Chapter 34
Thirty-Four
October
Sitting up in bed, I grab the baby monitor from the nightstand, the small video screen showing me that Fénix is fast asleep in his crib. His little mouth is puckered as if he’s dreaming of food. I’ll probably need to feed him soon.
Just as I set the monitor down, a chill skitters down my spine. There’s something else in the room with us. Another presence that doesn’t belong. Something inhuman and ominous. Something familiar because I’ve already met it twice before.
Death.
A shadow’s shapeless silhouette elongates as it slowly creeps along the walls. The Grim Reaper has come to claim its next soul.
I scream for Constantine, for Tristan, for Hendrix, but no sound comes out in the void of nothingness it creates as it emerges from the wall and materializes like black mist in the darkness.
The Reaper’s eyes are like blackholes lit with hellfire, its nightmarish gaze locked on me as its long, bony finger moves like smoke, playing a game of Eenie Meenie Miney Moe as it points to Constantine, then Hendrix and Tristan, before stopping on the man lying next to me, his hand clasped in mine as he sleeps.
“No!” I throw myself over Aleksander. “You can’t have him! I won’t let you take him!”
A horrific smile forms on Death’s skeletal face, cracking the bone as it spreads. “Mine.”
“Baby, wake up.”
With a gasp, my eyes fly open to see the worried face of my fallen angel looking down at me. Jackknifing upright, I burrow myself in Constantine’s arms, breathing in the sandalwood of his warm skin.
Hendrix’s chest blankets my back when he wraps his arms around both of us. Pressing his lips to my hair, he sleepily murmurs, “Bad dream?”
I nod.
I’ve been having the same one every night since the end of August. Since we found out who was behind the car accident.
“Want to talk about it?” Constantine asks.
They always ask. I always decline. I know I can tell them anything but telling your husbands that your dreams involve another man…
yeah, not going there. But damn, the guilt is enormous.
Aleksander is my friend. He’s Tristan’s brother and Fénix’s uncle.
He can never be anything more—ever—no matter how much my heart has begun wishing for it to be otherwise.
My growing feelings for our former enemy are selfish and destructive and would ruin the life I’ve been building with the three men who have been my everything since I was four years old.
Men I love with every molecule of my being. Men I will never betray.
So damn Aleksander for sneaking in. For showing me the true man behind the enigmatic facade.
A man who loves with his whole heart, even though it’s been broken numerous times.
A man who would risk everything for me. Sacrifice his life for me and my child.
A man who asks for nothing in return but gives everything of himself, even to his own detriment.
Which is exactly what he’s doing by going after Viktor Androv.
Andie and Cillian filled me in. I sought out their guidance because I figured if anyone knew anything about the Androv bratva, it would be them. What they told me turned my blood to ice. I thought Francesco was a monster. Viktor Androv is worse.
But so is Aoife.
After the gala, after what I did to Malin, I never wanted to let her loose again. I buried her deep and locked the cage, so the part of me who became Syn could be free.
It’s a false illusion because I will never be free. Aoife’s restless soul will never give me peace. She bides her time, just waiting for the chance to be let out.
And I fear that time may be coming.
So damn Aleksander twice because I will do anything to protect him. Even if it means I have to become her.
I kiss Constantine and lean back, so I can kiss Hendrix. “I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.” The same furrowed frown appears on their faces. “It was just a bad dream. Nothing more,” I assure them, trying to wiggle out from between them.
Hendrix’s long fingers curve around my throat, and my body instantly melts at his rough embrace. I crave his claiming touch, needing it like I need air. He brings my mouth to his, his tongue stroking deep, his kiss deeper. He drinks my moan like a man dying of thirst.
Sensual turns to punishing when Hendrix tightens his grip, his fingertips pressing into my flesh. “You called out his name in your sleep, Firefly.”
I go rigid. I did?
I meet his heated aqua gaze and hold it. Hendrix wears a mask of arrogance and attitude, but his heart gets bruised easily. Cupping his cheek, I offer him the tenderness he needs to tamp down his jealousy. “Not in the way you’re implying. I’m worried about him.”
“The man has a bratva brand on his chest. I think he’s very capable of taking care of himself.”
Straddling his thighs, I drape my arms over his wide shoulders.
