3
He pivots up to me like a marionette on a string, his eyes glued to my mouth. I don’t protest when his fingers dip beneath the elastic of my panties. I just match his breaths, shuddering as his fingers follow the crevice of my ass down .
The moment the tip of his forefinger finds my puckered hole, we both suck in a tight inhale. We’ve never even tried that. The thought of inviting that monster in his pants through my backdoor is vaguely terrifying. It’s taken us over a year to work up to the kind of sex we have now. He’s never once complained to me about it, but watching Nick and Remy take me that way has been a point of frustration for him. I know it has.
Sy is a conqueror.
“How are they gonna do that?” he asks, tipping his mouth to brush our lips together.
I wind my arms around his neck, finally allowing my hips to give a dragging shimmy against his cock. “Use your imagination.”
He’s panting now, his fingertip toying with the idea, prodding the muscle like he’s imagining how tight and delicious it’d be. “Deal.” The word is gruff and hungry, and just as his finger breaches my hole, I slip away, enjoying the dazed confusion in his eyes. “Where are you going?”
“Well, I have to train, don’t I?”
Blinking, the divot returns to his brow. “That Queenmaker match Mrs. Crane saw, back in the day…” His question is delivered with an edge of apprehension. “Did the Queen… win?” When all I do is grab my robe from the chair across the room, he pushes to his feet, eyes urgent. “Lavinia, did she win?!”
“See you in the ring, Big Bear.”
The holidays are always busy in Forsyth.
First, there’s an enormous Family Dinner known for Thanksgiving. It’s not just about inviting everyone to our table, but also about driving three vans full of food to the elderly alumni, the homeless shelters, and a new addition for this year, Remy’s addict support group.
Then, there’s Christmas with the Lords. Their parties are always so big that they span entire city blocks. There’s the charity event at the hospital, which Sy attended with Lex and Tristian again this year, and then a whole night of festivities with Nick and Sy’s parents.
But the final holiday event—and by far the most exciting—is Screw Year’s Eve. Traditionally, it’s a comical, Jell-O-slipperied match between house girls, but since Verity is still recovering from giving birth, and there is no Countess anymore, that leaves only our new Duchess, South Side’s new Lady, and the Baroness. A bit of a thin ticket.
My match with Sy is perfect timing.
As I sit contemplating whether or not Kathleen needs tips on the finer points of tit smacking, Nick wraps my knuckles. The locker room is quiet and much too still—the calm before the storm. Sy and Remy are in the other locker room, getting ready. I’ve been their ring girl more times than I can count, sitting right where Nick is, holding my Dukes’ hands in mine as I wound the tape over their knuckles.
Now, I’m the one fighting a shiver from his gentle touch.
“We’re on opposite sides of the bench,” I note, matching his grin when he glances up at me through his lashes.
“I did this for you once—kind of.” Nick must be talking about my match with Haley. “Tit slaps won’t help you much this time, but you can scratch him like it’s a chick fight. He’ll love it.”
I arch an eyebrow. “That’s one way of drawing blood.” But I’d never do it. As much as him throwing the fight would be an affront to me, bringing out girl-fight tactics to bleed him with as little effort as possible would be an affront to him.
Nick hums, winding the tape around my thumb. “‘First blood’ can be a tricky match against the wrong person. Sy won’t want to get too close. Grappling is automatically out, which is a shame. The way he’s been salivating over your ass lately would be the perfect tactical distraction.”
“Or I could hide a knife in my sock,” I say, giving him a knowing look.
Nick rolls his eyes. “It was one time , and I was making a point. Play dirty against dirty play.”
But that’s the thing about Sy. He’s not a dirty kind of player. Being in the ring… it means something to him. It’s hallowed ground. He respects it. Worships it. It’s not enough to draw blood. He needs to know he’s earned his spoils. Because Simon Perilini understands something no one else in this whole city does.
The difference between a win and a victory.
Slowly, my smile falls. “Hey, Nick?”
He flicks his eyes up. “Yeah, Little Bird?”
