Kings of Anarchy

by Caroline Peckham

  He ran his fingers down my back in feather light strokes and I gritted my teeth.

  "Don't pity me, Nash. And don't even think about turning this into some love-making bullshit because you think that's what I need," I warned and his lips parted in surprise before he barked a laugh.

  "Fine." He bared his teeth at me then shoved me onto the bed.

  Monroe pushed his boxers down and grabbed my hips, yanking me toward him and throwing my left leg over his shoulder. He slammed himself inside me, filling me up without giving me a chance to prepare. I cried out and he pressed his hand to my mouth, leaning over me so my leg was stretched to its limit and he started slamming into me with needy, hungry thrusts.

  I groaned and growled and fucking screamed against his hand as he tried to keep me quiet, fucking me in my favourite position and hitting that perfect spot deep inside me. He lost himself, becoming nothing but a beast as he possessed my body and we marked his sheets with our combined scents. He hooked up my other leg, throwing that over his other shoulder and pressed his weight down as he started pounding into me, my body tightening around him like this.

  He drove into me without mercy and I loved every second, teetering on the edge of bliss. I could see him coming undone too, his eyes hooded, his grunts and groans deepening. He rolled his hips and his cock rubbed me in the perfect way just before he did it again and I lost my mind, moaning and panting into his hand as my body tensed up and pleasure washed through me like sunshine pouring directly into my veins. Monroe stood upright, gripping my ankles and slamming his hips against me a few more furious times before he came, making my toes curl at the feel of him branding me as his.

  I realised he had claw marks raked down his shoulders and he cursed as he pulled out of me, noticing them himself. My legs fell to the bed and worry twisted through me.

  "I'll keep a shirt on around the others, but the bigger issue is those, princess." He pointed at a line of crescent nail marks over my hip and I sighed as I sat up, running my fingers across them, quietly liking that he'd marked me.

  "Kyan will cover for us," I said and Monroe frowned as he rearranged his pants. I stood up, cupping his cheek, sensing my words had upset him. "You are okay with me being with him too, aren't you?"

  He sighed, looking down at me as I gently scraped my nails along his jaw. "Yeah...I’m happy that you make him happy. He needs you, like I need you.”

  I tip-toed up to kiss him and he wrapped his arms around me, tugging me against his chest. I could feel my desire for him rising again already. The roughness of his jeans against my sensitive skin was delicious.

  "Sometimes I worry how much I enjoy their company. I was only ever meant to join the Night Keepers to get close to Saint," he growled, an edge of distress in his tone.

  I smoothed out the crease in his brow. "His father is your real target," I reminded him and Monroe sighed.

  "I know...I guess I just wanted to focus on his son as well seeing as Troy Memphis showed my mother and my brother no mercy. Maybe I wanted to fuck with his entitled little heir."

  "But that's hardly fair," I pushed, not wanting to argue again but that didn't mean I was going to back down on this. I'd been targeted for that very same reason by the Night Keepers. I knew the injustice of it first hand. And it wasn't something I could stand by and allow to happen to Saint now that he'd gone to hell and back for me.

  Monroe lowered his hands to my ass, squeezing firmly as he held me in place against him and I felt him growing hard for me again. "You're very convincing when you're naked," he mused.

  "It's a gift," I said lightly.

  He sighed, looking at me for a long moment. "How about a compromise? We use Saint to get to Troy, but he won't be a casualty in the fallout. We could try getting into his laptop again to see if we can find something that'll help us get to his father."

  "Sounds good to me," I agreed. "I'll try and get a recording of him typing in his password because knowing Saint, we're never going to guess it."

  "It's probably fifty characters long with fucking umlauts on the vowels and a whole Beethoven symphony in the middle of it."

  I laughed and he grinned, walking me back towards the bed again.

  "I can't believe you didn't tell me it was your birthday," he said in frustration. "I would have-"

  "What? Baked me a cake and sung me happy birthday?" I rolled my eyes, falling down on the bed beneath him.

