Chapter 6
6
Verity
For the rest of that week, we almost get into a routine.
Mornings in the dungeon, afternoons in the garden, evenings spent pouring over design plans for the new nursery, and nights spent with Wicker wrapped around me like a vine.
Of course, the peace couldn’t last.
“It should be me,” comes a voice from beside the bed. “You know I’m right.”
I’m beginning to get used to Wicker popping out of walls, but I still toss him an exasperated look when he appears from behind the panel. “I don’t want another argument,” I say. Things are still fragile since last night, when I made a proposition that neither Pace nor Lex took very well. Wicker hadn’t seemed to care at the time. “And should you really be using that right now?” I glance at the door, pitching my voice to a whisper. “With people in the house?”
The whirr of the drill whines down the hall, followed by the sound of plaster hitting the floor. It’s been like this all day. All day. Starting at 7 AM.
“Seemed easier than going through that obstacle course out there. You’re the one who wanted a new nursery.” He notices the suitcase on the bed. “They aren’t going to see anything.”
The baby will be here in less than three months. And since Lex seems to think we’re already cutting it close if we want the nursery to be done first, we’ve had to accelerate the timeline on my nursery plans. Early mornings, late nights. All of this despite the man we’re currently holding prisoner down in the basement.
“I still think this is a bad idea,” I sigh, rubbing my temples.
“Going to West End?” he asks, sliding a look toward the half-full suitcase. “Probably.”
I shake my head, throwing another pair of socks into the bag. “You know what I mean.”
“The construction is proof of life.” Wicker shrugs, completely uncaring about the team of contractors hammering two floors above our torture victim. “Father would never let the baby come without tearing up the palace to make it perfect. The less of a fuss we make, the more suspicious it’ll seem.”
I know he has a point.
It’s just that I’m tired.
Once Wicker offered up his room, the three of them got busy, digging through Rufus’ files for his contacts. All of us then spent the following week meeting with an architect, contractors, and designers. There’s a benefit to being Royal, especially with access to a King’s fortune.
Money doesn’t buy quiet, though. Or sleep. It doesn’t soften the loud footsteps going up and down the hall, or the incessant radio chatter the workers turn on the minute they arrive, or this knot of nervousness in my stomach that they’re going to find out what we’re hiding below.
The construction chaos isn’t just in our wing, either. They rolled out paper covering the floor from the kitchen entrance up the backstairs and hung thick sheets of plastic in a futile attempt to keep the dust out of our living quarters. Pace pretty much wrapped his office in plastic wrap.
So when I realized the date—that it’s time for my month in West End—I won’t deny seizing it with a complicated gusto. I fold another shirt. “I have to get out of here, Wick.”
A loud crash echoes down the hall, and he grimaces. “Convenient that Dr. Lex decided he should be the one to go with you, while we get to stay here and ‘hold down the fort.’” He uses air quotes on that last part before flopping onto the bed. He picks up the small purple massage ball that helps with the cramps I’ve been having in my arches and tosses it in the air. “Take me with you instead, Red. I’ll feed you burritos. I even promise not to complain about sleeping on what I assume is a dirty mattress from some warehouse alley.”
“Thinly veiled insults about my family will get you nowhere.” I stifle a yawn. “But nice try. Lex has already worked out the deal with Sy to run the annual blood drive at the gym, so there’s another reason for him to go with me.” I shoot him a look. “Unless you want to join in the organization of dozens of volunteers, setting up the bus, and everything else?”
He considers it, or pretends to, and then decides, “Better me than Lex.”
I frown, walking to the dresser to get my toiletry bag. “You’re worried about him?”
“Sending my brother into enemy territory completely unprotected?” The look he gives me is mocking, all wide eyes and guileless expression. “What’s to worry about?”
It’s all I can do not to groan. “The Dukes aren’t anything like the three of you seem to think. Maybe if you’d stop treating them like the enemy, you’d see that.” I give a pair of leggings an aggressive shake. “And then maybe we could actually work together to find Stella, Laura, and Rory’s sister.”
Before he can refute this, there’s a distant slam.
“Son of a—” The sound of plastic ripping and cursing precedes Pace ripping through the barrier between the hall and my bedroom door. He finally makes it through with a scowl on his face and Effie’s cage in his hands.
“Decay,” she chirps an exuberant greeting, “beautiful decay.”
“What?” I ask, laughing. “That’s new.”
“It’s that goddamn radio.” He carries the cage over to the window. “They listen to it all the time. She’s fucking obsessed with that one DJ.”
“Oh, that Royal Noir show? Yeah, I like him.”
“Well, I can’t take it anymore.” He strokes Effie’s beak and faces us. “It’s so fucking noisy this week, I can’t get her to settle down. She already curses too much, the last thing I need is for her to become fluent in a second language.”
Artis, the foreman, is Czech.
Pace finally sees the suitcase. I know he does because he suddenly freezes.
