Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
WREN
Four months later
It’s a struggle, but I make myself smile, singing while I decorate Christmas cookies. It’s my annual duet with Bruce Springsteen. We’re crushing “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.”
The speakers thump so loud, I almost don’t hear Sire and his merry band of menacing brothers, bounding through our door.
He’s the first inside, all sweaty and charging my way. “Come here, Angel.” It’s how Sire always greets me before his lips are on mine.
In three seconds, he’s pressed against me. I feel him getting hard under his running shorts as I sigh into our kiss. “You smell like a wet dog.”
He laughs, pulling away to yank off his soaked sweatshirt. “Better?”
I gaze at him, all glistening ink and muscles. “Yummy.”
“Speaking of...” Axel constantly interrogates, “What’s for lunch?”
I peek past Sire and answer him, “Cheesy sausage balls and buttery biscuits.”
Nash elbows past Axel, aiming for my oven. “That’ll be my Yes to your lunch invitation.”
Sire turns to them, frustrated with the cock-block. “I didn’t invite you to stay for lunch, fuckers.”
“But I did.” I put a biscuit on a napkin and hand it to Nash. He winks, shoving the entire thing in his mouth.
Manners? Who needs them when you look that hot?
All three of them do, though I scrunch my nose. “Ew. Shower before we eat.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Axel pops a Snickerdoodle in his mouth. “Sire, go first.”
“Fuck you.” He grabs two frosted Christmas trees, chomping with his mouth open. “I’m not leaving you alone with my hot wife and her warm cookies.”
Axel bounces his brows at Sire, who smirks, but Nash rolls his eyes.
“Speaking of not leaving me alone…” With my wooden spoon, I point to the large windows in our living room, overlooking the bustling street below. “Wanna tell me who’s that crazy man on the hog outside? The one you told to stalk me while you three went on your Saturday run?”
This is my struggle.
It’s what I’m not happy about.
Nash glances at the floor. Axel looks at the ceiling. They’re guilty as fuck, but my happy husband of four months?
He looks me in the eye. “Wilder or Remi. I haven’t checked who’s on watch today.”
My voice shoots up three octaves. “You told a crazy motorcycle gang to watch me when you’re not here?”
Sire grins. “They’re not crazy.”
“Bullshit.” Axel coughs on cookie crumbs.
“Not crazy?” I storm toward the window, pulling back the white sheer, giving Mr. Motorcycle my middle finger. “Look at him!”
The hulking guy with shaggy blond hair and gold aviators leans against his massive Harley. Smiling up at me, he twiddles his fingers under his chin like he’s lost his goddamn mind.
The other guy I noticed “watching me” earlier is equally as big as him, but he has darker hair. He doesn’t smile when I wave, aka, flip him off. He chews a toothpick and scowls.
“They’re crazy.” I turn away from the window. “And I know MCs when I see them.”
“They’re not in an MC. They’re cousins.” Sire gives me a guarded look, one he doesn’t let his brothers see.
That’s right! He told me months ago about the crazy contract killer cousins who’ll help him kill his father this spring.
But what is he up to now?
I’m used to the kings, his brothers, guarding me when he’s not around. Not someone else. It makes my pulse race. “How do you know we can trust them?”
“You can’t.” Axel fumes like me, then snarls at Sire, “I don’t know why you hired them to watch one of our queens when we have other men to do it.”
Coldly, Sire arches a brow. “None are as bloodthirsty as them.”
“But why do I need watching?” Something’s going on. “After you went all Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman on Waylon, I’m safe. I’m fine. Besides…” I point to the Glock on the coffee table. “I can make heads roll, too.”
Nash tongues his teeth, slowly peeling off his soaked Henley. Axel tugs off his running shirt, too. Silently, Sire gathers their sweaty garments and strolls toward our laundry room.
Yes, it’s December, but it’s Charleston. It’s mild, they’re hot, and I’m fuming.
I flit my hand at them. “I’m not falling for all your mafia muscles and ink.” Okay, I am, but… “Quit stripping and start talking, now, or no biscuits for you.”
