Hidden River Five: Book 5 in the Hidden River Academy Series

by Strange, KT

The car door slammed, and I turned, staggering, as Buck crashed into me. His mouth found mine in a split second, and I shook as the emotions, of being abandoned, of him going because I told him to, of everything, flooded through me.

  I kissed him back and then pulled away.

  “Your eye,” he whispered, his sunglasses pushed back on his head.

  “I’m fine,” I said, “really I’m-”

  He kissed me again, silencing me and swallowing down any words I had left.

  “That’s gonna be real fucking weird if she’s actually your sister,” Reid drawled from a few feet away, arms crossed.

  It was like being splashed with a bucket of ice water.

  I untangled myself from Buck with a guilty prickling feeling in my chest. Buck glared at Reid.

  “Get fucked,” he said. Reid shrugged as Cael walked around to the driver’s door.

  “Enough chit chat, let’s go,” Cael demanded.

  “Here,” Buck said, opening up the back door. “Let me-” He helped me in and slid in next to me, Reid taking the front passenger seat.

  It felt like a dream, pulling onto the road, Cael doing a u-turn and heading in the opposite direction. I rested against Buck, the sense of safety so surreal after everything I’d been through.

  “I thought I told you I’d be okay,” I said quietly.

  “As if I’d believe that. Took some time but…” His voice sounded ragged.

  “We got the legalities sorted out, mostly. Our own DNA test going on, we’ll have results back in a bit,” Cael said from the front seat.

  “Yeah, soon we’ll know if you’re his sister from the same mister,” Reid said, then cursed when Cael snapped out a hand and cuffed him over the ear. “Fuck, Cael, I’m the one with the BDSM kink!”

  I closed my good eye.

  It didn’t matter what happened. I couldn’t think about that right then. For the time being I was safe.

  * * *

  “Hey, Patches,” Reid said a few hours later when I, dressed in something that wasn’t pjs, and with a white patch over my eye (doctor said I’d scratched the sclera, but it’d heal up fine in a few days), walked into the massive great room in Cael’s mansion. I still felt shaky after our Great Escape, and I wondered what Bernard was doing, if Sarah was losing it or if she was happy I was gone.

  And as my one-eyed gaze fell on Buck, sitting on the couch, a beer in his hand and about three days worth of stubble on his face, I wondered about Lilah.

  But the time to ask about her wasn’t right then. I had to wait until things were quiet, private, between us.

  The other two guys sat across from Buck, Cael tapping lightly on his phone.

  “Twins will be here soon,” he commented lightly, “and Colt’s just been picked up by my driver.”

  I collapsed on the couch with a deep sigh.

  “My uncle?” I asked. Cael shook his head.

  “We don’t want to risk anything. If he doesn’t know, then they can’t hurt him for the information.”

  It made sense. I just hated not telling him I was okay. I knew they’d had to have threatened him within an inch of his life for him to stay away and not try to get me.

  “I hate him,” I said softly, and then looked at Buck. “Your father.”

  His eyes darkened and his lips turned down into an angry snarl.

  “He’s not my father. Not after what he did. Nearly fucking… it killed me to walk away. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

  “I told you to,” I pointed out. “And you listened to me.”

  “Yeah, girls like being listened to,” Reid said causally, before glancing over at Cael. “Speaking of that, how’s your mom? She out of bed yet?”

  Cael gave him an icy look in return and focused back on his phone.

  I slid across the couch and curled against Buck.

  “I need to take this,” he said, and got to his feet, walking across the room and to the patio doors along the far end. He stepped outside and Buck groaned, tucking his arm around me.

  “You shouldn’t have fucking done that,” he said too Reid.

  Reid shrugged.

  “I’ll keep asking until I get a new answer.”

  I glanced between the two of them.

  “Wanna fill me in on what the drama is?” I wanted to hear about someone else’s problems for once. Mine were too big and too scary. They threatened to swallow me up.

  Buck chewed on his lower lip, his big hand rubbing along my side, the warmth soothing.