“Maybe Lex and I can take her with us,” I offer, ignoring the storm brewing in his eyes. “I know Mama will be happy to see her again.”
Wick glances between us, a smirk flirting at the corner of his mouth.
He’s enjoying this way too much. “Yeah, bro, let her take your most precious possession with her into a rival territory.”
“You’re really going through with this.” Pace’s words fall like a boulder, dull and flat and twice as heavy.
I wince at the coming headache. “We talked about this. The Princes have a contract with the?—”
“They’d honor your decision,” he snaps. “You know they would. If you tell them you want to stay in the palace, they’d tear up the contract.”
Gently, I remind him, “I made a contract with the Dukes, too.”
Pace scoffs. “That’s not why you’re going.”
“You’re right,” I say, throwing my hands up. “I’m going because I’m tired. And because I miss being somewhere I don’t have to constantly worry about our torture victim being found.”
Finally, Wicker cuts in, eyes rolling as he tosses the massage ball in the air. “Give her a break, Pace. This shit is obviously stressing her out. That’s not good for the baby, right? Let the Dicks worry about protecting her for a while. They’re gutter rats, but they’re well-armed gutter rats.”
I send him a glare. Not helpful!
The look he gives me in return? Butter couldn’t melt.
“You just want her to leave so you can avoid acknowledging the baby for the next few weeks,” Pace snaps back.
His expression hardening, Wicker replies, “I want her to leave so we can handle our shit without worrying about her.” He pushes up, propped on his elbows as he levels me with a stare. “Look, no offense, but this baby thing is putting a real damper on our extracurricular activities.”
“None taken.” I think. At first. When it begins flaring in my chest, I blurt, “I’ve been really on board with the torture stuff, thank you very much.”
He snorts, giving the massage ball a squeeze. “Chill, Red. No one here doubts your commitment to Sparkle Motion. But let's stop bullshitting ourselves. Our focus has been divided.”
“And now it won’t be?” Pace runs his hand through his hair, frustration evident in his tone. “What about Lex? What if he’s sleeping and we’re not there to pull him off you?”
I feel my face soften at the knowledge I hold, deep down. “Lex would never let himself hurt me, and everyone in this room knows it—even if he doesn’t.”
“And what about William?” Pace’s eyes blaze with fury. “What about the fact someone’s snatching Royal assets, and the last one to be taken was driving your car?”
There’s nothing being said that wasn’t gone over last night. “I’m safe in West End,” I insist, for the millionth time. I’m expecting the same old rebuttal—blah blah, gutter rats—but I’m not anticipating the way he springs forward, words slicing through the air like a knife.
“When are you going to get it?!” he roars, uncaring that Wicker has jumped from the bed, grabbing him by the arm.
“Hey, chill,” Wicker tells him, but Pace jerks away from him.
“You’re not safe anywhere!” he snaps. “And if that hasn’t sunk in yet, then the last place I want you and our kid is somewhere I can’t protect you. Someone has to think of him.”
“I am thinking of him!” But before I can make him even angrier by mentioning that this baby has family in West End too—family he’s entitled to, and family that will protect him—I see the icy shutters falling over Pace’s eyes.
“No, you aren’t,” he says, the coldness in his voice cutting. “Just like you weren’t the night you ran out of here, right into William’s stupid fucking trap.”
For a moment, it feels like all the air has been punched out of my lungs. “That’s not fair,” I say, struggling to inhale. But when I glance at Wicker, his blue eyes dart away from me, the cut of his jaw suddenly tense.
Clearly, he agrees.
Pace allows his brother’s silence to speak for itself. “What’s not fair is that every time you make some rash, half-cocked decision to step foot into danger, you’re taking us with you. Not just our baby. Not even just my brothers. The Dukes, too. Your mother. Lavinia.” A new arrogance curls his mouth into a snarl. “Stella.”
The name lands exactly as he means it to, painful and jarring, snatching my breath away. It twists inside my chest, this knot of agony and shock, and I’m taken by the thought that Pace would have hurt me less if he’d punched me.
“How dare you.” My vision blurs, tears filling the edges, but I can see Wicker stepping between us, a hand fisted into his brother’s shirt.
“That’s enough,” he hisses. “You’re not putting that shit on her!”
Pace doesn’t break my stare. Not until the first tear makes a track down my cheek. “I didn’t mean—” The words bite off, and then he clenches his teeth. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter what I think, right?” His chest jumps with a clipped, humorless laugh. “This is the deal we made that day in the solarium. You get to do anything you want, and we get to deal with the consequences.” He makes a snide, mocking bow. “May she reign.”
“Fuck you,” I spit, but Pace is already retreating from the room, his footfalls nearly as loud as the hammering down the hall.
Wicker sucks in a long, fortifying breath before turning to me. “He didn’t mean it like that.”
But he did.