“If I lose, it’d be worse than if I never did this at all, wouldn’t it?” The words are spoken in a whisper, a secret worry passed over the distance. Even though this is something I want to do, the risk is only now sinking in. I can beat Sy. I know I can. But can I be the victor tonight? “If I lose, they’re never going to respect me.”
He could say something about the fighters of West End respecting anyone who chooses to get into the ring with Simon Perilini, who’s undefeated. He could say that’s what this is—my choice, which I fought tooth and nail for. He could tease me for having cold feet, or say I have nothing to worry about, or tell me I’m free to call it off, take him home, and ride his cock into the sunset.
Instead, he tears off the strip of tape, meets my gaze, and plainly replies, “Then don’t lose.”
And somehow it’s exactly what I need to hear.
Nick had been right before about the ticket sales.
Of course, it’s probably more about the upcoming Jell-O and tit-slapping angle than anything, but when I climb into the ring, I look out over the crowd of people from all corners of Forsyth and see far more women here than I ever have before.
There are so many of them. The crowd of cutsluts isn’t a surprise, but I can also spot the South Side women by the betting table, dressed to the nines. Verity’s East End court is grouped together along an aisle, glittering and buoyant. And if I look hard enough, I’m pretty sure I can see some of the Barons’ female shadows.
Most shockingly are the North Side women I recognize from my old life—a couple of Leticia’s old friends—all lingering in the back.
Glancing up toward the box, I see Story, her King, and his seconds-in-command. Verity is here too, although she’s only attending with two of her Princes, so I guess Wicker got stuck with babysitting duty. I’m far more surprised to catch sight of Remy’s father in his horned bronze mask. Instead of training in the back for her upcoming match, the Baroness is sitting primly between her King and her Barons, and when my eyes pass over them, I’m startled to find her staring back, her dark gaze fixed unsettlingly on me.
She doesn’t know it yet—no one does, except Story and Verity—but she’s a big part of why I’m doing this.
I only hold her stare for a moment, shifting to the men beside her. It doesn’t matter that her Barons are wearing masks, too. One of them I recognize just by the long, lazy curve of his posture. DK is leaning in toward the other Baron and pointing to a banner across the gym. We’d put it up yesterday, a vinyl monstrosity with a photo of the eight kittens. They’re at an awkward age where their ears are strictly horizontal. It makes them all look sad and suspicious.
Over the loudspeaker, Remy is listing off their finer qualities.
“Kitten number five,” he’s saying, and my eyes are drawn to him. He’s sitting at the announcer table next to Mama B, leaning back in the chair. His feet are propped up on the table and he’s holding the microphone in loose fingers, looking as though he doesn’t have a care in the world. “This one’s a doozy. Don’t let those sad blue eyes fool you. This kitten is a fighter.” The DKS members in the room respond with a deafening cheer, and Remy smirks, soaking up their rabid energy like a battery. “Kitten number six is her latest victim, so if there are any bleeding hearts out there, take mercy on this poor, bullied soul. Don’t we all know the anguish of being denied a tit?”
Glancing above him, I catch Story’s eye, dipping my chin in a nod.
She gives me a sunny smile and two thumbs-up, screaming, “Kick his ass!” Beside her, Tristian Mercer’s eyes narrow suspiciously. I worry for a moment that he might understand—might see .
Because even though the fear I voiced to Nick earlier was real—I genuinely do want the respect of the frat—there’s something else on the line tonight.
And I don’t just mean my ass.
I enter my corner of the ring just as Sy enters his, and I’m both delighted and tormented by the sight of his bare, flexing chest. He’s dressed to fight in his loose, red and gold shorts. His hands are wound with red wraps, and I have to admit that it’s oddly pleasing to see the same stony set of his brow I’d find at the beginning of any of his other matches.
Over the distance, he meets my gaze, lifting his chin in greeting, and damn .