  “All our families are fucked up,” Reid commented airily, like it was no big deal. “Cael’s somehow one of the worst.”

  Worse than Buck’s? I didn’t want to say it out loud and offend him but it was true. His family problems were pretty bad, from everything I’d witnessed.

  “Cael’s dad died, got himself blown up being a hero, and everything fell to him, his mother’s health, the family estate, companies, everything. He’s got about ten thousand employees at various companies depending on him to lead, and he’s not even nineteen,” Buck said softly. “And then there’s us-” He cleared his throat and gave Reid a pointed look. “And especially you.”

  “Hey, I try not to be a burden, but it’s in my fucking blood, okay?” Reid shrugged. “Besides, he gets me. He’s my heterosexual life partner. Not like you and Shawn, without all the dick-touching.”

  Buck rolled his eyes.

  “Whatever, asshole,” he muttered then pulled me in close, nuzzling the top of my head like he couldn’t help but do it.

  I let myself relax.

  It had to be bullshit. It had to be lies. There was no way he was my brother. I pushed those thoughts away.

  Cael stepped back inside, looking pissed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, sitting up. He shook his head.

  “I think they know. Security cameras on the perimeter,” he said. “Their lawyer called ours, and is hinting with veiled threats, you know, Barron standard operation procedures.”

  “I fucking know,” Buck muttered, sounding furious. My heart sank.

  “So… what do we do?” I hated how small and pathetic my voice sounded, that Bernard Barron had twisted my life so much that all I wanted to do was hide.

  “They coming over to negotiate, and in the meantime snoop around and try to find her?” Reid asked, with a cock of his head. There was a sly look on his face. Cael caught it too.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” He demanded.

  Reid shrugged and pulled out his phone.

  “Buying us time. How long until the lab gets back to us?”

  “Might be tonight, might be tomorrow,” Cael said, and Buck heaved a sigh.

  “We’ve got to get out of town-”

  “And look guilty? Hell no. I’m crazy enough to know your dad’s just as crazy, and I’d be tracking you down with an AK so fucking fast… nah. Only one way to hide a girl in plain sight,” he said with a spreading grin. “Throw a fucking rager of a party.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I don’t know if I want to do this,” I said. With an annoyed noise, Reid pulled back, makeup brush in his hand. And since when did Reid Remington know how to apply makeup? The thought was totally foreign and when he’d first suggested it, I’d thought it was crazy.

  But apparently Reid was into makeup, or at least, into it enough that he was able to help me transform my features just enough that anyone who came to the party who wasn’t full of good intentions might not recognize me.

  A blonde wig. A tight red bodycon dress. He’d wanted me in heels, I insisted on Chucks instead, red and sparkly. If I needed to run I wanted to be able to do it.

  “Teenagers throw stupid parties. The Barrons know that. Get four hundred kids in this house, and nobody is going to find you. Cael will be wrapped up in negotiations, I’ll be the MC, and we are going to get fucking slaughtered. Just shitty we couldn’t get you into some contacts.”

  “Yeah, I draw the line at traumatizing my eye even more,” I said, trying not to
sound annoyed.

  “Whatever, pretty bitch, just let me contour you,” he muttered and I closed my eyes. My injured side was still stinging a bit, but I’d eased the patch off and it wasn’t so bad. Nowhere near as painful as it had been earlier.

  The only thing missing was the rest of there guys. They hadn’t shown up yet. They needed to come later, and when the rest of the… however many people showed up that Cael, Reid, and Buck had invited.

  To make it look natural and like I wasn’t hiding out in the Pierce mansion.

  Sarah Barron would be so proud…

  “She wanted me to marry Cael,” I said, as Reid fluffed a makeup brush across my face. He paused, staring me right in the eyes.

  “What?” He laughed. “Doesn’t she know who the Pierces are? That’s like suggesting you marry Prince William. Would you marry Prince Will? I mean he’s old. And balding.”

  I huffed.

  “You are so annoying. She thinks I’m her step-daughter, remember?” I thought about it for a moment. “I bet they were planning on changing my last name or something creepy like that.”