It lingers, this ghastly, unspeakable thought that Stella was taken because of me. Pace didn’t put it there. It’s been haunting the corners of my mind since I watched her on Pace’s monitor, driving into North Side and never returning.
Turning back to my suitcase, I zip up the sides, more determined than ever to get some space. This isn’t a place of creation. It’s a fucking palace of destruction and it’ll destroy anyone and anything inside its walls.
“It’s pretty nice here, don’t you think?” I pat my face dry and analyze my skin in the bathroom mirror. Ugh. Everyone talks about the pregnancy glow, but no one talks about the persistent acne. “I’ll even pretend I didn’t see you hiding guns all over a few hours ago.” I squeeze a glob of toothpaste out on the brush and shove it in my mouth.
My fight with Pace still burns angrily in my chest, but I’m resolved to ignore it, letting the familiarity of West End and Royal Ink’s loft apartment soothe the wound. Crossing into the territory earlier that afternoon had meant Nick and Remy patting down Lex for weapons and finding too many. They were unhappy about it, but I convinced them to let him keep most of them.
Maybe Pace hurt me, but he did it with the truth.
Nowhere is safe for me.
Which means nowhere is safe for us.
After a long moment, Lex’s flat voice rings out from the bedroom. “There’s only one room.”
Sighing, I spit into the sink, staring into my own reflection. “I know.”
There’s a long pause, and then, “The couch will be fine.”
“Lex,” I start, the words garbled around the toothbrush, “this is stupid; just sleep in the bed with me.”
It’s been a month since the attack, and even by Lex’s own metric, I’m cleared for just about anything. But he treats me like spun glass.
Or rather, he treats the baby like spun glass.
Lex strolls into the bathroom, shirtless and in a pair of pajama bottoms that hang low on his hips. His chest is covered in a scattering of light auburn hair, with a darker thatch that runs below his belly. He’s wearing his glasses, peering down at the back of a pill bottle. “I think you should add one of these to your daily supplements.”
Distracted by his—Jesus, everything—toothpaste slides down the back of my throat, and I gag.
“Ver!” He drops the bottle on the counter and rushes over, one hand on my back, the other on my stomach.
“I’m fi—acgh-ne.” I gag again and then spit out the toothpaste in the sink.
Lex turns on the water and I bend, scooping water into my mouth with my hands. Coughing a few more times, I finally get it together. When I look up again, my face is red, and the concern he’d shown before has darkened into something sharp and complicated.
“What?” I ask, wiping my mouth on the handcloth. “I’m fine.”
In the mirror, his eyes dart down. “What are you wearing?”
Following his gaze, I pull at the big T-shirt I found in the back of the closet. “Oh, this?” It’s faded and worn, an oversized, black Forsyth Fury shirt with a growling bear on the front. “It’s super soft and big enough to cover our little head of lettuce here,” I say, referencing this week’s produce-to-baby scale.
I search his eyes as he spins me around, putting my back in the reflection of the mirror. Expressionlessly, he points to something there. “It has Perilini’s name on it.”
I crane my neck and see the peeling letters. “So?”
“So…” He meets my gaze, brows crouched dangerously low. “I know we have this little truce, and you think it’s fun that we’re all playing nice, but you don’t belong to them, Verity. And when a woman wears a man’s shirt, with his name on it, there’s an implication.”
“Oh, for the love of—” I just can’t help it.
I laugh.
That dark eyebrow-crouching grows more severe with each snorted chuckle. “This isn’t a joke. Who you belong to in this town means something.” It isn’t until I see the tendon straining angrily in his neck that I swallow down my amusement.
I lift my shirt, revealing the ever-growing swell of my belly. “I think this is a bigger implication of who I belong to. One I can’t take off.” His gaze roams the taut, pale skin of my stomach, and his jaw tenses. There’s this spark of fire in his eyes that grabs me like a fishhook, right between my thighs.
Goodness gracious.
Jealousy looks good on Lex Ashby. “It’s not the same and you know it.”
“It’s comfortable,” I say, tossing the towel on the counter and walking past him into the bedroom. “And that’s my biggest priority right now.”
One of the cruxes of being in West End is that I know, somehow, Pace has his eyes on me. The feeling used to be a phantom thing, a suspicion I figured I was conditioned to after months in the palace. Now, I know better.
There’s a camera on me right this instant.
I know it like I know Lex is about to stalk out of that bathroom, fists clenched.
A moment later, he does. “Take it off.”
“No.” I turn, walking out into the living room, aware of him following me. There are a lot of big windows in here. Pace would have had trouble getting tech into the loft, but somewhere else?
I pull my hair up, putting my back to the window.
“Verity.” Lex’s voice comes low and full of warning, and when I glance up, a dark smirk freezes on my lips. He’s by the kitchen now, idly inspecting a series of frames on the wall. “You shouldn’t provoke him. He’s having a hard enough time already.”