Win or lose—ass or pussy—I’m getting some of that tonight.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Remy’s silky voice slithers through the speakers, only to be met with various cries of, “ And Duchesses! And Baronesses! Princesses! ” Remy gives the crowd of women an appreciative brow-raise. “Whoever you all are, you better stand the fuck up.” To punctuate this, he does just that, climbing onto the table to address the crowd. Mama B rolls her eyes at his antics, but he continues, “You’re about to witness history in the making. This is the first Queenmaker match since 1942, and never has there been a match more important to the people of West End. The battle of our beauty and her beast. War of the sexes. A fuschia fury. A fight so important that—” His energetic green eyes meet mine. He pauses, seeing the scowl on my face. “I mean,” he adds, “hey, no pressure, beautiful. Anyway,” he goes on, nonplussed, “In the blue corner, we have Lavinia Lucia, the heiress to North Side, our former Duchess, the one we call Queen!”
Around the ring, the cutsluts whistle and cheer.
“But in the red corner,” he gestures expansively toward Sy, “we have the undefeated Perilini, our former Duke, West End’s reigning King!”
Now, the DKS members whistle and cheer. The new generation of Dukes are tending to Sy’s corner, Porterfield handing his King a water bottle and a towel while Kaz checks his knuckle wraps.
Feeling a phantom electric charge behind me, I glance back to realize Nick’s climbed up to be in my corner. Him and Sy are both staring at Remy much like I am, exasperation warring with fondness.
“I think he likes this better than being in the ring himself,” Nick says, giving one of my French braids a gentle tug. “Look alive, Little Bird. Whatever you do, don’t let him sweep your feet. It’s his signature move.”
“I know.” Leaning on the rope, I give Nick a sparkling, vicious smile. “I trained with him long enough to know his moves.”
Nick turns his narrowed blue eyes on me. “Should I be worried that I’ve been training with you for the past three weeks? You planning to use this against me?”
I shrug. “Only if I need to.”
I see his throaty chuckle more than I hear it, the crowd swelling with another cheer. “Remember that night we first met,” he reaches up to touch my chin, nudging it upward, “when you kicked me in the face?”
I stare into his blue eyes, surprised to call up the memory with more of a smile than a grimace. “You made the cutest little squawking sound.”
His brows slam low. “I’ve never made a cute squawking sound in my life.”
“It was the cutest ,” I argue. “Like a wounded baby owl.”
Rolling his eyes, he spins me toward the center of the ring. Warm lips find my neck and I tilt my head, eyes fluttering as Nick bestows his good luck kiss on me.
Of course, it ends up being more of a good luck hickey .
After admiring his handwork, he brings a palm down on my ass. “We’ll get some cute squawking sounds out of you tonight. To the victor, Little Bird.”
Sy and I approach the center, touching our fists together a mere blink before the bell rings out.
The crowd erupts in a swell of electricity.
“Nervous?” he wonders, circling me.
Yes .
I circle him back. “Nope.”
The spotlight above carves dark hollows in his cheeks, turning his eyes into blots of shadow, but I know he’s tracking my hands and feet. He’s stalking me. Measuring me up.
“ You’re going to have to strike first ,” Nick told me during training.
So that’s what I do.
It’s not my best punch. My arm isn’t straight, my center of gravity is all off, and when my knuckles slam into Sy’s jaw, he looks deeply disappointed.
“What the fuck?” He drops his stance, deflating. “Lavinia, that punch was embarrassing. Your posture’s all wrong, you’re dropping your shoulder, and your elbow is a fifth-grader’s geometry drawing of an obtuse angle.”
I scowl, dropping my own stance. “Don’t train me while I’m fighting you!”
He leans to look over my shoulder, sniping at his brother, “What did you even train her to do, Nick?! Because I taught her to throw a punch forever ago. It’s like you un -trained her to?—”
His words clip off when my second punch—a flawless uppercut—slams into his chin, snapping his head back. The satisfaction I feel when he staggers a step back swells proudly in my chest.
Just like Nick and I planned.
Behind me, Nick applauds, whistling. “Atta girl, LB! Fucking perfect!”
Sy blinks, eying me with a glint of disbelief. “He taught you to trick me into thinking you were bad?” He seems to compose himself, gathering that stoniness back into his eyes as he regains his stance, shaking off the punch. “Fine. You wanna play dirty? Let’s go.”
