Den of Vipers

by K.A. Knight

I was deemed too insane to deal with employees after I burned one of their eyes out for calling me scum.

It’s been a whole two days since I got to kill someone, and I’m getting restless.

He knows what I am—death. Ryder might be the face, Garret might be the enforcer, the muscle, and Kenzo the dealer…but me? I’m the fucking Grim Reaper.

When you fuck with Vipers, you get fangs. That poor little girl has no idea what’s coming her way…

Everyone knows Roxers, and everyone knows me…and not to fuck with me. There’s a reason they all call me Swinger, and it ain’t ’cause I go to sex parties.

They’re going to learn that money can’t buy obedience. I’m no man’s object. They are going to regret the day they took me. Vipers? Bitch, please, I bite too.

“You are ours, Roxxane. If we want to lock you up, we will. If we want

When you’re a kid, they tell you stories of monsters hiding under your bed or in the dark. They don’t tell you of the very real human ones. Those who prey on people weaker than them, or even the monsters that hide within ourselves.

We all bleed the same colour, and we are all just searching for something to make the truth of our souls disappear so we feel like good people.

Diesel is a fucking mad dog, Ryder is an arrogant asshole, and Kenzo is a charming psychopath…I can’t figure Garrett out.

Even when faced with death, she fights. It reminds me so much of some other men I know—my brothers—who never stop, never give up, even when the odds seem extreme.

Fuck, how did I ever think he was cold? He’s an inferno, a wildfire. It burns everything in its path, and right now, that’s me. But the thing is, I would gladly burn, and I don’t even know why.

“Kenzo is the bookie, owns the city’s gambling.

Garrett used to be a fighter, so he knows a lot of tough people. He’s the enforcer.

Ryder, who’s the front man. The face and the brains of the operation.

I kill our enemies, I torture those who dare defy us. I’m the reason people are scared to cross the Vipers.”

Finally understood she’s ours. There is no way out for her. Not now. Not ever. Little Bird needs to find out how to survive amongst the Vipers, or die as our prey.

After all, if you can’t beat them up, join them and then kill them. It’s time I got my hands dirty, ’cause they clearly are, and being good doesn’t seem to be working for me.

He casually told me he might kill me, and then the next second, he kissed me like I was air and he was a drowning man.

“Good little bird, finally realising what we can all see. You yearn for us, you want us, need us,” I murmur, my eyes dropping to her lips. I want to kiss her again. I wonder if she would let me.

Giving up and accepting us would be the strongest thing she could ever do. We’re monsters, vipers, and to love a monster makes you one of the strongest people in the world. To let them into your heart, knowing they could destroy you, kill you…that’s the ultimate show of strength, but she will learn that one day.

Never thought I would find a place to fit in, then I found these guys and they are just as fucked up as I am, though they hide it better. We all know what it means to be lost, to be alone, Little Bird, but together? Together, we’re stronger. We shed that life, like a snake sheds its skin—”

We will all burn together. Because of one woman. Our woman.

Nah, fuck that, if they die, I will too. That’s the only reason I care.

She can’t know the true depth of feelings I have for her, that even though I try to stay impartial, that I try to hate her, I can’t. Because I’m falling in love with her.

When her venom is racing through my veins, telling me that she’s exactly where she’s meant to be, and so am I. Changing me, mending me, freeing those emotions I hold back from everyone. Tomorrow, or I guess later today, I’ll put my careful walls back up and slip into a suit, changing back to the cruel leader of the Vipers, but here and now, with her sleeping against my chest, our legs entwined and fingers laced together…I let myself be weak. For just a moment. For her.

My pussy basically starts a Garrett fan club then, pom poms and all.

Yes, they can be cold, evil bastards, and this…this relationship didn’t start off in the best way. But what ever does in real life? They aren’t knights in shining armour, no, they are the villains in the dark, with brooding eyes and beast-like tendencies. I never needed a knight. I needed a body to stand with me in the dark, and these snakes? They do.

Maybe their venom is infecting me, maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. Maybe I just don’t fucking care. I’ve never felt so alive. They care, they notice.

A woman can be strong and weak. Beautiful and scarred. Scared and brave. Smart and sexy.

Those who love us have the opportunity to hurt us the worst, and in my experience, they always do.

She is the best debt I ever collected, and the most important business deal.

It comes to me easily. I would do anything. Everything. I would burn this whole fucking city to the ground and find her in the cinders. I would kill, I would steal, I would

“I love you with all the broken, blood-stained pieces of me,” he murmurs, and then he’s gone. She gasps, stumbling back, and looks at me in shock.

I need Ryder’s cool confidence now, and I need Garrett’s strength and Diesel’s conviction. I need them all, and they are here, all of them, in my heart. With her.

You’re our heart, Rox, our living, beating heart. The piece we were missing from our family. You turned our world upside down.

“Stay, be ours. Keep Ryder sane, melt that ice and give him the love he never had but deserved. Love Garrett, even though he struggles to love himself. Love Diesel, even though it might kill you…and love me, even though I don’t deserve it. Be my greatest win.”

The cold, controlling alpha. The damaged enforcer with a heart of gold. The romantic, charming gambler. The insane killer with an obsessive heart.

Sometimes in life, you meet people worth dying for, and they are usually the same people who are also worth living for. But you can’t always have both. If all I can offer them now is my silence and death, I’ll do it.

Vipers never die. Vipers never fall…unless it’s for a tattooed, foul-mouthed bar owner.

No, I can’t imagine them any other way without her in the middle. It might be strange, and others might never understand it, but we have never been one to follow the rules. We make our own, and Roxy? Roxy is ours. Forever.

They are my family, he never was. He might be my blood, but all that means is that he was my beginning, not my middle or end.

Yes, home. With my men, my family. My Vipers.

For a boy who lost everything to a man who lived in fire and blood, Little Bird is my freedom. My second chance. My love.

When you find love, you hold on hard. It’s a fragile little thing, and once it’s gone, it leaves a hole and memories, we all know that. Ones you wish you could relive, but from every love, you learn something. Something important. From my mother, I learned to be strong. From my father, I learned to embrace pain.

From Rich, I learned to love while it lasts and that endings aren’t always a bad thing. From my Vipers, I learned love is unconditional and can come at the strangest of times and places.

And from myself? I learned it’s okay to love yourself. Even the darkest parts of you. No matter the shape, size, or weirdness you came with. Embrace your scars and never be ashamed to...

I am theirs. They are mine. And it’s time to start our lives together.

The beautifully flawed survivor, because that is who I am. A survivor. A warrior. A queen. A Viper.

Death comes for all of us, and until it does, we have to do our fucking best to live. To live our lives to the fullest, to never regret. To love so