84. Briella #2
His head tilts ever so slightly, eyes flaring. My soul already belongs to him—from the second that arrow penetrated me—but now there’s something else in the way he looks at me. A flicker of something primal. Protective. Terrifying.
And then…
Seth wheels something into the room, carefully maneuvering through the hall like it’s made of spun sugar.
My mind reels. My heart stutters.
I can’t breathe.
It feels like the whole world tilted off its axis.
It’s…a cradle. A hand-carved, burnished-wood cradle, shaped like a blooming flower, with twisted chains climbing its legs and crowns etched across the curved headboard.
“What is—what’s happening here?” A fractured sound leaves my throat, like thawing ice. I blink at the cradle, then at the faces around me, one by one. “I—what is this?”
Jude’s knuckles brush my cheek, so tender it almost undoes me. He cups my chin, guiding my gaze to his.
“Briella, after the re-initiation, I had my suspicions,” he murmurs. “Your appetite, the nausea…you were exhausted. Mood swings, Babydoll. At first, I thought it was just you adjusting to the highs and lows of this place, but—”
“Jude.” I cover my mouth as the tears surge up too fast to stop. “Are you—are you telling me…?”
He nods slowly, brushing his thumb over my jaw. I sob against my hand. My body trembles with the cries.
Rory, grinning like the mad bastard he is, steps forward and peels a cupcake in half. Pink and blue M&Ms spill out into my lap, bouncing against the fabric of Jude’s shirt, the couch, the cane still cradled in my hand.
I clutch my throat. The sob of unbelief and denial comes out strangled, shattered by something so big, so beautiful, and impossible, I can’t hold it inside anymore. “But how could—the tubal—?”
“They can grow back.” Jude kisses my temple warmly, eyes polished. “They did grow back. You’re almost two months along now.”
There’s a beat of stunned silence.
Rory crosses his arms with smug satisfaction, his fingers tucked into his armpits. “It’s mine, Lass.”
Jude snorts. “It could be mine. Or Seth’s, Rory.”
Rory waves him off. “Nah, Firecracker and I fucked like rabbits that night. Gotta be me. Aye, a mini Rory in that pretty belly for sure. Why do ye think she’s attacking me all the time?”
Heat scalds my cheeks, my body flushed. He’s not wrong.
Seth pipes up, grinning, “You’ve got a one in three shot, Red.”
“One in three?” I search each face. “Who…can’t—?”
My gaze meets Raphael’s.
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Just watches me like I’m something holy and haunted all at once. “No children.” Firm but somehow soft. “Never for me. I made sure of it at eighteen.”
And still—still he looks at me like I carry his soul inside me anyway.
A Kinship soul.
“Vincent…” I nearly choke on my tears.
He gets up from his chair and moves toward me, calm and gentle, kneeling before me like I’m something to be worshipped and held steady. He lays a warm hand on my knee.
“I love you, Bri. And it’s okay. Took too many blows in my fighting days. But you know how busy the animals keep me. And Pew Pew…”
I smile, agreeing. “He’s our baby, Vinny. They’re all our babies.”
Seth leans against the cradle, beaming. Rory pops a blue M&M into his mouth like a toast. A symbolic prediction.
Jude keeps me anchored, his arms around me, his hand flat over my belly like it’s already second nature. “Babydoll, I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
I glance between them—Seth’s laugh, Rory’s wildness, Vincent’s protective care, Jude’s steady devotion—and my heart breaks open in the most beautiful way. Too big for my chest. Too big for this world.
I take a handful of M&M’s from my lap and pop them into my mouth. Salty tears mix with the sweetness as I bury my face in Jude’s chest and hold on like he’s gravity itself.
I’m pregnant.
A miracle I never let myself imagine—not after everything that was done to me, not after the Prophet carved away my future like it was his to claim.
But somehow, it happened. All because of the five chains around me.
They don’t cage me.
They crown me.
And me? I’m their Queen of the Damned.
But I’ve never felt more blessed.
ABOUT SEVEN MONTHS LATER
Push,” Jude directs me for the thirty-first time, too maddeningly calm, like he’s not kneeling between my legs, wrist-deep in my vagina.
I grip Rory’s hand like it’s a stress ball and scream through my teeth, “If you tell me to push one more time, I’m pushing you off a cliff!”
Rory yelps. “Christ, woman! That’s my bone you’re grinding like a pepper mill!”
“Why are you complaining?” Vincent grunts from behind my head, cradling his mangled hand. “She snapped two of my fingers. Again.”
“What are y’all bitching about? I’m pushing a human being out of my vagina!” I shriek.
I briefly look at Raphael. He’s freaking me out. He’s standing just behind Jude and to the right, never moving a muscle, other than the jaw clenching and his eyes narrowing. He’s studying everything. The others. Me. And the Animal Planet-worthy mess coming out of me.
“Okay, deep breath, Babydoll,” Jude encourages from between my legs. “Baby’s crowning.”
“Good!” I screech, glancing at my lumberjack standing just to the left above Jude. His jaw dropped. His eyes wide. “Seth looks like he’s gonna have a mental breaaaakdown!”
“Breathe.” Seth meets my eyes.
A snarl leaves my throat. “Oh, you breathe, you motherfucker—or whichever one of you assholes knocked me up—because it’ll be the last breath you ever take!”
Jude’s hands are gentle but focused, working the area around the opening, fingers easing the skin, helping it stretch so I don’t tear.
