Fourteen
“T hank you.”
I hang up the phone and shake my head at Shay. “There’s nothing biologically stopping me from getting pregnant.”
She launches herself at me and squeezes me tight. “Congratulations! See? Everything’s going to be fine. You two will get there. These things take a while sometimes.”
I fight the urge to remind her that you can’t get pregnant if you don’t get fucked. She still doesn’t know. I’m almost positive I can trust her, but I haven’t told her yet. I can’t. “Thanks, Shay. I’m gonna go for a run, but I’ll see you later.”
Already dressed for it, I jog out my bedroom door and down the stairs, not stopping until I’m outside. I nearly run smack into Draven, his arms catching me and holding me against him a second longer than he should.
“Damn, Sully. I missed you too,” he teases, flashing me a smirk that makes my knees weak.
I haven’t seen him since the tests. Since he told an entire office full of people that he was dying to breed me, trying over and over again.
I haven’t recovered yet, either.
“Hi. I’m late for a very important run, so...”
“I hate running,” he complains, moving his giant body to block me before I can take off.
“So do I. Haven’t we been through this before?”
“Have we? Probably. But if you run I’m going to chase you, and you don’t have a clue what that does for me.”
Okay. Glancing down, I mentally flip off my traitorous pussy. Maybe one day I’ll be able to talk to him without feeling a rush of wetness, but that day clearly isn’t today. “So I won’t run then, as amusing as it would be to see you trying to hustle with a nine-inch boner.”
He tosses his head back with a laugh that has multiple workers turning our way. “I could see it now. You’d be tripping on purpose for me.”
“Not today,” I say softly. “We got the results back. No problems.”
The fact that I get to watch his pupils expand at that news doesn’t help me at all. His intense stare drops down to my stomach in a way that seems unintentional, and then he blinks his trance away. “Yeah, no surprise there, huh? Father talk to you?”
“Not yet. It’ll happen, though. Shay warned me that he wants to talk to us both after dinner.”
His playful mood seems to have faded some as he shakes his head. “Alex get his results too?”
“Yeah, we both did. So hopefully, after tonight, he’ll see reason and do what he needs to do.”
“My offer still stands,” he says darkly. “Tell me what you’re so afraid of.”
Where do I start? I’m afraid of it working, I’m afraid I’ll love it, I’m afraid we’ll get caught and then my child will be in danger too. “It’s just not necessary. Alex will come around. He has to.”
Draven sighs. “All Ephraim cares about is there being a Creed baby in your belly. I may be the bastard, but my last name is still Creed which means our child’s will be too.”
“And there will be a Creed baby in my belly,” I remind him. It feels like beating a dead horse at this point especially since I don’t have a single shred of evidence to support what I’m saying, but I just don’t understand. “There will be.”
I see the second understanding dawns on him, and the space between us grows. “You’re not seeing it, little keeper. Alex isn’t going to come around. He’s not going to wake up one day and realize what an idiot he is for pushing the better woman aside and decide to love you. It’s April. He’s had months to step up and do his job, and he’s no closer today than he was in December. He won’t touch you. He doesn’t fucking want to.”
There’s a difference between wants and needs. It’s not about him wanting to do it anymore. He needs to. I have a sneaking suspicion that our conversation with Ephraim tonight will make that crystal clear to him.
But... then what?
And what happens if Draven is right?
“And what’s he going to do when he finds out you knocked me up?” I whisper sharply. “You think he just... what? Won’t notice? Will think maybe he got drunk one night and doesn’t remember coming inside me?”
“I think he’d be relieved you got pregnant and not really give a fuck because that’s just it, Sullivan. He doesn’t give a fuck. Don’t believe me? Go and ask him then.”
“Ask him? Are you insane?” I tug him a little further from the house, just in case. “I’m not going to go ask him if he cares if I let his brother impregnate me three months before our wedding.”
It’s then I realize how isolated we are right now, and when he takes slow deliberate steps toward me I feel myself backing up against a tree. “I am insane, little keeper. I thought you knew that?” He rests his hand against the side of my face, swiping my cheek with his thumb. “That’s why I already told him I want you.”
Fuck.
My whole world collapses to just this, just us. He can’t be serious. “You did what?” It comes out so quiet, it’s barely a breath.
Draven presses his forehead against mine, inhaling my scent deeply before he takes a step back to let me breathe. “I went to him first. That’s the thing, baby. When a man truly wants you, nothing will stand in his way from letting you know it.”
It feels colder without him close. Not just the space I’m in, but everywhere. All places, all things.
And while the romantic in me wants to believe that’s sweet, the more rational part of me knows I’m just being used as a pawn again. Being moved from Alex’s space to Draven’s.
“And he said okay?” I ask. “He doesn’t care?”
Before responding, he shoves his hands into his jean pockets with a frown. “He doesn’t care. He never will.”
Yeah. I’m getting that. Nodding a little, I squeeze the bark behind me as I start to get lightheaded. “Right. Okay then. I’ll um...”
“Do you care?” he asks before I can leave. “About him... this marriage... anything aside from surviving?”