“Tell her.” Nash doesn’t like my ultimatum.
“We don’t know the facts yet,” Axel seethes.
“We should just take her with us.” Sire strolls back into the kitchen. “Or I’ll never get to eat my wife’s cookies again.”
“Tell me what and take me where?”
Again, they do their brotherly bond shit and don’t say a word. Ice would be impressed with their performance.
“Great.” I throw up my hands. “The silent ex-Bratva treatment. That makes me feel so much better.”
Marching toward the kitchen, I shove past them. Plucking a warm biscuit from the tray, I wrap it in a napkin before charging toward the door.
Sire barks, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To buy an insurance policy.”
I’m too small and fast. Bounding down the stairs, I burst out of the door, emerging on the sidewalk before they can stop me. Quickly, I glance both ways before charging across the street.
Blond motorcycle dude crows at my fearless approach, “Well, hey there, little cub. Did you lose your lion?”
“Nope.” I walk right up to his black leather and chrome everything. “I’m sure he’s watching. Isn’t he?”
Blond guy leans, looking over my shoulder, and twiddles his fingers again. “Sure is. Your husband’s standing at his window, and I’ve got about one minute alone with you and at a safe distance before he shanks me. Again.”
“Well then, tell me fast. Why does he want you watching me?”
I can’t see his eyes. His gold aviators reflect the sun, but by his smirk, I can tell he’s liking this. “What do I get for telling ya?”
“My buttery biscuit.”
He cocks his lips. “Darlin’, while I’m sure your buttery biscuit is worth dying for, your lion will kill me, all slow and shit, and I ain’t got the patience for that.”
“Then quickly enjoy this.” I lift my hand, offering my biscuit. “And tell me what you can.”
“Nothin’. He just said to watch his princess.”
“His princess?”
“Yeah. Shocked me, too, but he said, ‘You can’t miss her. She looks like a little Jasmine from Aladdin,’ and I’m a sucker for Disney and not dying today. You know your husband’s an apex predator, right?”
“That’s it? That’s all he said?”
“Kill anyone who touches you. Need he say more?”
“Who’s the other guy watching me?”
“A sucker for banana nut muffins. But he ain’t a nut like me. He won’t crack.”
He snags my biscuit and, like Nash, pops the entire thing in his mouth.
“My name is Wren. I’m Sire’s wife, and no one’s goddamn princess. I’ll poison your next biscuit with yew berry jam if you piss me off, and … thanks for watching me.”
“Wilder.” He salutes with his mouth full. “The Pastor’s wife is pretty and poisonous. Copy that.”
When I return, Sire’s silhouette looms at the top of our penthouse stairs. “How’d that go?”
“As you knew it would.” I stomp up the stairs. “Wilder is bat shit crazy, but I trust him now.”
He steps back. “You going to feed every man I hire to guard you?”
“Feed them.” I swish past him. “Or poison them. Instinct: every woman should listen to it.”
“Poison them?” Sire smiles, impressed. “With what? There’s no oleander outside.”
I shrug. “Poisonous yew berries grow in the graveyard. They make great jam.”
Nash pauses with his mouth open. He’s about to eat another biscuit, but this time, he found my cranberry jam. It’s touching his shocked lips, but I wink. “You’re safe.”
Then I turn to Sire, using air quotes, “And since when am I your princess?”
“Since we haven’t officially made you a queen yet.”
Sire’s still shirtless and unshowered. His amber cologne mixes with his masculine musk and the pussy-purring sight of his sexy face with that devilish body and the animal in his shorts, and … it’s done.
I’m horny.
His.
And unafraid.
“Well then,” I linger my fingertip down his naked abs, “why don’t you and all the kings make a queen tonight?”
“Ahem.” Nash chokes on his biscuit.
I glance at Axel, and he’s devouring my cookies, grinning. “We’re ready when you are, princess.”
“Fuck you,” Sire snaps at him. “I’m not ready, and neither is she. We don’t initiate her until her body is ready.”
I stand toe-to-toe with my deadly, devoted husband. It puts my button nose to his inked pecs. I’m so in love with him and pissed off … I’m the threat.
