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The real fear is from the realization that the man holding me as we fall, the man with a fragile psyche, has a tighter grip on reality than the rest of us.
“For the record,” my jaw clenches in frustration, “I’m getting really sick of the spoils being our own fucking lives.”
I wonder how anyone can function in this town without having what the Dukes do.
A surety that when you’re too tired to go on, there’ll be someone there to carry you the rest of the way.
“I saw your tracker in the river, and I–” Any other words are poured into the crest of a bruising kiss, and then I understand. He didn’t know what he was coming for. Me, or my body.
Being loved by a psycho like Nick Bruin might mean hurting sometimes, but there are some advantages to knowing he’ll never let me go.
“Are you okay?” He releases me just to grip me even harder, fists tangling into the wet fabric of my shirt. “Tell me you’re okay. Tell me who to fucking kill.”
“I should have fought to keep you.”
While we were in the air, falling to what easily could have been our deaths, he turned so that he took the brunt of it. Right there, at the end of the world, he was protecting me.
“You are a real Duchess.”
This is the man who put stars into my sky. The man who first showed me what it felt like to be touched with reverence. The man who looks at me as if I could save him, even though I can’t.
“The way I see it, things are right on track. At this rate, we’ll be married by May.”
“I want you to be alive,” I say. “As a Duke, as a King–I don’t care about titles.
I finally have the power to hurt these three, and I’m gaining zero enjoyment from it.
“If deranged is a criteria, then I’ve got us covered. Plus, Sy is the most powerful man I know. And Remy? He’s stronger than you think.” He presses his forehead against mine. “Especially with you in his life.”
“I made the mistake of letting you go once,” he says, guilt etched into his features. “Once, Little Bird. It’ll never happen again.”
The thought of her belonging to Sy and Remy isn’t so bad when I already know she’s mine. If anything, it makes her feel more like she’s mine, as if nothing in this world ever truly could unless I was sharing it with my brothers.
“But you don’t fight for yourself, Remy. You let everyone else do that for you.” He just stares at me, unblinking as I turn away. “That’s our albatross.”
Now, I want to stand my ground to keep what I’ve got.
Yeah, my problem was never that I didn’t trust Sy. It’s everyone else I don’t trust.
“Why?” “Because she asked me to.”
“Fuck that. Your Duchess asked for you.
Christ. This shit is the blind leading the blind.
Something about Lavinia just makes us fucking crazy.
I’m remembering now the other reason why I couldn’t let Sy come to South Side with me. My brother can’t lie for shit.
“Come back to me, Little Bird.”
“There’s nowhere you could be that I couldn’t get to you. You understand me?”
“Nothing can keep you from us, Little Bird. Nothing.”
Loving Lavinia should never be painless.
I’m on a pinpoint, the sheer face of a cliff–one that doesn’t lead to death. Maybe it leads us to destiny.
I’m clutching her like a punishment I’m not even intending to give.
“The cliff does terrible things to powerful women.”
From now on, we fight as we were always meant to. We fight as one. We fight as a family.
“You can rely on me–you can always rely on me–but you can’t be dependent on me because I’m not perfect. Sometimes, I fail.”
“I can’t control you.” God knows I’ve tried. “And I can’t make you care about you as much as I do.”
“You’ve realized you can’t win. You can’t fix me.” “I can’t win because it’s not a game.
Hell, when it comes to knowing yourself and fighting your demons, no one is stronger than you.”
The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, possibly in my whole life, is say this: “Then that choice is yours to make. I can’t stop you.”
You’re never on your own, Remy. Never. I’m telling you that it’s time to walk beside us instead of being dragged on a leash.
“It’s too late. Everything’s fallen apart.” “Then we’ll put it back together,”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Remy leans forward, holding my gaze. “We’re going to have to ask Nick for relationship advice.” I drag a palm down my face, hiding my laugh. “God, help us.”
Kings do, take, and keep whatever they damn well please, but there are some lines that just don’t get crossed, and fucking the current leaders’ house girl is one of them.
If you want to start a war, you call Nick. If you want a negotiation? You talk to me.
“Still, Perilini doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of men.” “Maybe it should.” I point out, “I’ve taken down a lot of men–all bigger and better than you.”
“You’re threatening me. A King.” “To them,” I gesture to the dance floor, “you’re a King. To me, you’re just Remy’s sperm donor.”
“We all get a little psycho over our girls. Probably something to do with how we were raised by people like you.”
How do you get to this? Do I need to decapitate someone? Hound her relentlessly?
I let her drag me toward the bathroom. I’d let her drag me anywhere
I never thought I’d call a dark, damp, beer-soaked room ‘home’, but walking through the tower doors, that’s exactly what it feels like.
DKS is a pack, this is their den, and my role as Duchess makes me one of them. This is home.