“I was trying to,” I admit. “I was trying.”
“Save that energy for me,” he says too cockily. “You’re gonna need it.”
He seems to have his mind made up that he will have me one day, and honestly, he’s right. He will. Because knowing that there’s zero hope for Alex and me to ever make this work, I have to figure something out. And I might as well enjoy it when I do. “Can I think about it?”
“I’ve been patient so far. I can be patient a little longer. Don’t expect me to hold back once you say yes, though. That tease of a taste wasn’t enough. All it did was make me feral for you.”
Which means I’m an idiot for wasting time. He wants me, I want him, nothing else should matter.
But other things do matter, and I need to make sure he’s not playing me first. For all I know, this is some ridiculous long con cooked up by both of them to make sure I’m loyal before anyone puts a Creed heir inside me.
“Then keep that energy for me,” I repeat back to him. “But for now, give me some space. I need to think.”
Dray crinkles up his nose like he doesn’t like it, but takes one step back. “Better?”
This fucking guy.
I can’t fight it, it makes me laugh. “You’re an idiot, Dray. Go away.”
The accomplished grin on his face has me rolling my eyes, because even without him confirming it, I know he only did that to make me smile. “Don’t pull a muscle overthinking, little keeper.”
He’s slowly backing away now, leaving me alone against a tree trying to figure out the best way forward. I have an out. He offered me an out.
I just need to take care of something first.
––––––––
T here’s no need to guess where Alex is. Since I didn’t see Princess Morella anywhere on the grounds doing her actual job, I already know they’re in his room.
I don’t bother knocking.
Sure enough, I find him bending her over, hips slapping hips as she muffles her moans with a pillow.
Coward.
“We need to talk,” I snap, startling them both as I slam the door behind me. “Don’t stop on my account, I don’t give a fuck what you do.”
Morella scrambles forward as she cusses at me and dives under the blanket, but not fast enough. I still get a generous look at the woman Alex deemed was more important than my life. And Alex himself? The fury on his face does nothing to distract me from the sweat beading on his chest, the heavy cock swinging between his thighs.
It’s a nice cock on a nice body, but he may as well be dead to me.
“What do you want, Sullivan?”
“Did you tell Draven it was fine for him to fuck me?” I ask, looking between them. “That after everything I’ve gone through to keep your secret, your answer was to pawn me off to a bastard?” It’s unnecessarily cruel to Draven, but it has to be said. “Fucking answer me!”
“Yes,” he spits out. “For some reason, he wants you. Desperately. And you can’t deny it solves our problem. You’ll still have a Creed heir. My father will shut up, you won’t have to keep trying to make excuses, and Draven gets what he wants. So yeah. I told him it was fine. It was our idea, actually.”
Somehow, that makes me feel better about Draven. He didn’t ask. He didn’t put me in this position. He's just trying to help me get out of it. “Why are you such a pussy? I mean seriously. You love her so much, why not tell your dad? You could’ve ended this before it began. You’d rather have everyone in this house know your wife is being bred by your brother than just man the fuck up and stand up for Morella. And you,” I round on her, making her squeal and pull the blankets up higher. Good, I hope she’s scared. “You’re a pussy too. How can you sit there letting him do this? Do you not have any self-respect at all?”
I’m prepared to keep going, but Alex holds up a hand in a move so reminiscent of Ephraim, it actually makes me stop. “Did Draven ever tell you about his mother? Not Verna. Draven’s mother Ella.”
“No. Of course not. I’ve tried to avoid him because I was under the impression you’d do what’s right.”
“Talk to him about her before you judge me. It’s not my story to tell, but when my mother found out that Ella gave birth to a son who could one day threaten my standing in the family, and she found out that our father loved Ella more than he could ever love her... she had her killed. Draven was just a baby. She tried to have him dropped in the river, but our father caught her, saved him, and would’ve had her killed for what she did if it weren’t for how bad it would look. This family doesn’t fuck around, Sullivan. Not when it comes to appearances.”
My heart breaks for Draven twice over. Growing up like that, being treated the way he has been only to find out that his mother, the one person on earth who would’ve loved him unconditionally was murdered by his step-mother?
“She’d kill me too,” Morella says quietly before I can find my voice. “I won’t bring her the type of heir she wants. I’m not educated enough, not pretty enough, I don’t have an important family. If she thinks that killing me will pave the way for you and the progeny they’re so desperate for, she’ll do it. You seem like a nice girl, but I won’t die for you.”
“Bold of you to assume I won’t kill you myself.” I wave Alex off as he moves between us. She has nothing to fear from me. “I won’t die for you either. If it comes down to it, if it comes down to you or me, I’ll choose to save myself. God knows no one else will.”
“Sullivan, please—”
“Shut up,” I snap. “Just shut the fuck up. I’ve had it with men telling me what to do and how to live just to suit them. I’ll play along and do my duty, but you have no right to ask it of me, to demand it of me.” Shoving past him, I pause at the door and turn around, looking him up and down slowly. I offer him a slight smirk and one last thought before I leave and slam the door in his face. “Draven’s cock is bigger anyway.”