nowhere.” The blood smears against the wood as he drags it down, completing the star. “I realize this must be difficult for you to comprehend, considering who raised you, but there’s a reason the Barons don’t claim territory. It’s the same reason I’m wearing a mask right now. It’s why Clive Kayes wore one of his own.” Locking onto my glare, he draws a slow, bloody circle around the star.
...more
“Then let me speak this language you know so well. My son—my real son—sees this girl,” he nods toward where Verity is peeking over my shoulder, “as a sister. Harming her and her baby would be unforgivable in his eyes. That trumps your flimsy motive.”
There’s this spark of fire in his eyes that grabs me like a fishhook, right between my thighs. Goodness gracious. Jealousy looks good on Lex Ashby.
I reach up to cup his cheek in my hand, I don’t miss the slight twitch of his body—the incremental flinch. “You’re really worried.” His eyes fall closed. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers, voice ragged. “Either of you.”
It’s only as I’m standing back, drinking in the absurdity of the visual, that he makes a soft, frustrated sound. “Shit. Forgot about my glasses.” Sighing, I reach down, gingerly plucking them from his nose. Folding them up, I place the glasses on the leather ottoman, and then reach for the blanket on the back of the couch, covering him. He stares up at me, giving a slow, heavy blink, like he’s surprised I’d do something so odd as to take care of him. It’s the reason I lean down, brushing a kiss to his mouth.
And just like I always knew he would, he obeys—even though the low, animalistic whine in his throat reveals his strain.