“And you, Mr. Knight, are very capable of taking care of a lot of things. Besides, I’d be worried about you if the positions were reversed.
” With a quick peck to his nose, I scramble off the bed when Fénix’s whimpering cry comes over the baby monitor.
Hendrix makes a playful grab to pull me back. “He can wait five minutes.”
“Says the man who gets grumpy if anyone is late to dinner.” Bending over him, I lick the piercing on his very hard dick. “I’ll take care of that when I get back.”
“You’re a fucking tease,” Hendrix grumps.
“You, too, pretty boy,” I tell Constantine when he pouts.
He flops back into the pillows with a smile and closes his eyes.
“Bring back some of that baby oil you bought the other day,” Hendrix calls out.
I trip over my feet when my thighs clench. Hendrix and baby oil spell trouble. The really good kind for me.
The hallway is dark, the silence only disturbed by Fénix’s agitated whines.
We keep the door to his room open at night and turn on one of those starry sky nightlights that projects onto the ceiling.
Low classical music plays from the small radio I bought because I read somewhere that it’s not only soothing, but the music can also help with a baby’s brain development.
Lifting Fénix from his crib, I gently bounce him and pat his back. “Hey, little man. What’s all the fuss for? I just fed you two hours ago.”
I get my answer when I smell his diaper. How can babies smell so good, but their shit reek like a sewer?
Of course, he doesn’t make it easy. He wriggles like a happy puppy when I place him on the changing table, smearing crap all over his backside when I try to undress him from his onesie.
Fénix is biologically Constantine’s, but I think some of Hendrix’s DNA must have snuck in at some point during conception.
After thirty wet wipes and a hefty amount of Boudreaux’s butt paste, I’m finally able to redress him. “There. All clean.” I blow a raspberry on his soft belly, much to his squirming delight. “All right, little monster. Let’s get you back to sleep.”
I look forward to the day when he is able to sleep through the night.
At least I’m not having to feed him every three hours anymore.
Those first weeks after he was born were pure exhaustion for all of us.
I’ve never been so tired in my life. I chalked it up to good practice for when I start my residency, and I get to look forward to twelve-hour shifts, many of them probably overnighters, at the hospital.
Sitting down in the glider that faces the window, I sing Fénix the lullabies Mama used to sing to me.
In these quiet moments, when it’s just the two of us, I often think of my parents, and the sadness creeps in.
Fénix will grow up never knowing his grandparents, not really.
Stories I will tell him won’t be the same.
He will never know their love, or how good one of Mama’s hugs felt, or hear the sound of Papa’s deep laughter.
So much time has passed since I last saw them. There are days when I have trouble picturing them when they were happy, the only vivid memory I still carry of them being the night they were murdered right in front of me. A memory no child should ever be forced to carry.
My lips linger when they brush a kiss over my son’s forehead. “Only sweet dreams,” I whisper as I lay my greatest miracle back down in his crib.
I never thought I would get this. True love.
A family. God, how I wished for them on those lonely nights at the farm when I’d look up at the stars, searching for something, for them, even though I couldn’t remember who they were.
My mind locked the door on my past, but my heart never did.
Alana gave me a good life and cherished me like a daughter, but I never truly felt whole.
Tiptoeing out of the bedroom, I head downstairs.
Tristan wasn’t in bed with us when I woke from the dream.
He hasn’t been sleeping well since the accident.
Several mornings, I’ve found him outside on the back patio deck, just staring out at nothing, waiting for the sun to rise, an untouched, half-full glass of whiskey in his hand.
Sure enough, when I get to the back door, I see him sitting outside, alone, in the darkness.
Tiny puffs of his breath waft up like smoke into the cold air as he stares out over the backyard.
Backtracking, I grab the cotton fisherman throw blanket I like to cuddle with from the couch and wrap it around me.
The hinges quietly creak when I open the screen door, and Tristan glances over, those gorgeous light-brown eyes following me as I cross barefoot over to him. Without a word, I climb into his lap, draping my legs over the arm of the lounger, and snuggle in when his arms come around me.
His chest expands with a deep inhalation, his cheek tenderly nuzzling the top of my head. “You always feel like heaven in my arms,” he whispers against my ear.