Chapter Twenty-Seven
Violet watched the brothers gathered grimly around a table in the far corner of the tap room, unease pricking beneath her skin as she sat on a stool at the bar beside Calliope.
Only moments ago, she had been wrapped in Drake’s arms, had scarcely been granted the luxury of catching her breath, much less savoring an hour of peace or, heaven help her, pleasure, before duty and danger had dragged him away once more.
So this, she supposed, was the price of loving a man like Drake Fury.
Hades’s goddess.
Drake’s villainess.
The term might have been spoken lightly, but there was nothing light about the knowledge that her brother and her former fiancé were imprisoned in the dungeon below.
There was nothing heavy about it either.
She had come to Brighton to be free of powerful men.
She had opened a shop and decided on a life designed specifically to exist outside the orbit of men like him.
And then she had gone and fallen in love with the most dangerous one of all.
The irony was not lost on her. Neither, if she was being entirely honest, was the fact that she did not regret a single moment of it.
“This is serious,” she remarked to Calliope, who nodded.
“Very,” Calliope said. “Deveraux had convinced them he’d joined their side, that he’d been hurt. They hadn’t found him before his uncle did.”
“His uncle raised him, then?”
Calliope nodded.
Violet recalled the man with the cane in her shop and shuddered. There had been something about him that had set her teeth on edge even then. “He must be an excellent liar to have deceived them all.”
“Yes.” Calliope sighed. “Which means Maxen will tear Brighton apart stone by stone until he finds him. The whole of Britain, even. And the rest of them will not be far behind.”
Violet’s gaze found Drake, more rigid than she’d ever seen him. “I’m not going to be able to return to my shop, am I?”
“Neither am I,” Calliope said, not denying the claim. “Not for the time being, at least. Things are about to change again.”
“Again?” That sounded ominous.
“Maxen is overprotective on a good day. Now, he might become an unbearable overprotective beast.”
“You don’t sound like you mind.”
Calliope shrugged. “I didn’t follow my dream to Brighton; I escaped my fate to Brighton. It took a while for the realization to dawn, however. But when it did . . . All I did was want to stay.”
“With your husband.”
Calliope smiled dreamily. “Yes.”
Violet nodded, Calliope’s words striking a chord.
She, too, had come to Brighton to escape.
A life without the control of men had been her dream, a life free of dictation and punishment.
She couldn’t claim she’d exactly escaped that, to be frank, given her future husband.
If Drake thought her to be in danger, he’d dictate and demand and take charge, but it would be from a place in his heart, and that was all she wanted.
Perhaps that was the true dream.
To be fiercely protected.
“I heard you met his uncle?” Calliope asked. “Can you describe him? I would rather be prepared than not.”
“I shall do you one better, I shall sketch his likeness.”
“Thank you.”
“This is going to drive me mad,” Violet muttered. “I feel helpless.”
“Believe me,” Calliope said with a chuckle. “There are times that it’s helpful for them.”
“Of course.” Her gaze swept the brothers. “The stubbornness of males.”
“Ah,” Calliope murmured. “You must learn their tells. It may prove vital to your sanity.”
Violet glanced back at the woman. “I beg your pardon?”
“Maxen grows quieter the angrier he becomes. Drake paces. Dagger polishes weapons that are already spotless. Saint broods, as does Knight, though they are different broods. You’ll see.” She leaned closer. “And Reaper’s coin is the key to his moods.”
“What about Serpent?”
“He ebbs and flows like the tides. In any event,” Calliope said gravely. “That is how you know something is about to explode.”
“Well,” Violet said lightly, “it is comforting to know their formidable reputation is entirely deserved. What else can you tell me about each brother?” Violet asked. That might be the best way to become more helpful in the future. Learning the lay of her new land.
“Maxen is my husband.” Violet sent Calliope a droll stare, and she grinned. “He is also the broodiest and head of the family. Well, he’s taken a step back since he married me.”
“Leaving Drake in charge, I imagine.” Given that Drake was the first brother he found, they should be the closest.
Calliope nodded in conversation. “The others are each mysterious in their own right, even to me.”
“Reaper being the least so, correct?”
Calliope chuckled. “Do not let him hear you say that. He’ll just become more incorrigible.”
“I kind of envy their brotherhood.”
Calliope patted her hand. “We are starting a sisterhood. That is good too, no?”
