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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Angel Lawson
Read between
July 8 - July 11, 2024
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me,” I tell him, knitting my fingers into his silky-soft hair. “Because I’m yours, aren’t I?”
And then a ragged, slurred sound emerges from his throat. “Mine.”
As I fall back asleep, satiated and full, I realize that nothing—not a stockpile of weapons, high-tech security, or even the damage these men can do with their hands—feels as safe as I do at this moment. Tight in Lagan’s arms.
“There,” he says smugly, dipping down to brush his lips against my cheek. “My woman. My baby. My name.” I swallow in understanding. He’d just marked me for everyone to see.
“He’s been a machine since he got here, but one second with you and he turns into a fucking teddy bear?” She laughs, head shaking. “He adores you. And the baby. It’s so cute, I could literally barf.” “He’s a Prince,” I remind her, feeling my cheeks heat. “He’s programmed for fatherhood.” “Maybe, but that look? All the sweet things?” She blinks. “He loves you.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but you can’t see what I see.” She nods toward the front door where Sy pats down a donor. In a freaky moment of synchronicity, as if he actually senses her attention, he glances our way, giving her a wink. “That look Sy just gave me? That’s the way your doctor daddy looks at you.”
“Spit it out.” “Alright.” He glances over at the kitchen. “You think your mother’s got any of that banana pudding in there?” “Good grief.” I sigh. “I should have known.” He gives me that wide-eyed, innocent look he thinks he’s good at. “What?” “That’s why you volunteered to come today. For my mother’s pudding.”
“Now that one,” Lav says, tossing a shirt in the medium pile, “the way he looks at you?” “What about it?” “I’ve seen that before too.” She turns to watch Wicker approach Lex in the middle of the room. “He’s not ready yet, but when he finally is…” She trails off, but honestly, I’m dying to know. “What? What happens?” “It’s going to feel like falling off a cliff.”
Over time, she’s gotten more inclined to accepting these small, proprietary gestures, which is good, seeing as how it’s getting more and more difficult to be around her without touching some part of her.
Wicker, whose biggest problem is that he has too much soul.
It was… it was the first time he looked at me while we were…” I catch on, whisking a teardrop from her jaw. “I bet that’s the one that did it.” “Yeah?” She looks so hopeful, that I can’t bring myself to tell her we can never actually know. But I believe it. “Yeah,” I agree, gathering her close again.
“I’m sorry we did that to you.” The whisper is little more than a breath, but I know she hears it. I don’t say that Father engineered the circumstances, or that I was too high on Scratch to stop myself, or that I was just protecting my brother from someone I thought would hurt him. It doesn’t change anything.
Red: violence, energy, chaos, overwhelming
Black: sorry
Onyx (black & purple?): adds in pain (physical)
Ruby/crimson (red & orange & black?): adds in betrayal, lies, deception
“She’ll make him better. She always makes him better.”
I search her face, and though I’m not proud of it, I wonder if she’d get that same anguished, desperate fire in her eyes for us. For me. “They’re family for you,” I realize. Without hesitation, she answers, “Yes.”
“Blue, yeah,” Remy rushes out, stroking Nick’s forehead. “Hear that? We’re gonna make you blue again, Nicky.”
Blue: calm, comfort, trust, goodness 😫
Sy spears me with a glare. “So help me god, if you tell me to do something that isn’t sitting here with my brother, I’ll knock your pretty fucking teeth into this table.”
reaching for the hand he has over Nick’s neck. A shirt, I realize, and Sy’s own, going by the fact his chest is bare. But when I touch it, Sy growls. Like a fucking bear and everything. The ridiculousness of it hits me, and I snap, “Has your Duchess ever re-attached a limb before? Because I have.” When he finally looks at me, I see the fear in his eyes. It’s an all-encompassing panic, and I’m bombarded by these flashes of memory. Wicker standing over me after a rough whipping. Pace standing over Wicker after that fight on the ice. Wicker and I sitting outside the door to the dungeon for days,
...more
PROTECTIVE SY
almost like he’s giving me room to do my best. It very slightly feels like a threat.
“Nicky stays in West End. With us. With DKS.” He waits until I look up, catching his gaze, to add, “With you.”
“Because you got the blue bag.” I follow his gaze, confused and yet… strangely not. The blue bag has stuff like the heart monitor, O2 meter, and diagnostics. These supplies aren’t just for keeping someone breathing for now. These are the kinds of things I wouldn’t bother bringing down into the dungeon. “Because you saved him,”
Sy nods toward the bedroom, adding, “Because she’s our family, and you’re her family.” He dips his chin in a grim nod. “Family is the only thing we trust.”
I reach for her—not the baby, but Verity—twisting her around to cradle her back against my chest. “I don’t hate you, Verity. Not even fucking close,”
understanding that my brother knew what I needed before I did. That I was too tired to fight anymore. To fight her. To lash out with the darkness I feel inside. After the blood, stress, and fear, I needed this. A tether.