  Reid shook his head.

  “Nah, you’ll always be a Quinn, even if you get married.” He pulled back to examine his handiwork, the bright lights in the guest bathroom suite putting me on full display as I sat, wrapped in a robe after a hot shower, on a stool so he could work easier.

  “What makes you say that?” I asked. It was weird, being in this quiet space with him… he wasn’t acting like his normal insane, barely holding on self.

  There was a centered feeling to him, a peace that had fallen over us. After everything I’d gone through, I needed it.

  “Because of this,” he said, tapping me on the top of my head with the makeup brush. I looked over at myself in the mirror.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied flatly. He smirked, mouth tipping up at the edges.

  “Your invisible crown. Don’t you know you’re a queen? And the queen marries down. He takes on her name, not the other way around.”

  My mouth opened in surprise. He was grinning, like he’d told me this giant secret that I should have known the entire time.

  “I don’t-”

  He was so fast. He kissed me, dropping the makeup brush and it clattered to the floor. I made a mmmph of surprise, and my breath caught, his arm wrapping around my waist.

  “You don’t know how hot you are, you don’t know how… just, god, Mia, you drive me crazy, you drive everyone fucking insane,” he whispered, bruising my lips with his. “Can I just keep… I need to keep kissing you, please, Jesus, fuck.” He groaned and bit at my lower lip. I snapped back into myself and shoved at him. He gave me an inch of space, his brown eyes half-lidded, pupils swollen.

  “The fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, but my breathing was ragged and there were pinpoints of heat in my gut, between my thighs.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of it. You and Shawn? You and Buck? Colt? The three of them? Why not add more to the mix. I’m here, and I don’t give a fuck. I’ll eat you out after they’ve all fucked you, make sure you come, make sure you’ve got everything you need.”

  His arm was tight around me, and the shrill, prudish voice in the back of my mind kept saying that I was in so deep I needed to stop. I might be siblings with one of them. And-

  My eyes widened and it felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I slid out of his grip and onto the floor, my knees feeling like they were going to collapse.

  Have you ever forgotten about something so important, because everything else around you had turned into an absolute dumpster fire.

  “I think I’m pregnant,” I blurted out, staring at him. My mind tried to calculate how many weeks I’d been missing, and the time before that, since Colt and I-

  “You can’t get pregnant kissing, I mean you can, but you’d have to be completely naked and pretty fucking enthusiastic about the whole thing,” Reid said with a roll of his eyes and then stopped at something he saw in my expression. “Oh. Shit. You’re serious.”

  “I’m going to be sick-” I whispered. He shook his head and pointed.

  “Toilet, right there.”

  I staggered toward it and fell to my knees, as the acid burned up the back of my throat.

  He grabbed my hair, pulling it away so it wouldn’t fall into the water as I puked up what felt like everything I’d eaten for a week. His hand was on my trembling back.

  “Hey, hey, there we go, it’s okay…” He passed me a tissue as I sat up, my head spinning. I wiped at my mouth and spat. He flushed it so I wouldn’t have to look at the mess, and then I leaned against him as he held me. “What happened?”

  I laughed, the sound hollow, and my injured eye watered and stung.

  “Colt and I-”

  “Fucking Colt?” He demanded, then whistled. “Impressive.” I punched him in the shoulder weakly.

  “Fuck off,” I muttered, “You know we were sleeping together.”

  “I know you two are hopelessly in love. It’s grossly adorable. Trailer trash, star crossed, fated mates, born in ashes, whatever, I shipped it,” he sounded kind of envious. “So an oopsie?”

  “And I forgot. It just… slipped my mind.” I stared at the wall. “How does something like that slip your mind? How could I…”

  His fingers were gentle as he stroked them down the side of my face, sweeping them under my chin. He tilted my head up to look at him, and he was so serious, it was almost like for a moment he was someone else and not Reid Remington at all.

  “Have you ever been kidnapped before, held captive, and had everything you loved threatened?” He asked, gentle… sweet. My heart thudded in my chest, and I ached for that kind of affection, for that kindness that allowed me to be weak and fallible and human.