  He frowned then darted out of the room, returning a minute later with a box of lemon drizzle cakes under one arm and a slice in his hand with a lit tealight sitting on top of it.

  I burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it and I swear nothing inside me hurt for that one perfect moment. He held it out for me and I sat up, blowing it out.

  "Did you make a wish, princess?" he purred, tossing the box of cakes on the bed beside me and throwing the tealight on the floor.

  I nodded as he held the small rectangular cake to my lips and I took a bite, devouring half of it. I'd wished for everything to be okay again, as simple and as sad as that was. But I just hoped for a future which held light in it, a good time I could move toward day by day. And here with Monroe, it seemed almost possible.

  He moved onto the bed, pushing me down to lay beneath him as he brought the rest of the cake to his mouth. Then he paused, grinning darkly at me. "I think I'll have mine à la Tatum."

  I quirked an eyebrow at him which he answered by pushing the cake between my legs and shoving his fingers into me to crush it inside me. I gasped as he dropped his mouth between my thighs to devour it and I was lost to the lap of his tongue and the graze of his teeth, the world fading all around me until it was just me and this beautiful man and a whole night to do as we pleased.

  I sat in class with Saint on my left and Kyan on my right while Miss Pontus blathered on about something Shakespeare had supposedly meant in one of his plays and I gave no shits at all. I mean, it seemed a bit presumptuous to me to say that he'd been using his work to make a comment on anything at all. Maybe he just got off on writing characters and ruining their lives? Perhaps he took joy in birthing people with his imagination and then getting an audience to care for them just so that he could bathe in the tears of the people who came to see his work when he killed their favourite character and fucked up everyone else's lives in the process. If I was going to write a story, I had to think that would be at least some of my motivation. Why not fuck with a fictional life just for shits and giggles? And really, even if he did have some deeper meaning to his work, who was Miss Pontus to say that? If Shakespeare himself wanted to rise from the grave to tell me that then great, I was all ears. But I wasn't going to take my facts from a third party interpretation.

  Besides, I had my own tragedies to construct and as my gaze slid between Stalker - formally known as Toby, formally known as Punch, formally, formally know as Toby again - to Bait, formally known as... Huh, actually I had no fucking idea what that kid's name had been before we'd stripped him of it. I wanted to say...Quentin. Kid looked like a Quentin, or maybe a Sebastian or a Reginald. Whatever, Bait was always going to be Bait now anyway because he was a predatory pervert who had also turned out to be a spineless traitor. Between him and Stalker the fucking twisted, photo snapping, bush wanking, corner perving...stalker, I had work to do.

  Me, Kyan and Saint had spent last night hunting the Justice Ninja again, following leads and interrogating people but it had come to nothing once more and I was getting really fucking sick of making no progress on figuring out who they were. I needed to vent some of that frustration and I had a fair idea of how I might manage it…

  "Anyone up for a little fun with our least favourite people?" I asked in a low tone, glancing between Saint and Kyan and watching as they both perked up.

  Tatum turned in her seat to give me a quizzical look and I just grinned innocently back at her.

  "What do you have in mind?" Saint asked with a dangerous glint in his eye.

  "I think we need them to perform a cleansing ritu
al for the spirit of the forest to make sure spring comes again," I said thoughtfully.

  Class had only just begun and it was a double lesson, but I was already done with it. Saint had talked Miss Pontus into making notes on the lesson for him anyway and she was emailing them over until his arm was back to full use, so it seemed simple enough to me to just go ahead and get her to extend that courtesy to me and Kyan too.

  "Miss Pontus?" I called, pushing to my feet and interrupting her as she started on one about prose. Seriously, was that even a thing anymore? Didn't seem like it.

  "Oh, erm, yes...Mr Bowman, can I help you?" our teacher asked, flushing red as she looked at me, like she was worried about what I might say or do. Which was totally offensive really, I was a nice guy. Everyone wanted to be my friend - they'd just do better not to be my enemy.

  "Yeah, actually. I'm sorry, Miss, but I totally forgot to say, me, Kyan, Saint, Bait and Stalker have permission from Headmaster Monroe to finish classes early today to take part in the Spring Pine Cleansing."

