Chapter 49 Cyrus #2
Ace reaches out, taking her hand in his. His expression softens in that way it only does for her—and occasionally for me when he thinks I’m not looking.
“We love you,” he says, his voice low and intense. “Everything we are, everything we’ve become—it’s because of you.”
The raw honesty in my brother’s voice strikes me. Ace, who calculates every word, every action with precision, speaking from somewhere deeper than thought.
I pull Keira onto my lap, needing to feel her weight against me, to ground myself in the reality of her. Her body fits perfectly against mine, as if she was made to be there. I brush back her hair, still damp with tears, and press my lips to her temple.
“You made us human again, little dancer,” I murmur against her skin. “Gave us something worth protecting beyond each other.”
Keira settles more comfortably in my lap, her weight warm and reassuring against me.
One of her hands rests on my chest, the other reaches for Ace, who sits close enough that his thigh presses against mine.
His hand finds her knee, thumb tracing small circles on her skin.
We form a closed circuit, energy flowing between the three of us in a loop that feels unbreakable.
Her tears have dried, leaving trails on her cheeks that catch the morning light. Even like this—makeup smudged, eyes red-rimmed—she’s fucking beautiful in a way that still knocks the air from my lungs.
“Forever,” Keira whispers, her voice barely audible but filled with fierce determination. “Promise me forever.”
The word hangs between us, heavy with meaning.
Forever. Such a simple concept that had never existed in our vocabulary before her.
Before Keira, Ace and I lived moment to moment, kill to kill, with only each other as constants.
The future was just a series of targets and payments, stretching into a blood-soaked infinity.
Now, forever means something entirely different. It means mornings like this and nights wrapped around her body. It means protection and possession and a softness I never thought myself capable of feeling.
“Forever,” Ace and I say in perfect unison, the way we’ve always spoken the most important truths.
Something shifts in the air as our voices blend together.
I catch Ace’s gaze over Keira’s shoulder, a moment of silent communication passing between us.
There’s something new there, something unspoken that’s been growing since Idaho, since the kidnapping, since we realized how completely Keira has changed us both.
Forever with Keira seems simple, clear—the need to protect and possess her binds us to her with unbreakable chains.
But forever between Ace and me... that feels like it’s evolving into something I can’t yet name.
Our twin bond has always been beyond blood, beyond brotherhood, beyond the understanding of anyone outside ourselves.
Now, with Keira between us, that bond is transforming, deepening in ways that both terrify and exhilarate me.
I tighten my hold on Keira, anchoring myself in the present moment rather than the uncertain shape of what’s to come.
Thank you for reading Double Trouble. I hope you enjoyed Ace, Keira it will be out in October, unless I manage to bring it forward.
I know exactly what I want, and I’m not afraid to go after it.
Victor Kaine has been pretending not to notice me for months.
The massive, tattooed owner of Ravenwood's most brutal underground fight club, he’s all beard and muscle and carefully maintained heterosexuality.
He flirts with women at Purgatory events, flexes his dominance in the ring, and acts like I don't exist.
But I've seen the way his dark eyes follow me across a room. The way his jaw clenches when I'm with someone else. The primal hunger he tries so hard to hide behind that "I'm not gay" defence he clings to like armour.
So when Julian's after-party gives me the perfect opportunity, I make my move.
I strip down and drop to my knees between Victor's massive thighs, and watch years of denial crumble under my touch.
His protests die the moment I show him exactly what he's been missing, his hands fisting in my hair as he stops pretending and starts taking.
What begins as a single night of indulgence—me riding him whilst Julian watches—becomes something neither of us expected. Victor can't stay away. Doesn't want to. The man who spent years insisting he only likes women now can't get enough of me.
But Victor's still fighting himself, still terrified of what this means in his brutal, masculine world. He wants me in private but won't claim me in public. Wants to own my body but won't admit to owning my heart.
And I'm not the patient type. I'm used to getting what I want when I want it. Even if what I want is a six-foot-four mountain of muscle and denial who's finally ready to stop pretending—whether he admits it or not.
He thinks I'm dangerous because I'm confident in who I am.
He has no idea how dangerous I can be when I decide to make him mine.
Before that, we have Prey, kicking off the Architect Series. Here is the cover and blurb:
I escaped his collection. Now I'm hunting them all.
I learned the difference between a cage and freedom the hard way—locked in Nikolai Vex's carefully curated prison, I was just another possession.
Just another prize. But I got out. I learned to fight.
I learned to survive in the underground circuits where blood and sweat wash away the memory of captivity.
I thought I was free.
Then he found me.
The Hunter never forgets what's his, and Nikolai Vex has been searching for me in every shadow.
But I'm not the terrified woman I was. I've spent months systematically dismantling the collectors—the predators who build their empires on stolen lives.
I've become something far more dangerous than prey.
When he recaptures me, something fractures between us. Violent. Obsessive. Raw.
His mask becomes a barrier between what he wants to hide and what I'm determined to expose.
Every brutal confrontation blurs the line between my escape and my surrender, between hunter and hunted.
With each clash, each touch, each question about the face hidden beneath that bone-white mask, I realize the most dangerous cage isn't made of steel.
It's built from want. His. Mine. The space between us that grows smaller and more lethal with every breath.
In the dark, some hunts end in blood. Others end in something far more intoxicating.