But despite the words—the way he’s watching me suspiciously as we circle one another—I still see the flash of pride on his face.
Nick and I decided long ago that I’d only get one chance for that play, and we were right. Sy is on high alert now, dodging my third punch, and then swooping away from my kick. I know the crowd is there, cheering and shouting, but I block it out. The whole world is narrowed down to the three-hundred square feet of the ring and the man within it.
The first punch he throws is easily dodged, and I send him a glare. “You’re holding back.” His eyes drop to my body, and I square my shoulders. “Yeah, you’re at least three times my size. But I’ve been around the gym and DKS for a long time now, so there’s something I know.”
Nick was wrong about one thing.
First blood or not, Sy’s not afraid to let me get close. “What’s that?”
I push my whisper, feather-light and moist, into the shell of his ear. “Size isn’t what matters, baby.”
I feel his shudder more than I see it. Against my chest. Across my skin with his sharp inhale. And mostly on the tip of my forefinger, which I use to aim a hard flick right into his balls.
Immediately, Sy reaches down to protect his groin, bending over.
“It’s instinct, Little Bird. A man’s whole body reacts to a threat against his assets, whether he wants to or not. Use it.”
As Sy doubles over, I take that flash of moment to bring my knee upward, slamming it into his chest. Behind me, the crowd pulls in a collective gasp, but to my annoyance, Sy hardly seems fazed, bouncing back to arch an eyebrow at me.
“The balls? Really?”
“There were no rules against going below the belt,” I reply, regaining my footing.
“I know.” Sy swipes another punch, but I duck around it easily. “I just didn’t figure you to be so cliche.”
Behind me, I hear Nick’s sharp, swooping whistle.
A signal that it’s time for phase three.
The fury .
I lunge forward, striking out and landing a hit to his cheek. It’s not a hard hit because that’s not the point of ‘the fury’. The point is the relentlessness of spirit, feinting backward only to strike out again. And again. And again.
Sy dodges most of these, his blue eyes tracking my every movement, but I meant what I said before. Size isn’t everything. He’s big, but that makes him slow. I’m small, but that makes me fast.
I dodge out of an attempted hold just to lay a barrage of hits into his stomach.
Naturally, it barely fazes him.
But he’s on alert now. Tracking. Calculating. Every time I swoop in for another swipe, I can see the wheels turning in his head, wondering if he should dodge it or take it. They’re not hard enough to draw blood, but they also don’t stop. He has to take a hit to draw back his fist for his own move.
I begin to sense when he decides to take one rather than evade it.
And that’s when I put all my weight behind it.
The punch slams into his jaw, but just as quickly as he’d calculated to take it, I can sense his brain deciding it’s had enough. Because that hit actually hurt.
And he hits me.
Like, really hits me.
His knuckles slam into my cheekbone like a sledgehammer, and it rocks me harder than I’m expecting. The pain explodes, radiating through my skull like a seismic wave.
Fuck .
I’ve been hit plenty of times, but never like that.
My vision goes spotty—black with confused sparkles—and I land on the mat so hard that it rattles my teeth. I think at first I lose my hearing, but my heartbeat still throbs in my ears.
The crowd has just gone silent.
Instantly, I try to push up onto my palms, struggling to shake the dazed feeling, but it’s no use. I double over, clutching my head, and even though I’m going to hate myself for it…
I whimper.
“Vinny?” Remy’s startled voice is garbled in my ears—or maybe it’s just the sound system he’s speaking over. Lower, more staticy, I hear him add, “Someone fucking get Pauly.”
I don’t see Sy approach me, but I feel him. It’s a heaviness in the air. There’s also the sound of the slow drag of his feet against the mat, and then his halted breath as he leans down, whispering, “Lav? Hey, you okay?”
I open my mouth, but only a hitched breath emerges.