  “I get what you’re saying-”

  “Do you know for sure?”

  “It’s been… at least a month and a half, maybe longer, since my period,” I said, and surprisingly he didn’t wrinkle his nose like most guys did when someone mentioned their shark week.

  “Stay here,” he said, and got up, disappearing out of the bathroom. I… waited. Like an idiot, curled up on the floor.

  He was probably going to go tell Cael and Buck.

  Buck was going to flip out. And then beat the shit out of Colt. I needed to stop that from happening. I got to my feet.

  “I thought I told you to stay put?” Reid was back, slender white box in one hand, glass of ice water in the other. “Drink this. Just in case you need something to help you pee.” He handed me the glass and I took a sip, the fretting cool slipping down the back of my throat. The box, he split the end open and pulled out a pregnancy test.

  “I am not going to ask why Cael keeps that on hand.”

  “His mother’s a pill jockey, riding highs every day. She practically has a pharmacy in the pantry,” he said, passing me the little plastic wand. “Need some help holding it?” He teased.

  “Gross, hard pass,” I replied, wondering if I could… just go do it. Right then. I set the glass down. “Can you turn around.” Reid stared at me, creepy and charming as ever. He sighed and turned away. I shuffled over to the toilet, and which thankfully was in it’s own separate room from the rest of the bathroom, and I pulled the door slightly closed.

  Well. I stared down at the pregnancy test.

  “Here goes nothing,” I muttered. At least… I hoped it would be nothing.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’d never felt like time passed so slowly in my life. Not even when my mom and her boyfriends got into raging fights. Not even when I’d been locked away in the Barron estate with no hope of being saved.

  This was something different, and crazy.

  “Do you want me to finish your makeup?” Reid asked, “clock’s ticking.”

  “Is it though? It doesn’t feel like it is,” I muttered to myself. I shook my head. “When the test comes back positive, I might cry so, maybe not.”

/>   “What the hell, you’re pregnant?” Colt’s voice shot through me like a bullet and I stiffened, turning.

  “I thought you said he wasn’t coming until later,” I practically wailed and Reid glared at Colt.

  “Dude, do not,” he snarled. Colt ignored him and strode into the room, eyes flashing with what was probably panic and anger all mixed together.

  “What about the nurse visit, and the morning after pill and-” His gaze fell to the test that lay on the counter and he went pale.

  Reid didn’t even wait. He lunged for Colt and they went down with a bang, snarling and pounding on each other. I backed up, my eyes going blurry.

  It was too much. I couldn’t take it. My legs gave out and I sagged against the counter-top, my side scraping against the the cupboards of the vanity. I collapsed with a sob and sat there crying, curled up, the weight and grief of everything ripping right through me and shattering my self control.

  “What the hell? Get the fuck up!” Cael’s voice echoed in the room, and he piled into the fray, dragging Reid off of Colt.

  “I’ll fuckin’ kill you,” Reid was yelling, Colt’s eye swelling shut, to match my own injury. I turned my face into the vanity and sobbed harder. A slap rang out, and another voice, dangerously soft spoke.

  “Everyone get out.” It was familiar and raspy. I lifted my head as Garrett, his hair shorter than Shawn’s, bent down in front of me. With a growl, Colt got to his feet.

  “Don’t you fucking start shit, Remington, I’ll finish it, I swear.”

  “Get. Out.” Garrett said, his words cold and clipped, so unlike his normal self that I hiccuped and wiped my face on my arm. Everyone left, Cael dragging Reid, and Colt stalking after them with one apologetic and confused look thrown at me from his good eye.

  “I… I’m sorry,” I said, not able to help myself, the feelings of guilt. I’d done this. I’d wrecked everything. I was always making bad decisions and I hated myself, and I was a monster, and now everyone was fighting, what the fuck was wrong with me-

  Garrett reached up and the tap gushed water, and when his hand returned, he had a cold cloth, wrung out and wet, in it.