“A hard time doing what?” I ask, remembering the searing bitterness in Pace’s eyes when he bowed to me. May she reign. “Letting me make my own decisions? Trying not to own me? Not lashing out when he doesn’t get his way?”
Lex slides his gaze to mine. “Not coming in here and taking you back to his cell.” The word he uses is like a bucket of cold water, and he notices. “It’s the only way he knows to keep the things he cares about safe. He can’t help it, but he’s trying.”
Shaking my head, I let my hair drop, covering the name on the back of my shirt. “He doesn’t see reason.”
Lex fingers the corner of a frame, his amber eyes scanning the text of the old newspaper article inside of it. “The two of you have that in common.”
I look toward the bedroom, and for a moment, I wish it was Wicker here with me. He’d touch me, even though it’d be hungry and full of frustration. He’d be curling around me in bed right about now, half-asleep, yanking me aggressively into the breadth of his chest.
I’m not sure I can sleep alone anymore.
“Can you take those down?” I plead, watching Lex inspect all the articles about the Forsyth Carver. Rubbing some warmth into my arms, I explain. “They freak me out.”
Lex raises an eyebrow, tipping his head toward my chest. “Can you take that off?”
“Come to bed,” I challenge, fidgeting coyly with the hem, “and you can take it off me yourself.”
The shutters slam over his eyes, and with a tightly contained inhale, he begins taking the frames off the wall. “I have to sleep out here,” he says, gesturing to the couch. “You have to tie me up.”
It takes me far too long to realize the rope slung over the arm of the sofa has an actual purpose. I blink at it, jaw going slack. “Oh my god, you can’t be serious.”
He stacks the frame neatly on the counter. “That was the condition of me coming.”
“Lex, this is ridiculous.”
“Look,” he suddenly snaps, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, “it’s been a long day in another territory. I’m in a strange place without my brothers. I've seen three other addicts from group. And my Princess is wearing another King’s clothes.” When he turns to me, there’s a flash of something dark and barely contained in his eyes. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
I approach him carefully, slowly, like a cornered animal, and when I reach up to cup his cheek in my hand, I don’t miss the slight twitch of his body—the incremental flinch. “You’re really worried.”
His eyes fall closed. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers, voice ragged. “Either of you.”
It’s why, with a lump in my throat, I follow his instructions, eyeing the long, lean cut of his body as he stretches out over the length of the couch. His feet hang off one end while his head rests on a silk throw pillow.
He raises his wrists, expression inscrutable. “Thread it through that pipe.”
I do as he orders, the rope rough against my palms as I wind it around the large pipe. It’s sturdy in that old way—maybe cast iron—and has been painted a glossy, if scuffed, white.
Then I tie his wrists.
“Tighter,” he commands, giving the rope a gentle tug. Obeying, I cinch it hard, wincing at the loss of circulation he’s about to experience. It’s only as I’m standing back, drinking in the absurdity of the visual, that he makes a soft, frustrated sound. “Shit. Forgot about my glasses.”
Sighing, I reach down, gingerly plucking them from his nose. Folding them up, I place the glasses on the leather ottoman, and then reach for the blanket on the back of the couch, covering him.
He stares up at me, giving a slow, heavy blink, like he’s surprised I’d do something so odd as to take care of him.
It’s the reason I lean down, brushing a kiss to his mouth.
At first, the only movement I feel is the way his arms flex against the binds. The quick sharpness of his inhale. The way his body tenses when I sling a leg over his hip, straddling him.
And then I feel his tongue sweep out against mine.
The kiss is hot and slick, but also infuriatingly measured. I can feel him growing hard beneath me, and when I rock down into it, a gritty sound erupts from his throat.
“Don’t,” he rumbles, jerking his head to the side. There’s a spot of color on his cheeks, mouth pressed into a tight line. “You’ll make it worse.”
“I could make it better.”
He frowns and I give up, my stomach sinking as I rise, my own cheeks feeling ablaze with embarrassment. I’m not sure why, but some part of me had been certain that having Lex here, away from the cameras and security and medical equipment—out of the cell—would make things different.
But that’s the problem.
The pitch of my voice is soft, curious. “Is this all I am to you?” I wonder, cradling the swell of my belly. The question isn’t made bitterly. I never know where I stand with these men. “Am I just a… responsibility?”
His jaw hardens when he glances at me. “Trust me, Princess. Things would be a lot easier for both of us if you were.”
I turn the lights off when I leave, my heart in my throat, and crawl into bed alone. Ashby’s damage runs deep. He broke his sons in ways they’ll never comprehend. Not just with whips and punishments, but the places inside.
Places I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to reach.
I always have the worst dreams when I’m in West End.
It shouldn’t be the case. This is still home for me, the place where I feel safest. But something has twisted that sense of comfort into a nervous unease. I know these streets. I know the buildings. I know the shape of the clock tower on the horizon. I know the way the cracked asphalt looks in the summer, waves of heat rolling off it. I know the people, the sky, the scent.