“Fuck,” he says, all low and full of dread. “Fuck, baby, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It was like instinct took over and I couldn’t pull my punch. Are you?—”
The second his palm rests comfortingly on my back, I spring up, grabbing his wrist and twisting. It happens so quickly that his expression is still a comical freeze-frame of panicked guilt when I slam my elbow into his nose, sending him tumbling gracelessly onto the mat, ass-first.
It takes everyone a frankly insulting beat to realize my whole ‘poor injured bird’ routine was a ruse. It isn’t until Sy pushes up onto his elbows, a stream of blood trickling from his nostril, that I’m met with a wave of shocked gasps, a roaring cheer directly on its heels.
“We have a victor!” Remy cries, and in my corner of the ring, Nick is laughing, bringing his hands together in a clap. He offers me an appreciative tip of his chin. “Good sell!” he yells.
Sy still looks stunned, even when I reach down to offer him a hand up. He eyes it dolefully, wiping a smear of blood across his upper lip. “Guess I should have factored in Nick teaching you to play dirty.” Still, he takes my hand, climbing to his feet.
Wincing, I inspect his nose, an inkling of guilt settling in my gut. “That wasn’t Nick’s training, actually,” I tell him, holding his irked gaze. “It was yours.”
It was over a year ago that we stood in this same ring, Sy teaching me to defend myself against the men of Forsyth.
At his confused expression, I remind him, “Go for the jugular? Be a viper?”
I can see the wheels turning in his head, calling up the memory of the words he’d said.
“Use the weapons you’ve honed, Lavinia. Just because you don’t like where they’ve come from doesn’t mean they aren’t useful.”
I spent a lot of years as a defenseless captive of horrible men, and he’s right. I don’t like where that came from.
But Sy taught me it could be useful.
“If I’m a Queen….” I say, bringing his knuckles to my lips. “If I’m obstinate and cocky and ruthless…” I brush a kiss to his knuckles—the same ones that I still feel throbbing in my cheek.
“It’s only because you taught me how to be.”
His face hardens, jaw tight as he regards me. “You just broke my undefeated streak, my trust, and my nose. You made me look like an idiot in front of my family, the frat, my enemies—the whole goddamn city.” His eyes dip down when I swallow, because an apology is swelling in my chest.
The enjoyment of my win fades rapidly at the anger I see in his features.
But then there’s a twitch.
Just one.
And then his lips spread into a slow, vicious smirk. “That’s my girl.”
The emotion explodes on my face as he thrusts my fist into the air between us, turning me toward the DKS section of the crowd. “The victor!” he shouts. “Your Queen!”
“To the victor!” they cheer.
In the box, Story and Verity are standing together now, both on their feet, a jubilant smile on their faces as they roar in delight. This wasn’t their fight, but they were both behind me every step of the way.
If we’re going to continue our mission to change what a woman’s place in Forsyth is, then the Monarchs need to show Arianette that it’s more than a daydream. That she can bring Maddox down. That a Queen can be more than a pet. That she can be an equal.
She can keep what’s hers.
She can reign.
And she can be a victor.
“She really is a bully,” Sy mutters, crouched down beside me in the bathroom.
I adjust the ice pack on my cheek, grinning at the squirming pile of kittens under the sink. “She’s definitely one of Archie’s.” The black mother cat is taking a much-needed break somewhere—probably in the kitchen cabinets, where she’s grown fond of sleeping. “Mean little Archie Junior.”
“No,” he snaps, adjusting his own ice pack, pressed to the bridge of his nose. “We’re not naming them. You name them, you get attached.”
Rolling my eyes, I stand, pulling him up with me. “Speaking of which, did we get a lot of quality potential adoptees?”
He follows me back into the bedroom, nodding. “A couple alumni—the non-shitty ones. Tristan wants two for his sisters.”
“Oh!” I spin, bring my hands together. “Yes, approve that.”
He lowers his ice pack, tossing it on the nightstand. “I’m hand-selecting them. Myself . Remember?”
I pout dramatically. “Then consider this a good reference. Izzy and Lizzy would take very good care of a mean little Archie Junior.”
Thrusting a finger at me, he says, “Your pouts don’t work on me anymore, deceiver. You sit on a throne of lies. Let me see.”
