Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SIRE
It’s true. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Because it’s a mystery to me how we slept at all. How I didn’t hold Wren down, suck her hard nipples, and spread her willing legs, so I could fuck her all night long.
Good God, I wanted to. The urge was maddening, but the need to hold her was stronger.
In the Bible, the world was created in six days. In my arms, I fell in love with Wren Chapel in one night.
She mumbled in her sleep, like she was having bad dreams, then she snuggled into me, and stilled, quiet and peaceful.
Fuck, what that did to me. I melted, holding my future wife.
There’s only one problem.
Isn’t there always?
My angel would be marrying the Devil. The deed to make her my queen, dark. The world I live in, dangerous. The deal I’ve made, deplorable.
I’ll never forgive myself.
Her body stirs, writhing against mine, and I groan, hit by a sudden wave of lust. One rolls in every minute with her.
“Wow,” she yawns. “All night?”
I mutter into her hair. “Yes, I held you all night.”
“I know, and I slept like a baby. Thank you.” She wriggles against my aching hard-on. “But what about this?”
I try to reason it away. “The average man has three to five erections a night.”
“Does the average man wake up with a baseball bat between his legs?”
I laugh. “They do call it ‘morning wood’ for a reason.”
She rolls over in my arms, more breathtaking than every dawn rising over the ocean. When did she get golden flecks in her eyes?
They sparkle. “Can we score a homerun this morning?”
I brush a twirly lock off her face. “It’s the Lord’s Day, Angel.”
“Even better. I promise I’ll moan ‘oh God’ lots of times.”
“I promise we have a lot to talk about before that can ever happen.”
“Okay.” She wedges away from me, getting cutely serious. “I have many godly qualities, but patience isn’t one of them. Let’s talk, so we can move on.”
“Well, good morning to you, too.”
She flicks my nose. “Good morning, and you’re right. We need to talk. Last night was about my secrets. So, this morning, tell me yours.”
Jesus, I’m calling on you.
Help a love-struck brother out.
“I told you about my brothers, and you’ve met our mother. I told you how we escaped our father, and what an evil, powerful man he is. Because we escaped him, he’s been hunting us. He wants revenge.”
“Russian mafia and murder.” She nods. “Check.”
I huff a laugh. “And you don’t flinch at it?”
“I dealt with country cartels. They may not have millions like the mafia, but they have no mercy either.”
“Okay, so you appreciate what my father and his soldiers will do if they seek their revenge. Torture. Rape. Murder. Threatening our family, too. That means us and everyone we love.”
“I would be at risk. Got it, and used to it.”
Fuck, the more I tell Wren, the more I realize we were meant to be together.
God couldn’t have painted a more perfect woman for me.
Except…
“Because we’re at risk, we have a tradition, and in the past, like for my mom, it was barbaric. But we do it now with consent, as an intimate bond to keep us and our loved ones safe.”
Curiosity, not fear, dances in her eyes.
“Way back,” I explain, “a king would take a wife, a queen, but his queen would accept two kings on her wedding night: one, her first king and husband, the other, her second king, who vowed to protect her and her children if something happened to her first husband. It’s how power stayed with the elites. ”
“Yep.” She doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Polyandry: one wife with multiple husbands, often brothers. They do it in the Himalayas because farmland is so scarce.”
I’m stunned silent.
“What?” She grins. “Nannie was a librarian. I read tons of books, especially anything about sex and marriage. And you’re saying that you and your brothers are polyandrous and…” Her smile fades. “And you have a wife?”
“No.” I cup her cheek. “I’ve never had a wife, and my brothers wouldn’t share their wives, either.
It’s one night, one initiation. Back home, we were considered princes.
We would’ve been kings who made our queens together, and we kept the tradition here because my mom’s second king rescued us.
He died so that my mom, my brothers, and I could escape my father. ”
Her brows furrow. “That happened to your mom? All of that?”
“All of that and worse. My father kidnapped and forced her to marry him when she was fourteen. He forced her to take a second husband, too, but over time, she fell in love with him. His name was Maxim, and sometimes I wonder if he was my true dad, because I hate my father so much.”
“Your father was abusive?”
“To all of us.”
I reach over my back and tug off my T-shirt. Her eyes widen at my naked torso so close to her, but I take her fingertips and touch them to my chest, over the ink covering my scars.
“He’d burn me with a cigar lighter. He’d say since I loved God more than him, he’d give me the Devil’s burns, too.”
Tears well in Wren’s eyes. Fuck, it kills me when she cries, especially for me.
I don’t want her pity. I don’t deserve it. I need her to understand how cruel my father is. Why I’d do anything for my brothers. I never meant to betray them.
“Axel suffered much worse,” I share.
“Worse than burns?”
“I guess all abuse is horrific. When my brothers were babies, I’d hear my mom begging my father to let her take care of her sons, but he’d yell at her and say we needed to be tough. So, I did it. I always held my little brothers when they cried.”
“That’s why.”
“That’s why, what?”
“That’s why you looked so natural holding that little boy.” She smiles. “You’ll make a great dad.”
The lump in my throat is sudden. I don’t have to tell Wren this, but I want to. I did a horrible, wrong thing. But with her, if I get a chance, I’ll do everything right.
“Wren, I don’t deserve to be a father.”
She touches my cheek. “Of course, you do.”