But West End doesn’t know me.
Not anymore.
It’s why I wake with a start, a vague notion of worry gripping my lungs like a fist. I don’t remember the nightmare, only that I felt incomprehensibly alone, adrift in a vast, empty sea, whose waves I can still hear breaking through the fog of sleep.
It takes me a moment to realize I’m not hearing the breaking of waves.
It’s breathing—low and ragged, animalistic.
The dark shape looming in the doorway is familiar, as is the little tinge of terror creeping into the edges of my awareness.
Oddly, there’s also a sense of relief.
“Lex,” I whisper, turning toward him. It doesn’t even occur to me to wonder how he escaped the binds. His hair is loose, a slash of orange streetlight from the window cleaving him across the chest. I meant what I said to Wicker and Pace earlier in the day. Lex would never hurt me, and that’s something I trust all the way down to my gut, even though it twists in anxiety.
So when that first footfall sounds, his heavy eyes and rippling muscles coming toward me, I don’t fight.
He wouldn’t like that.
It shouldn’t surprise me that the first thing he reaches for, clawing with a violence that unnerves me, is the shirt. He plants a knee on the bed and grabs the hem in his big palms, curling them into fists.
The fabric rips like paper.
I gasp, slamming my hands over his fists, but by the time I realize he’s ripped it clear up to the neck, splaying the two sides of the fabric apart, he’s already wedging himself between my thighs. The dark glaze of his eyes is entirely without reason or thought, a man driven only by instinct. His fists dig into the mattress on either side of my shoulders, the fabric of my shirt still clutched within them. I feel like a specimen who’s been peeled open for empty eyes, unable to move under the pressure of his grasp.
“Lex,” I try, straining against the binds of the shirt. “Lex, wait.”
He forces my thighs apart with his own before mindlessly pushing his hardness into the apex of my hips. When I shove at his chest, trying to make room between us for my belly, I’m greeted by his snarl, teeth bared, body slamming into me once again.
I respond with a firm, “Lagan!”
He freezes.
Lex’s eyes are dazed, eyelids heavy with sleep as he stares down at me. A lock of his auburn hair is caught on his lip, billowing out with every puff of breath, and he shudders when I reach up to free it. Dragging my fingertips down a heaving chest, I tuck my hand into his waistband, only needing to think for a second before easing them down his hips.
“It’s okay,” I assure him, knowing what he wants—what he needs. Lex would never allow himself to take it, because I might be more than a responsibility to him, but whatever that is, it’s not nearly as important. “You can have it.”
When I push at my panties, working them down a leg, they’re already soaked.
“Here,” I whisper, grasping his hot, rigid length in my hand. It’s easy to guide him, to rub the swollen head of him against all my slickness and want, to strain up to taste the tense line of his mouth as he takes the cue, punching his way inside.
The cry he makes is soft, rough, and desperate.
So is mine.
After weeks of emptiness, the fullness burns, my muscles tightening against the intrusion. I dig my fingernails into his hips, stilling him with an urgent, “Lagan, stop.” And just like I always knew he would, he obeys—even though the low, animalistic whine in his throat reveals his strain.
I adjust to him slowly, reacquainting myself with his cock, the thickening and stretch. He’s propped above me, and one squirm of my neck puts his bicep right into my line of sight, the muscles rippling with restraint. Biting down on my lip, I rock up, taking every inch of him with a groan.
“God, yes,” I gasp, finally working my arms from the shirt. I use the new freedom to frame his face, looking into his glazed eyes. “Go slow, Lagan. Fuck me slow.”
His body jolts, forehead knitting up into a scowl as he drags his cock back, drilling forward once again. I can’t even think of a word for how good it feels to have him inside of me again. It’s liquid warmth, a fullness so big that it could choke me, and I rock back into it greedily, winding my legs around his strong hips.
“That’s it,” I say, watching the way his face collapses in ecstasy. “This is what you want, isn’t it? You want to fill me up, give me your seed...” It feels illicit, me being the one to whisper these dark, dirty things against the warm curve of his cheek. He turns his head on his next thrust, his lips dragging clumsily across mine, and I give him what he wants, licking at the seam of his mouth.
It parts for me instantly.
The kiss can hardly be called a kiss. With every rock into me, his back bowing with tightly contained shoves of his hips, a growl builds in his chest. I can hear it knocking around in there, can taste the shape of it on his tongue, can smell the scent of it in his sweat. He’s a bow strung tight, his body vibrating with power, and yet…
He fucks me so gently, spearing his cock in and out, but never slamming down on me.
The tears that spring to my eyes are ridiculous, pointless things, but I’m powerless to stop them. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me,” I tell him, knitting my fingers into his silky-soft hair. “Because I’m yours, aren’t I?” I gaze up into his dead eyes, and the longer he’s silent, fucking into me like a mindless thing, a worry niggles at my chest.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe I’m just using him.
