Painless (Steel Demons MC, #4)

by Crystal Ash

“Your rodent is trying to kill me again.” “Freyja is not a rodent, Rory!”

But three of us in the SDMC now had these animals with strange, unique abilities.

Hades stood in the center of the room, looking torn. Jandro and I took up the length of the couch, while Freyja’s tiny black form was curled up in the center of his massive dog bed next to the fireplace.

I raised a hand from the water and hovered it over Freyja. The water droplets falling onto her may as well have been acid with how she hissed and ran back to Hades.

“I don’t want Reaper and Jandro there while I’m getting tattooed.” “Really?” I almost choked on my beer. “Why not?” “You know how they are,” she murmured. “If my finger even twitches like I’m in pain, Reaper will go all crazy over-protective. Jandro will keep trying to make me laugh to distract me, and that could mess up the tattoo.”

“When something scares me, I just—” her heart brushed against my chest, betraying its rapid beating. “I feel safer, calmer, whenever you’re around.” She tilted her face up to look at me, almost resting her head on my shoulder. “That’s all.”

Here it was, the place where I could fit. The calm in her storm, her anchor and her safety.

“But it’s so worth it to me. I feel so loved, so cherished. Seeing how Reaper looks at me, how Jandro holds me—I feel like I’m made of sunlight and I just want to give that kind of love back to them, so they can feel it too.”

“Shadow likes to draw on the body first to make sure the tattoo fits and flows well. I didn’t get no towel for my armrest, though!” He glared at Shadow over my shoulder, who only grunted in response.

He seemed to lean in closer and said in a low voice, hovering just over my skin, “And Gunner was being a puss.”

“I swear to God, I’m gonna waterboard you if you don’t shut up,”

Because he was mine. He became mine that day he got captured with me, just so I wouldn't be alone. Hell, he was mine since that first moment at the service center in Old Phoenix.

"Congrats on a successful delivery, baby girl. And if it wasn't obvious," he pressed his lips to my ear, "I'm all in. I'm yours and you're mine."

My guys made me want to burst from how happy they made me. Reaper was doing so much better. He talked to me when he was frustrated, instead of shutting me out. Jandro never wanted anything except to make me laugh. And Gunner, my sweet beautiful man. Our love story had only just begun.