That last part is delivered with a touch to my chin. He directs my face to the side, blue eyes assessing my cheek. Frowning, he says, “That’s going to be a whopper of a shiner tomorrow. You sure Lex cleared you? No concussion?”
I delicately prod the swollen bridge of his nose. “He said just what you said. I’m gonna have a black eye. You, too.” As he’s inspecting me, I gather the courage to ask, “You’re really not mad? About… me beating you?” I’m careful to avoid the ‘L’ word.
Sighing, he grazes a fingertip against my sore cheek. “I thought I would be. But actually…” His gaze wanders down, a hand dropping to my hip as his eyes darken. “It’s just super fucking hot.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”
He grabs the ice pack from my hand, tossing it aside. “ Really .” He drags his lip through his teeth, a thoughtful frown on his face. “If you think about it, you winning just means I’ve chosen the perfect Queen for me. For West End.” Dipping down, he whispers in my ear, “So it’s kind of my win.”
Winding my arms around his neck, I laugh. “Oh my god, you’ll find any way to be the winner.”
He laughs with me, quiet in a way that makes my chest burst with warmth. Pulling back, his smile settles into something soft but serious. “It’s true, though.” He searches my eyes, and when his hands come up to frame my face, I get the sense that he’s documenting something. Something heavy and important.
Something mauve .
“Having you at my side is what’s made me King, Lavinia. If I taught you how to be obstinate and cocky and ruthless, then you have to know…” His eyes dip down, tracing his thumb’s path across my lower lip. “You’ve taught me how to be all of that while still loving someone. So, yeah,” he adds, finally clearing the distance to push his words into my parted mouth, “I’m far from being a loser.”
The kiss is slow and searing, deep and hot. He doesn’t taste like a loss. He tastes like heat and whiskey and an undertone of blood.
He tastes like my King.
“Sy?” I say, breathing heavily when I tear myself away. Remy and Nick are still at the gym closing up from Screw Year’s Eve, but I don’t need them here to remember the discussion we had weeks ago. “Have you ever thought about… wanting kids?” As soon as the question leaves my lips, a rush of heat rises to my cheeks.
Sy’s answer is quick. “No.” Too quick. Offering me a guilty smile, he confesses, “I do have a name picked out though.”
I freeze, eyes popping wide. “You do?”
Nodding, he says, “Victor.” And before that can fully sink in, he adds, “Or Victoria. Between you and me, I’d prefer a Victoria. I think we have enough testosterone around here, don’t you?”
“Victoria.” I say the word like it’s some alien tongue I’ve never heard before.
Pausing, Sy tilts his head. “You hate it,” he guesses, eyebrows lowering into a scowl. “I guess it’s pretty cliche.”
“No, I—” Pushing two fingers against his lips, I try to speak past the tightness in my throat. “Sy, it’s perfect.”
You name them, you get attached.
The hard line of his jaw softens. “Maybe some day, huh?”
“Yeah, Big Bear.” Wrapping my arms around him, I rest my cheek on his chest, indulging in the thuh-thump of his heartbeat. “Some day.” The moment stretches on. I feel his chin on the top of my head. The warmth of his breath in my hair. The swell of his chest against my aching cheek.
To the victor, indeed.
“In the meantime…” I say, drawing away to reach for the bottle on the nightstand.
His eyes narrow. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
I bounce the bottle of lube casually in my palm, giving him a wink. “I figure you and I can do a little training on our own. Work up to it? Just like old times.”
It’s strange to think I’d want much of the old times back, but I have to admit to missing the raw charm of our past fumbling. Everything was more complicated then, but our bodies always knew what they wanted.
He takes the lube, mouth pursed skeptically as he reads the label, putting the pieces together.
My ass was always his.
He just has to conquer it.
“I’m not the one who should get spoils.” Glancing up at me, he raises an eyebrow.
“Then don’t consider it a spoil,” I say, pulling off my tank top. “Consider it a lesson on obeying your Queen.”
A slow, devious smile springs to his lips. “Baby, I live to serve.”