Maybe I’m the one being driven by something primal and impulsive, the knot in my belly tightening with each thrust of his cock, clit throbbing for the friction of him against me.
And then a ragged, slurred sound emerges from his throat.
“Mine.”
I gasp, pulling him closer. “Show me,” I beg, fisting a hand into his hair. I make sure his eyes are locked on mine when I command, “Come for me, Lagan.” Quieter, like a dirty secret, I plead, “Put your baby in me.”
His mouth slackens the moment he hears the words, body crashing into mine with a hard, forceful punch. The sudden rush of slick heat pulsing inside sends me over the edge, and I come with him, neither of us blinking as we come together.
As we meet.
As we create.
It’s almost agony to feel his cock slip free, but he soothes it by collapsing on his side next to me, curling protectively around the swell of my stomach. The breadth of his hand cradles the bump, and in the next moment, his eyelids are falling closed, a satisfied sigh fluttering a lock of his hair.
As I fall back asleep, satiated and full, I realize that nothing—not a stockpile of weapons, high-tech security, or even the damage these men can do with their hands—feels as safe as I do at this moment.
Tight in Lagan’s arms.
The cutsluts are afraid of Lex.
It’s not an abject fear. They don’t whisper about him or scurry off when he’s near. They just… avoid him. In a primal way. These are women who have been around fighters and criminals, men who’d sooner slam a woman up against a wall than actually speak to her. But Lex isn’t like that. He’s tall and sometimes physically imposing, but he doesn’t harness it the way DKS does. It’s not his use of physicality that unnerves them.
It’s the lack of it.
“We’re expecting about two hundred people to come through today, so we’ll need to keep the lines moving.” Lex stands in front of the group of volunteers, looking neither in his element nor out of it. We’ve been here a week, and it’s like the Lex I’ve grown used to doesn’t even exist. This Lex is mechanical and concise, eerie in his stillness. Robotic. It’s as if he’s taken all human emotion out of the equation. “If you have any questions, refer to the pamphlet Forsyth General provided to you. If you see me about to stick a needle into someone, don’t bother me. If you see me drawing blood, don’t bother me. If you see me having just drawn blood, don’t bother me.” His amber eyes pass over the crowd. “Don’t bother me.”
Greta shivers when his gaze passes over her.
“Not exactly inspiring the community spirit,” I mutter to Maggie, who shakes her head.
“I’m definitely not bothering him.”
Stretching my shirt over my belly, I follow Lavinia over to the table near the front doors of the gym. On a fight night, this is where Fury business takes place, but today, we’ll be checking in donors.
“That shirt is fucking adorable on you,” Lavinia says.
“It’s like three sizes too small.” I tug at the hem of the T-shirt Remy designed for the inter-frat blood drive, trying to keep it from riding up, but it’s useless. The bear on the front is comically distorted, its little crown laboring under the swell of a boob. “I look like one of those badly inflated balloons.”
“They’re ready.”
I look up and see Lex standing over the table, amber eyes fixed on the clipboard in his hand. His hair is pulled up in a neat twist, and unlike everyone else, he’s dressed impeccably in dark, fitted slacks and a crisp white button-down. He’s been on his guard ever since we stepped foot over the boundary line, but even worse since our first night here, when he had that sleepwalking episode.
I hold up a shirt, pouting. “Please?”
He glances up, catching sight of the snarling bear. “No.”
“It’s festive,” I argue. “It’ll put people at ease to see you dressed a little more… er, casually.”
He must sign something, the flourish of the pen tightly contained. “Why would I want to put people at ease?” he wonders, flipping another page on the clipboard. “Tension will make the veins pop.”
I give Lavinia an exasperated look. “Dr. Nightingale over here.”
Lex pointedly ignores the jab. “I hate to admit it, but the gym really is a great place for this.” He’d been concerned, of course, when I’d suggested it. Usually, these things take place over at the hospital, but after the tweaker high on Scratch ruined the party last Christmas, he was open to a new location, one that could be well-guarded. “As long as there are no surprises.”
The gym allows for the various stations required for an event like this. There are curtained-off areas along the back wall with cots and a hospital worker taking the actual blood. Over near the kitchen is the recovery area where Mama commands an army of cutsluts as they organize juice and cookies. Sy and Kaz work the gate, checking for weapons, while Lex oversees the medical logistics, counting donation kits and supplies, and making sure all the blood gets to the refrigerated truck that goes back to the blood bank tomorrow.
Across the room, Rory and Maggie man a table together stacked with flyers I had Pace make with photos and details of each of the missing girls. No one is supposed to leave the gym without a stack to pass out or hang on light posts or shop windows when they leave.
“Mama loves to host a community event,” I assure him.