Seth scrambles away from Jude’s side like he’s trying to flee a natural disaster. “Yeah, that’s the most disgusting miracle I’ve ever seen.” He sits next to Rory on the bed and substitutes his hand, giving his partner a break.
As I brace myself before the next push, Jude is already suctioning the baby’s nose and mouth, getting the baby to cry while he prepares for the shoulders. It’s all happening fast—too fast—and I can’t tell what’s sweat and what’s blood anymore.
“Push again,” Jude says.
My body coils tight, like it knows this is the final battle. Pressure builds, unbearable and all-consuming, until it feels like I’m splitting in half—but somewhere beneath the agony, there’s a flicker of release waiting to tear through me.
So, I push. I push like the gates of Hell have opened behind me. My bones stretch. I roar. I go feral.
Then, suddenly, Jude freezes. “Uh oh.”
My head snaps up. “What? Jude, you better talk fast, or I will deliver a roundhouse kick from this position.”
“Don’t worry,” he calms me, holding something small and red and squalling. “Not that kind of uh oh. It’s just…there’ll be no living with him after this.”
He turns the baby, lifting it just enough for everyone to see. “That’s a lot of red hair.”
I tip my head back with a groan just as Rory lets out a wallop. “Aye, there’s Big Red’s swimmers!” He shuffles to my side, beaming. “What do you want to call him, Lass? Rory Junior?”
“Her,” Jude grins.
Rory blinks. “What was that?”
I lift my head again, squinting, a rush of feminine warmth spreading through me. “Her?” I rasp between the baby’s cries.
Jude nods and brings her to me. “Strong, redheaded baby girl. She’s got a set of lungs on her.”
“Definitely Rory’s,” Seth blows a half-hysterical laugh.
I stare down at the tiny, wrinkled human Jude places on my bare chest. Her cries taper into whimpers, then into soft snuffling as her little body molds to mine.
Rory’s in a daze.
“I think I did it,” I whisper while settling a hand on our daughter’s back. “Did I really break him this time?”
His eye keeps twitching.
But then he snaps to, his gaze sharp and deadly. “Oh, I’m breaking all right. Breaking the bones of any bloody motherfucker who even looks at her wrong.”
On my left, Vincent blows out his amusement.
“She’s beautiful, Briella Darling,” Seth declares right next to me.
Rory shoves Seth out of the way like an afterthought, takes up all the space on my left, and cups my sweaty forehead with his big, calloused hand. “Guess I’ll have to be nicer to ye then.”
I shoot him a death glare. “The hell you will.”
He lifts his brows like a challenge, but I look back down at the tiny girl warming on my chest.
“Only when she’s around,” I say softly, rubbing my lips along her red wisps. “You’re on your best behavior. The rest of the time, you’d better be the same hot-blooded, good cooking, bloody pain in the ass that I love.”
“Aye. Cause you said it first to me.”
“WE KNOW!” bellow the others.
I laugh softly, my heart never so full.
“Ye know…” Rory tilts his neck to get a better look at her, at her tiny mouth opening and closing in little sucking motions. I’ll need to feed her soon. “Rory is a girl’s name, too.”
I roll my eyes. “We are not calling her Rory Junioress or whatever.”
“Aww, come now. It’s not like we can call her Firecracker.”
I press my lips into my sweetest smile because I had stockpiled away name options for the three of them. “What about…Scarlett?” I ask.
Rory pauses. I hold my breath.
“Oooh,” Seth muses eagerly, and Rory shoves his face back again.
When he turns back to me, Rory grins. Confident, cocky, self-assured. “Aye, Lass. Scarlett will do. And she be my little Scar. The kind of beautiful scar I love to show off.”
Fair enough.
The others express their agreement and approval.
Raphael’s hand is clenched into a fist, but the tension in his body is lighter now. The shadows around his eyes seem softer. During the birth, he looked like he was ready to catch my soul if it left my body and shove it right back in.
Jude is still working while I cradle my daughter, our daughter, and I barely register the warm, slippery tug as he delivers the placenta.
I don’t care. I can’t look away from her.
Towels are dabbing her dry, and Jude covers us both, but she stays against me, skin to skin, my tiny miracle pressed to the wreckage of her mother.
She quiets completely now. Like she knows she’s home.
Except for Raphael, they all crowd in. Arguing gently, making promises, marveling like idiots.
“I get her next,” Seth says, shirt already off, hovering.
“Seth,” Raphael rebukes him, brows tapering as he shakes his head. “She will know her High Father’s heartbeat following Briella’s.”
“High Father?” Seth gives him a blank look.
“He means her Da,” Rory points out, gently cupping our daughter’s head.
Raphael sweeps his gaze across all of them. “Kinship Law. We, as one. We are all fathers now, providers, protectors, caretakers. But Rory is her High Father, Da. Then…her Father.” He indicates to himself.
“Daddy Seth will be third,” Seth insists, elbowing Rory’s side.
“Papa will be third,” Vincent adds smoothly, lifting a finger in salute.
“Baba,” Jude claims, cleaning himself off with antiseptic wipes. His voice cuts through them all. “But no one holds her yet. She stays with her Mama for the first hour.”
I get her for one whole hour. I nudge her against my breast for the first time, pleased when she latches on without issue. I’m in more awe when she falls right to sleep while attached.
I can’t believe I’m thinking of more kids already. Jude. Jude will be next. Then, Seth. Three. Three is a perfect number.
My Kings all stare at me, reverently, in awe.
Me. Their Queen.
And now?
We have a princess.