I poke his chest. “While I admire the patriarchal bullshit you’re shoveling, it’s my body, not yours. My virgin ship has sailed. And with the way we’ve been going at it for months? The Titanic has less fucked holes than I do. I’m ready.”
Nash snorts. “Should we excuse ourselves?”
“No.” I turn to him. “Because I want you to be my second king. You’ll initiate me, too.”
“You’re not ready for all of us.” Sire flares his nostrils. “I know it’s your fantasy, Wren, but this is a fact: your body isn’t ready.”
That’s not it. Not all of it. I can see it in his eyes.
“My body?” I touch his chest. “Or your heart?”
His face softens. “Both, Angel.”
These have been the best months of my life. Being married to Sire is heaven, in life and in bed. We share everything. We talk for hours. He holds me all night.
He said he wanted me all to himself for a while, and I understood.
All those virgin flower metaphors have some merit. I have bloomed. I’ve blossomed into a grown woman—a very grown woman who’s very sure of our love.
“You know you have all of me,” I assure him. “But I feel left out. It reminds me of years ago, when I didn’t belong, but I do now. I belong to you, and I’m ready to be a queen.”
He shakes his head. “Wren, you have no idea what it’ll be like. An initiation is intense. It’s physical and passionate, but it can get extreme.”
“I know. Delphine and Zar already told me.”
“Did they?” Axel sounds skeptical.
“Yes.” I turn to him. “You and the kings have your code, and the queens have ours. I know exactly what happened when Zar was initiated, and Delphine, too.”
Axel cocks his head. I swear, when he uses his ice-blue eyes like that, as if he’s testing me, I freeze, while other parts of me smolder.
“So,” he challenges, “you know about Delphine and Loch, too?”
“Uh…” I’ve stepped in a cow paddy now. “Delphine’s married to Grant. He’s her king.”
“Yes, Grant’s very much her king. He worships her.
” Axel crosses his beefy, naked arms. He has more ink than all of the brothers, and right now, it’s distracting.
It’s hot, though he lectures, “Grant will do anything for Delphine, like let her train Loch to be her second king. There’s a story there you don’t know. In fact, there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“Then tell me. Problem solved.”
“She’s right. We need to tell her.” Nash looks resolved. “All the queens need to know, because this Turner fuck is no joke. He’s why you have the killer cousins watching her.”
“Turner?” I glance between them. “Who’s that?”
“Fuck,” Sire mutters, stepping back. “Why tell her until we know more ourselves?”
“We’re about to find out more,” Nash says. “And Wren can help. It’ll be a hostile meeting, but with Wren there, being all…” he gestures to me, “all Wren and rainbows and a helluva shot, she’s an asset.”
“No, she’s my wife.” Sire’s lip curls. “She’s more than an asset. Besides, they’re my friends. It won’t be hostile. They come to my service sometimes, and I’ve been on their yacht. I married Silas and Eily, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah,” Axel huffs. “They worship you, but I’ve haunted them, and they have no idea you’re my brother. They don’t know who we really are, and they hate me.” Axel smirks. “Except Eily, of course, so yeah,” he considers me, “she’ll love Wren. Bring her.”
I seethe, “If y’all don’t quit talking about me like I’m an asset or an accessory, I’ll shoot your asses.”
Sire teases, “Thought you preferred poison.”
“What I prefer are some answers.” My fists land on my waist. “Who are Silas and Eily? What are you talking about? Haunting and yachts? Is that where we’re going? On a haunted yacht?”
“More like a superyacht.” Nash munches on my sausage balls. “Silas and Eily Van de May are two of the six poly lovers with the hottest actors in the world.”
“Poly?” My pulse quickens. “Like six people? Fucking? Together?”
Sire chuckles. “While I’ll admit, we get extreme with our initiations, those six…?” He shoots me a devilish smile. “You want to go on a kinky cruise, Angel?”
When my hot husband looks at me like that? “Always.”
“Then get ready.” He snares his arms around my waist, tugging me near. “My innocent wife is about to see a naughty new world.”