“Don’t stop, Lagan. Don’t stop.” “Never,” I tell her, realizing that I mean it. I am never letting this woman go.
🤣
The last glimpse I catch of him, Rufus Ashby is hissing in pain and anger, the stubs of his bloody, missing fingers prodding the pentagram on his chest.
The BARON SIGN👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
“Arianette Hexley. She was one of the six missing girls,”
I’m more excited than I expected when the day finally comes to drive through the streets of East End, headed west.
I catch her hips, surging into the warmth of her lips and tongue like a starving man. Maybe this was that thing I’ve been scratching so desperately to find because suddenly, I’m spinning her, pushing her up against the driver’s side door, and taking my time memorizing the feel of her body, the new curves and swells, against mine.
There’s no safer feeling than having Lex and Pace at my six,
I’ve never worn the name. I’ve never mourned it. I’ve never breathed it, bled it, or claimed it. But it’s still mine.
It’s not the knowledge that this is the William who hurt the Princess and my baby that triggers my rage. It’s seeing that fear, the insecurity, in Verity’s eyes. Verity Sinclaire isn’t a coward. She’s tough. A fighter. West End, through and through. She’s taken every single thing we’ve thrown at her for months without a flinch. But whatever this piece of shit did to her that night was enough to make her afraid. And that makes me very, very upset.
Wicker I love you 😭
Never again will this man be a risk to my family.
But just now, I killed for it. Him. For us. She takes my hand, the one I’d just used to brutally slaughter a man, and presses it, bloody and bruised, against the hard surface. The tiniest movement flutters underneath, and I exhale. Creation.
I don’t feel like a God. I feel like a man—skin and bones, flesh and blood, capable of defending what belongs to me. I take Verity, take what’s mine,
But Verity and I aren’t death. We’re something much more complicated and difficult to earn. She and I are creators. I touch the roundness of her belly, the reality of it banging around my ribcage like some wild, unfettered thing. This is my son. I brush my lips against hers. This is my Princess. I gasp for air, tasting the tang of blood and the edge of old, rusty death. This is my legacy.
Possessive. But not cruel. Not like Lex was so afraid he’d be. To Lex, I’m a duty, but Lagan sees me as his woman.
Green eyes are inherently dominant over blue.” “Fitting,” Pace says, snorting, and then I’m shaken as Wicker lobs a punch over my shoulder to his brother’s forehead. “Don’t,” Wicker hisses, “wake her up. She went through a lot today.”
but I think I know what Wicker is trying to say. He had an awakening in that cemetery. A rebirth, maybe. It’s like, for the first time, he stopped running. From everything: his past, his bloodline, his child. Instead, he faced his truth head-on. I felt it when he asked about him, checking to make sure we were both okay. When he didn’t panic, but remained strong. For us.
But since that moment in the mausoleum when his blue eyes met mine, wide and full of steel, it’s been different. It’s the same look I see in Lex’s eyes when he examines me, or in Pace’s when he holds me close. It means this baby and I are his.
“Look at me,” Wick says quietly. “I want to see your face when he fills you up.”
Glancing at her, Pace tisks. “No. Effie’s going to be a pretty bird today. We’re having company. Best behavior, okay?” I watch as she looks at him, almost like she’s trying to decide if he’s serious. “Pretty bird?” He nods. “Yes.” “Pretty fucking bird.” Pace sighs in frustration, but I can only give a delighted laugh. “It feels good to have her here,” I say, beaming when Pace nudges her onto my shoulder instead. “Then you look after her,” he offers. “Maybe you can stop her from cussing people out.”
“Tonight,” Wicker says, snagging a single-stemmed white rose from a passing tray, “he’s your opponent.” Wicker tucks the rose behind my ear, grinning. “To the victor, Red.”
Cute af
Arms crossed, he sinks further in his chair. “I would have been a better Prince.” It’s impossible to look at this imposing, ornery, moping figure before me and see anything more than an angry little boy. In fact, the more I look around me, I see it in most of them. Matt Kramus looks harried and uncomfortable, tugging at his collar. Loeffler hasn’t even glanced up from his phone since he sat down. I even see it in my own men, Wicker fidgeting with a fork so hard that he accidentally flings it into his champagne flute, the glass shattering. Without missing a beat, he covers the mess with his
...more
These men don’t need a King. They don’t need a Princess. They need a mother.
This is gonna be so fucking cute omg
“I know you were committed to this whole fatherhood and mutiny thing on day one, but the road is a little more winding for the rest of us. This,” he nods at the chapel, “is a pit stop.”
“God, you’re such a jealous freak.”
There’s something about his voice that niggles in the back of my mind, but I can’t quite place my own familiarity with it.
“Hunter, you may leave us.