  Bait whipped around to look at me, his eyes wild beneath his white mask which he still wore every fucking day. That shit was still funny. In fact, it could be a whole lot funnier...

  I plucked a sharpie from Mila's pencil case and winked at her when she frowned at me. It was really her own fault for having a pencil case. We were all given tablets to work on, so why would you need that shit? Made no sense to me. Unless she was hoping to be the go-to girl for Sharpies and in that case, point won.

  "The Spring Pine Cleansing?" Miss Pontus asked as Kyan stood up with a throaty chuckle, slinging his bag and Saint's over his shoulder. He’d been doing that since Saint started classes again and neither of them had ever said so much as a word to acknowledge it.

  "Yeah, every year on the errr, what's the date someone?" I asked.

  "January eighteenth," some helpful little duck supplied.

  "Yeah, that," I agreed. "Every year on January whatever, the Night Keepers have to take two willing sacrifices down to the lake to complete the Spring Pine Cleansing otherwise the Night People will come and curse our trees or whatever and they'll all die. It's super important."

  "Oh, erm," Miss Pontus looked to Stalker and Bait as the two of them quivered in their fucking boots. Sacrifices was a nice touch.

  Why the hell did that feel so good? Oh right, because I was an asshole and they were a pair of deserving little cretins who preyed on girls and put my girl in particular at risk. That. Fuck, I was gonna enjoy this.

  "We're actually already late," Saint drawled as he started walking for the door. "And you wouldn't want Monroe having to put you on suspension for failing to follow his orders, would you, Miss? He is your boss now, after all."

  "Come on, boys," Kyan said excitedly as he crossed the room to the front row and gripped both Bait and Stalker by the backs of their necks, hoisting them out of their seats.

  "Oh, and Mr Monroe said you would send me and Kyan the notes for today's class and let us off of the assignments for the weekend, too," I added as I grabbed my blazer from the back of my chair and shrugged into it. "He offered to do the same for Bait and Stalker but they're such eager beavers they decided they'd rather come back in on Saturday to do all of the work instead."

  "Okay then..." Miss Pontus agreed, not really having any choice in it as Kyan hauled our prey out of the room and the other Unspeakables muttered frantically between themselves. They should just be grateful that I was feeling generous enough to leave them out of today’s shit. Though it was damn tempting to bring Deepthroat, but Kyan wouldn’t have as much fun with her there. Sure, he’d make great sport out of making her suffer and everything, but he was always so dark and pissy after he had to spend time in her company and I just wanted us all to have some clean, wholesome, slightly sadistic, fun today. No date-raping, molesting bitches required. That said, I could offer her a parting gift…

  I hesitated as I fished around in my pocket and smirked to myself as I found a stick of gum lurking between a few quarters and quickly shoved it into my mouth and began chewing.

  I made a move to follow as Saint swept from the room, making an arm cast look like fucking designer wear even while it was wrapped in a shirt to cover up the massive squid cock monster Kyan had drawn on it. But before I could get more than a few steps, a foot kicked me in the shin and I looked down to find Tatum frowning up at me from her spot beside Mila.

  "What about me?" she hissed, and I smirked at her as I leaned down to whisper in her ear.

  "I'll take a video for you, Cinders," I promised. "But I don't want Stalker so much as looking at you ever again, let alone being near you for hours while we make him stick pine cones up his ass and sing to the clouds."

  "What?" she gasped, half laughing and half frowning as she looked up at me. "You're not seriously going to-"

  I leaned down and ended her sentence with a kiss that stole the air from her damn lungs. My hand landed on her thigh and I pushed it beneath her skirt as I drove my tongue into her mouth, using my body to hide what I was doing from the rest of the class.

  Tatum gripped my lapels in her fists as I groaned into her mouth and made her a silent promise to pick this up again later. It had been seriously too long since I'd had my way with her and I was done playing nice.