“Everyone will behave,” Lavinia promises, “I’ve made sure of it.”
But when I lean down to grab the bag we packed this morning, he snaps forward, saying, “Hey, wait.” Lex walks around the table and grabs the bag himself, resting his other hand on my belly. “Don’t overexert yourself, okay? No heavy lifting. No standing around for more than a few minutes at a time. Got it?”
I’m so happy to see this brief flash of my Lex that I don’t even roll my eyes. “I’ve got it,” I assure, grinning.
Reaching into the bag, he pulls out a bottle of water. “Stay hydrated.”
“She’s in good hands, Doc,” Lav says, obviously taking pity on me. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
He frowns, not convinced, but when his finger nudges my chin, forcing my gaze to his, I get stunned stupid at the flash of warmth. “One last thing,” he says, placing his hands on my shoulders and spinning me around. He reaches for a roll of tape on the table and Lavinia’s eyebrows lift in question. I shrug, also confused, until I hear the sound of tape ripping off the roll, and feel him lay the long strip across my shoulder blades. The firm press of a pen follows as he writes on the tape.
“There,” he says smugly, dipping down to brush his lips against my cheek. “My woman. My baby. My name.”
I swallow in understanding. He’d just marked me for everyone to see.
“And for what it’s worth, you make that hideous shirt look gorgeous.”
The low, silky whisper immediately brings a flush to my face. “You’re obligated to say that as one of the fathers of my baby,” I say, aware of Lavinia watching us.
He shrugs and replies, “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong,” before sauntering off.
Lavinia and I are both quiet as we watch his retreat. Halfway across the gym, one of the nurses approaches and they both head toward the blood drawing area. Once he’s gone, Lavinia turns to me, a wide grin on her face. “Girl, holy shit.”
“What?”
“That.” She points at him, and then back at me. “You two.”
“What about it?” I unscrew the cap of the water bottle.
“He’s been a machine since he got here, but one second with you and he turns into a fucking teddy bear?” She laughs, head shaking. “He adores you. And the baby. It’s so cute, I could literally barf.”
“He’s a Prince,” I remind her, feeling my cheeks heat. “He’s programmed for fatherhood.”
“Maybe, but that look? All the sweet things?” She blinks. “He loves you.”
I can’t explain my reaction, which lands somewhere between annoyance and panic. “Stop. We’re barely into the acceptance phase of this thing. We’re fulfilling roles. Creating legacies.” I say these words, these Ashby-isms, but they sit wrong in my chest. The Princes love one another—that bond is undeniable. And I know they care for the baby. At least Lex and Pace do. And things have changed between us, but I can’t imagine these men being capable of loving me. That’s not what a Royal relationship is about. Not in East End. “They’re not Dukes,” I tell her, “raised on passion and emotion. Their life has been hard.” She snorts, raising her eyebrow in disbelief. “Not like that. They’re rich, obviously. Spoiled, in their own way. But having Rufus as a father wasn’t a picnic. The kind of things he inflicted on them…” I swallow hard. “He left marks they’ll carry for the rest of their lives. The good thing is that they’re determined not to let that happen to their son, which is the most I could hope for.”
Lavinia knows what it was like to grow up with an abusive father—a King—and I see it reflected back in her cool, gray eyes. “I hear what you’re saying, but you can’t see what I see.” She nods toward the front door where Sy pats down a donor. In a freaky moment of synchronicity, as if he actually senses her attention, he glances our way, giving her a wink. “That look Sy just gave me? That’s the way your doctor daddy looks at you.”
The looks I catch Lex giving me are analytical. Controlled. Occasionally, down in the exam room, when it’s just the two us under the bright glare of the light, my legs up in the stirrups… heated. But the other expressions I see more than anything else are a mixture of fear and worry. Protective.
The morning after the incident on our first night here, he woke up, bolted out of bed, and spent an hour checking me over for bruises and internal injuries. I got to watch, groggy and heart-heavy as he hurled curses at himself, checking the baby’s heartbeat obsessively, not missing how he tossed Sy’s shredded shirt in the garbage without another look. Even now, a week later, I still sometimes catch him looking at me with that angry, agonized divot between his eyebrows.
Now, he makes me lock my door at night.
“Why does it bother you?” she asks, catching something far too telling in my expression. “Wouldn’t you rather have… er, created… out of love rather than some Royal strategy bullshit?”
But we didn’t. Even if Lavinia is right, and I doubt that much, this baby wasn’t created in a moment of love or even longing.
Maybe it wasn’t even created out of Royal obligation.
“Where do you want these?” Remy appears in front of the table with an armload of cardboard boxes. Another person comes up behind him, the stack of boxes too high to see their face, but I can recognize Wicker’s muscular arms anywhere.
“Oh, the rest of the T-shirts!” Lavinia jumps up, completely unaware of the turmoil she’s created inside my mind, and shows the boys where to unload the boxes. “Back here.”