“No, I don’t. I need to tell you something no one else knows. And I need to trust that you’ll never tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“But your mouth has never met a filter.”
“But I’ve met you.” She lifts my left hand, reverently kissing my partial pinky. “And you have my loyalty. Always.”
And you have my heart, always.
And if I can ever fix this, it starts now.
It begins with her.
“My father has found me. He did it because I was arrested at nineteen for breaking into a pharmacy to get pain pills for a lady on our street who was undergoing chemo. He said it was a matter of time before I had a criminal record, and it took him eleven years to show up at my door.”
She pulls back, shocked. “Does your mom know?”
“No one knows, because he’s threatening to kill her and my brothers if I say a word.”
“So, what did he want?”
“A legitimate heir. He’s obsessed with pure bloodlines and that bullshit. My mother is descended from the Russian Czar, and my father’s organization respects her lineage. And since my brothers and I escaped him, we hate him; he has no heirs. It’s a disgrace for him.”
“So, he wants you back?”
“I’d rather kill him and die, but I don’t want my mother or brothers dead, either. So, I made a deal with him that once I married a woman, I’d give him our first son so he’d have an heir, and he’d let us live.”
Horror hits her beautiful face.
“I never meant it,” I rush. “I figured as long as I never married and had a kid, death would take him first.”
She’s doing it again. I can feel her looking at me and reading my soul. I find it comforting now.
“But?” she asks gently.
“But I should’ve known better than to make a deal with the Devil. I played the game too long, so once again, he set his sights on Axel.”
She sits up, her hair the sexiest, long mane of curls. “What did he do to Axel?”
“He found a Russian woman, from a noble line, to move here and secretly seduce him. To marry Axel. And then she got pregnant and left him.”
“Poor Axel.” She touches her chest. “He must hate your father so much.”
“He does, but he has no idea what he did.”
“How’s that possible?”
I sit up beside her. Scrubbing my hand down my face, I won’t stop now. I can finally take a breath of relief, confessing everything to Wren.
Bear one another’s burdens, the Bible says, and I’ve finally found a woman strong enough to bear mine.
“I have no proof this happened, only a gut instinct,” I explain.
“Katya was Axel’s first wife, and when we made her our first queen, she wanted me, too.
She came on to me all the time. She wanted me and Axel together.
No condoms and in their bed. A permanent threesome. She begged me to breed her, too.”
Wren asks painfully, “Did you?”
Fuck, she looks hurt. Wounded. Jealous. Even betrayed, and I want Wren to be possessive over me. I’m hers now.
“Never, I promise. I may have a dark kink, but I have control. I’d never betray my brother, and I don’t fuck people who give me evil vibes, and that was Katya—evil. Just like my father.”
“So, she married Axel, and you and your brothers made her a queen, but then she left him?”
“Yeah, with a note and a broken heart. And I suspect it was because she was finally pregnant and never told him. She went back to my father, while Axel has no idea he has a child, and that’s why I don’t deserve one.”
“When was this?”
“Over three years ago, and I repent every day. I feel sick every day. I should’ve sacrificed my child, not Axel.”
“But…” Her eyes search mine. “Could you do that? Give a child to that monster?”
“No. But what other choice did I have but to at least say I’d do it?”
“Why haven’t you told Axel?”
“Because if I’m right, nothing will stop him. He’ll get his kid and kill our father, and Katya, too, and he’ll start a war we won’t win. Kids, moms, wives: everyone will die.”
She reaches for my left hand. “So, you keep the peace, don’t you?”
I nod, rage and regret burning behind my eyes.
“You’re a true man of God,” she sighs. “You’re trying to protect everyone, and you’ll sacrifice yourself to do it.”
“I don’t care what happens to me. I’ll fix this somehow, but I care about you now. You can stay here. I’ll sign this place over to you, put some guards outside, and I’ll leave you safe and at peace.”
She squeezes my hand. “Or?”
I’ve preached about revelations, and now, I’m experiencing one. It’s not a blinding light, like Paul on the road to Damascus.
It’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, an orphan from Tennessee, who was left in a chapel, and thank you, God, I found her.
“Or you’re mine, Wren. Forever. We’re in this together. We never let go, and we never lose faith. That was our promise last night.”
She kneels in front of me. It puts us nose to nose, lips to lips. “You made a deal with the Devil, but now, you’ll make a deal with an Angel. All I ask is if you ever have to choose, you choose me.”
I lace a hand through her hair. “There’s no if, Angel. I’ll always choose you. I did it the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“Deal.” She inches closer. “Now, lay your lips on me.”
Our eyes lock, and it is a light. It’s white, hot, electric, and blazing through my veins. It surges through me, igniting my instincts. I’m meant to have her, breed her, but I won’t destroy her.
I nuzzle her nose. “Have you ever been kissed?”
“No. You get every first with me, Sire. Even love.”
“I’ll kiss you, Angel. I’m falling in love with you, too.” I brush my lips over hers. “But I won’t be inside you until you’re my wife. I know it’s patriarchal bullshit, but I don’t care. I need to do everything right with you, Wren. You deserve it.”
“Can we do everything right the first time?” She nips my bottom lip. “Then, everything wrong together? Forever?”
I’m holding back. I’m raging hard. “You don’t know what you’re asking for, Angel.”
“Then, by God, show me.”