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Outside of this room, we’re the Prince and Princess—Lagan and Verity, expectant father and mother—but inside, he keeps the line drawn between doctor and patient.
The most important thing is the son growing inside of me. Delivering him into this world, healthy and happy.
“Oh, thank god.” I exhale. “I couldn’t take another day in that well-appointed prison you call a bedroom.”
“Whatever you want,” I promise, “I’ll do it.” “Good girl.”
face. “I am right here, you know!” “You’re always right here,” he stresses, batting the pillow away. “It’s driving me fucking insane!”
This isn’t victory. It’s justice.
It’s probably not a good sign that he’s so willing to use our son as a cheap interrogation ploy, but…
“That’s the mother of our child you’re speaking to.”
“Under no circumstances,” he grinds out, “are you to name my heir after a fucking Baron King.” “He’s not your heir,” I snap, “and we’ll name him what we like. Maybe Clive.” Eyes narrowing, I add, “Or maybe Davis. After Davis Bruin, you know? That’s the closest thing to a patriarch I’ve ever had.”
I look at my Princes and wonder how long this obligation—this fanatical drive to breed—has been beaten into them. Is it just the Royalty, or is it the whole frat? And why?
I’m scared. Not of him, but for him. Desperate men and all that.
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.
“Family means something different in West End. The Dukes have always been close with the frat. They work together, live together, and fight together. They’d die for each other.”
“You’re not scary, you’re just protective. It’s sweet,” I decide, but then amend, “annoying, but sweet.”
“As soon as we hit the Avenue, my bladder decided I needed a rest stop. This one,” I jab a thumb at Pace, “had to do a security sweep that took forever. Reminder to self: don’t ever pee in South Side.”
their touch became soothing instead of bruising. I want that, more than anything.
They were men. Kings. And I wanted nothing more than to bask in their superiority.
In my imagination, the Baron King transcended the others, almost supernatural in nature. One of Death’s emissaries, haunting the nocturnal streets of Forsyth, seeking souls to add to his crypt.
He’s undoubtedly human. Flesh and bone. Not just a King, but a father. Remy’s father. And a killer of fathers.
Especially Kings of the old generation. They’re disappearing like smoke.
“Our commitment to the Princess is unwavering,
“If our woman and child are there, then you can bet your ass I’ve got it under surveillance.”
I’ll put nothing past him. Not when it comes to protecting Verity or our baby.
If there’s a man in this house who’s earned the right to be called ‘Father’, it’s not the one down in the dungeon.”
But excavating the bodies, tagging and sorting, is a big task, and we currently have bigger Kings to fry.”
you reminded him of what he could have had: a blood heir.”
even though we’re not in the dungeon, we’re all fucking trapped.”
With the way the females are valued in East End—Forsyth as a whole—no one would have questioned where they went after being disgraced.
But this hot, wild thing clamoring around inside my chest? It’s primal, beyond sense or logic or concepts like love. And it’d tear her apart
But this silence is unique and fragile, as if the smallest breath could shatter it. I wish something would.
I think it must remind me of home.
My sleep is always restless now, as if my limbs are seeking the closest warm body and only finding his.
“Would you care?” Freezing, I thread my fingers through his hair, pulling until his dazed blue eyes lock with mine. “I’ll always care, Wick.”
“Creation and death are two sides of the same coin.” The words from my attacker that night in the garden still haunt me. They’re Ashby’s words, too. “You’re the coin, Wicker. You’re more than one thing.”
“Some day he’s going to wonder where he belongs.” “He belongs with us,”
“Kayes, Ashby… those are definitions made by other men who never knew you. We’re building our own family. Our own legacy. One where this child will have three fathers, and he’ll know each and every one.”
Unfortunately, de-Rufus’ing the palace is probably an exercise in futility. We’d have to burn it down.
“You’ve got a little something…” Pace says, thumbing at the corner of my mouth. “Oh, that’s just drool.”
Wicker, however, does almost nothing. “Does this,” he asks, pointing to his cheek, “look like a face for manual labor?”
I’m not letting some other woman mother my baby. That’s absurd.”
I need someone with me who understands the mind games Ashby is playing, and Wicker is fluent in pretentious bullshit.
“First my grandfather, then my dad, and now my son. He won’t stop until he’s exterminated my whole fucking bloodline!”
It’s the first time he’s ever called the baby his son.
“Even after all these years, it still smells like hair gel and bullshit.” “If you want to smell our hair gel,” I say, slowly, so there’s no confusion, “get a warrant.”
“What are you hiding behind these ridiculous gates and all the security?” “It’s mostly brocade drapes and cherub paintings.”
“You’re not here because you give a shit about the missing girls. You’re here to rack up credit from a whore you’ve gotten too invested in.” Knight’s olive complexion turns a deep shade of red. He snaps the ledger shut. “Fuck you.” “Get a warrant for that, too,”
“Stop looking at me like that,” she says. I look at her exactly like that. “Like what?” “Like I’m a fragile flower who can’t handle a strip club.”
“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.
“Rosi, if you know anything about me, it’s that I have the patience of a saint. Sure, I’m decisive. When I make a decision that’s that. Like how I knew the first time I saw your picture that you belonged to me.”