I stand and move to help Wicker but he clucks, “Don’t even think of it, Red.” He cranes his neck around the edge of the box. “I already got a lecture.”
“Join the club,” I sigh, trying not to see the flash of blue in his eyes and think of that night. The Royal Cleansing. “I was just going to tell you that you can put them on the table. We’ll sort them by size.”
But he just drops the box like a sack of bricks, dusting off his hands. “Fuck it. Someone will take it.”
I can’t help but snort when he slumps against a nearby donation bed, palms propped out casually, legs crossed at the ankle. He looks like a model posing, and terrifyingly, I don’t even think it’s intentional. “Why did you even come if you weren’t going to help?”
Reaching up, he rubs the back of his neck. Much like Lex, he’s foregone the unspoken mandate of conformity, wearing nice pants and a dark button-down. To anyone here, he probably looks downright formal, but I see the details. The top two buttons of his shirt are undone, giving me a peek of the white tee underneath, and it’s untucked, the fabric a little rumpled. I get a bit caught up on the wave of his hair, the way it falls over one eye. Practically messy, for him.
If Wicker is good for anything, it’s driving me to distraction. “Do you need something?”
“I uh…” He hedges for a moment, but ultimately says, “Never mind.”
I narrow my eyes, glancing around to make sure no one can overhear. “If this is your weird way of asking me for a blowjob or something, the answer is no.” I swallow. “Not here.”
A low, velvety chuckle falls from his lips. “Chill, Princess. I know you miss waking up to the feel of my cock drilling into you, but I’m not here for that.” His gaze dips to my chest. “Well, I wasn’t. What do you mean ‘not here’?”
“Spit it out.”
“Alright.” He glances over at the kitchen. “You think your mother’s got any of that banana pudding in there?”
“Good grief.” I sigh. “I should have known.”
He gives me that wide-eyed, innocent look he thinks he’s good at. “What?”
“That’s why you volunteered to come today. For my mother’s pudding.” Truth be told, I woke up this morning and found myself a little excited for his arrival. Lex hasn’t been chilly—not necessarily—but I understand what Lavinia was saying before about him being a machine. He goes through the motions, but I’ve missed that spark of heat in his eyes. The way he touched me our first night here, desperate and determined.
Deadpan, he replies, “No, I totally came for community solidarity.”
Honestly, I thought it was for the possible blowjob. “I don’t know what she’s got in there, Wick, but you can go ask.”
He grimaces, stuffing his fists into his pockets. “Yeah, um, I thought maybe you could do that for me.”
“I’m a little busy doing the actual community solidarity thing.” I open up one of the boxes on the floor and pull out a stack of the white shirts every donor receives, setting it on the table. “What’s the big deal? The worst thing she can say is no.” He shifts on his heels. “What?”
“Look, your mom is fucking scary. She’s got this vibe like…”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Like what?”
He gives the door to the kitchen another fleeting look. “Like she wants to claw my eyes out and de-ball me. Kinda like you for the first three months you lived at the palace.”
“You’re not wrong,” I admit, a shadow cast over my thoughts. “You are the man who took my virginity. Brutally, I may add.”
Wicker does this thing where his expression sort of just… snaps into blankness. There’s a quick blink, and then his spine straightens. It’s like he’s getting ready for an attack, shoulders squaring, features hardening. “It’s not like I wanted?—”
I hold up a hand, struggling to tamp down this new, yet so familiar burn in the back of my throat. “There’s no time for this right now, but if you get through the day without starting any kind of trouble, I’ll ask her about it.”
I’d blame Lavinia for putting the question in my head, but it wouldn’t be fair. Maybe it’s always been there, this gut-deep sense of dread that Wicker and I have created something out of hatred and hurt. That I’m going to look into our son’s eyes one day and see something horrible and tainted reflected back at me.
“Turn her around. I should have never fucked this bitch face-to-face.”
“Yeah?” He grins, yanking me out of the memory of the cleansing. It’s the only reason I recoil when he reaches out, fingering a lock of my hair. “Is that BJ still on the table?”
I ignore the flash of surprise in his eyes at my flinch. “Don’t push it.”
“I haven’t,” he says, brow knitting up in confusion. “In fact, I’ve been really fucking good about not pushing it, so what’s your problem?”
“Nothing. I just—” I push a fist into my lower back, stretching an aching kink at the base of my spine. “I’m just tired. Forget it.”
Although he gives me a long look, he seems happy to let it go and walk away. I return to my task, needing something to busy myself with.
“Now that one,” Lav says, tossing a shirt in the medium pile, “the way he looks at you?”
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen that before too.” She turns to watch Wicker approach Lex in the middle of the room. “He’s not ready yet, but when he finally is…”
She trails off, but honestly, I’m dying to know. “What? What happens?”
“It’s going to feel like falling off a cliff.”