Sisterhood.
An unexpected flutter sparked in her chest, light and bright and altogether familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
All her life, she had survived alone with no one with the tenderest parts of herself.
And now . . . sisterhood. A woman at her side.
Shared family. Shared burdens. Shared knowing smiles.
It made her almost . . . giddy. Ridiculously so, given the circumstances.
She bit back a laugh, suddenly eager for whispered conversations, for plans hatched over tea, for the quiet certainty of we.
Not merely a wife. Not merely protected.
But belonging in a way that felt entirely her own.
She thought of Holly and Pippa, who had given her the first sisterhood she had ever known.
The kind forged in secret, in clandestine moments, in letters passed under doors.
That had saved her life. This one, she suspected, might do something equally significant.
It might give her somewhere to belong that no one could take back.
“Does it make me mad to feel thrilled?”
Calliope’s smile softened, something bright sparking behind her eyes. “If it does, then we may as well be mad together. Someone needs to keep the mood light. Besides, there’s a certain comfort in knowing these men are loyal to the marrow. Once you belong to them, you belong utterly.”
Her neck prickled where Drake had kissed her.
There certainly is comfort in that.
“So,” Calliope asked. “When will you get married?”
Violet’s eyes flew wide at the unexpected question, and blurted, “We’re not getting married!”
“What?” A growl came from the table.
“I mean—”
Her words cut off the moment a chair scraped back and a thunderous Drake stalked over to them. Drake planted his hands on the bar on either side of her, caging her in with his strong arms, his body close enough that she felt the heat of him. Blazes, he smelled like sin and heaven combined.
“We’re not getting married?” he asked in the lowest voice she had ever heard him speak in.
Violet swallowed, her pulse leaping traitorously. “I was merely surprised by Calliope’s question, that’s all.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. Brief. Possessive. “So we are getting married?”
She leaned into him, lips curving, lifting her hand to trace the scar across his face. “You shall know when you know.”
Reaper whistled from the table.
His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath his skin. “I want to know now.”
“Drake,” Maxen growled. “Keep your shenanigans for later. We’re not done.”
His eyes didn’t leave hers as he answered his brother. “Just reminding my woman that I’m her man.”
“God spare me,” someone muttered.
Violet flushed and pushed at his chest. “Go, you brute! Don’t hold your brothers up.”
He pushed away reluctantly, but not before he captured her lips in a hot kiss and stalked back to the table.
“Lord,” Calliope whispered, fanning her face. “I’ve never seen him so . . . so . . .”
“Overbearing?” Violet supplied, heart pounding still. “Territorial? Theatrical?”
“I was going to say out of control, but that works, too.”
“Then we must pray he confines such enthusiasm to private spaces,” Violet complained half-heartedly.
Calliope laughed, lowering her hand. “Give it a fortnight and he’ll be marking territory in other ways.”
“I can go through all the ways,” Reaper called from the table. “There must be over a hundred—”
“Reaper,” Drake growled, cutting his brother off.
“Welcome to the family,” Calliope said warmly, squeezing her hand.
Welcome, indeed.
*
Drake clenched his fists beneath the table.
His eyes lifted to Violet again. All he wanted to do was haul her over his shoulder and carry her back to their chamber—lock the door, shut out the world, and remind himself she was still his to touch.
Not marry him? There was no way. He’d marry the spitfire, sooner rather than later, and he’d seduce her into wedlock the moment his cousin, Dare, could help him out with a special license.
A slow grin spread on his face.
“Pay attention,” Maxen growled.
He wrenched his attention back to the table reluctantly, where his brothers convened around him with solemn faces.
Serpent leaned back in his chair, one arm draped carelessly over the rail, as though he hadn’t apparently staggered in half-conscious an hour earlier. The deepening bruise beneath his eye had already bloomed into an ugly wash of blue and purple, a cursed reminder of Deveraux’s betrayal.
It would have been a devil of a blow. Their traitorous brother had never shown them his full talents. “Deveraux is more capable than he wished us to believe.”
“Don’t say that turncoat’s name,” Reaper growled.
Serpent rolled his jaw once, testing it, his expression unreadable. “He knows how we operate now.”
Drake thought of his stronghold and cursed. He’d since cleared the space, but what else had Deveraux witnessed? What else had he learned? Memorized? “We need to make a list of all the places we took him along and all the things he might have learned.”