  "Catch you later, Tater," I teased as I pulled away from her, winking to let her know I meant that literally and she pouted at me as I backed up.

  Luckily, I’d managed to keep hold of my gum during that little exchange or my plan would have gone to shit. I paused as I made it to Deepthroat’s desk, dropping to one knee as I made a show of tying my shoelace despite the fact that my loafers had no laces, but whatever, no one would dare question me on that shit.

  I spat the gum into my hand as I stood, giving Deepthroat my most predatory grin as I leaned close to her and stuck my gum into her hair right at the back, close to her scalp. She squealed in alarm as I tugged on the long, auburn strands, making sure I fisted as much of it as possible into the gum so that it was stuck in there real good.

  “Problem?” I questioned in a low voice as she made a move to leap out of her seat and I slapped a hand down on her shoulder to keep her in place.

  “No,” she squeaked, with honest to god tears in her eyes and my smile darkened as I glanced at Squits beside her.

  I reached out and clapped his cheek a couple of times in a patronising gesture which reminded him who owned his ass and he whimpered in alarm, probably shitting himself again. Nice. Or maybe not so nice for the people in the row behind him. Sorry dudes.

  I straightened as Deepthroat clutched at her hair, whimpering in alarm as her fingers found the gum stuck deep in it and I looked back to Tatum with a grin which she flipped me off for. But I could see the heat in her eyes and the excitement over my little triumph against our good friend, Deepthroat. Our girl wanted to see this bitch punished just as badly as I did. I just wondered if she realised how much that showed she’d become a part of our group. Now she hungered for the blood of our enemies in the same way we did and there was something really fucking hot about that.

  When I looked back to the front of the class, I found our teacher conveniently distracted by something on her laptop. Perfect.

  “Thanks, Miss, you're a total badass," I called as I tipped Miss Pontus a salute and she just nodded like she didn’t know whether to doubt my bullshit or not.

  Just to be on the safe side, I shot Monroe a message in the group chat to let him know that he'd just given permission for us to ditch and to tell him to meet us down by the lake for the Spring Pine Whateverthefuck.

  Monroe:

  You can't just go around making up bullshit about me letting you out of classes whenever you like.

  Saint:

  Yes he can. This is important.

  Tatum:

  You're all a bunch of assholes and I'm not going to forget you cutting me out of this.

  Kyan:

  Sorry baby, I totally would have let you come. I didn't know Blak
e had a stick up his ass over it. I promise to make you come later to make up for it.

  Kyan:

  Literally.

  Kyan:

  With my dick.

  Saint:

  She caught your less than subtle euphemism the first time, asshole.

  Kyan:

  *eggplant emoji* *bagel emoji* *tongue emoji* *taco emoji* *eggplant emoji* *eggplant emoji* *eggplant emoji* *water emoji*

  Kyan:

  That meant I’m gonna lick you ‘til you’re screaming and then fuck you ‘til you can’t breathe btw (I know some people in here are too out of touch to understand emojis)

  Monroe:

  I mean it. You guys can't just pull this shit whenever you want out of class.

  Tatum:

  No chance, Kyan. You guys just left me hanging so I intend to do the same to you.

  Saint:

  I wasn't offering to fuck you anyway, siren, so stop begging for it.

  Tatum:

  *squid emoji*

  Blake:

  Not that shit again

  Kyan:

  Haha, I totally agree, baby

  Saint:

  Tell me what the fucking squid means!

  Tatum:

  It's like when a bunch of assholes leave you in class while they go off to have fun and you just get all *onion emoji* over it but then you think it through and realise it's actually more *squid emoji*

  Kyan:

  *Octopus emoji*

  Saint:

  Stop dicking around and tell me.

  Tatum:

  *squid emoji*

  **Tatum Rivers has left the chat**

  I barked a laugh and shoved my phone back into my pocket as I jogged down the corridor and outside to catch the guys. Tatum left the group chat at least four times a week and then Saint had to find her, get hold of her phone, put her back into it again and spank her for misbehaving. At this point I was certain she did it half to piss off Saint and half to get the spanking.