Five Kinds of Love (The True and the Crown Book 5)

by May Dawson

  I quirk an eyebrow at him.

  “Yes, Gwen Degrance?” he murmurs. Both names are from my great, great, greatest of grandmothers, who leant me her name—and her body.

  “Don’t make me ask for your cock.”

  He grins. “But I love so much when you do.”

  He moves into position, and I catch his cock with my hand, swirling my tongue around the tip of his cock. As Airren and Rian move together, thrusting inside me, and I come closer and closer to orgasm, my hand and my mouth move wildly, echoing the heat and passion flowering in my own core.

  Then Devlin presses against the inner curve of my ass, and I moan with relief as he fills me, as the five of us rock together. The world blurs into nothing but warmth and ecstasy as our bodies unite into one.

  And the blurred world turns shining and bright as my muscles all tense, as my orgasm shatters over me and I scream with its power.

  And with my own power, listening to their breath coming short and wild as they come with me.

  The six of us collapse together afterward, muscles languid. Sometimes we go on for hours. Sometimes we curl up together, cuddling.

  I’m drifting off to sleep, content and safe and warm, surrounded by love, when the mattress shifts. I open my eyes to see Devlin sitting up. His gaze is fixed on something distant, as if he’s lost in his own thoughts.

  “What is it, Devlin?” I murmur, sitting up too.

  I ease over the sleeping bodies to press myself against him, and he wraps his arms around my waist, burying his face in my hair.

  His lips twist with his usual cynicism, but what he says is just the truth: “You changed the world.”

  “We changed the world,” I correct.

  He shakes his head. “You changed my world. I never could have imagined this--never could have even dreamt of this--”

  “Any complaints?” I ask lightly.

  “Yes.” His hand skims over my bare shoulder, his lips pressing against my throat. As he lifts his head, his voice is throaty. “It’s quite uncomfortable loving you. Loving them, even. I think that will come in time.”

  My lips part in a slow smile, because he’s once again dancing around the words he’d never said before.

  The moonlight catches the silver glint in his eyes.

  “I love you,” he confesses.

  I sear my lips to his, and the two of us share a deep kiss, full of promises for the future.

  Devlin’s lips curl up as Mycroft sits up onto his elbows.

  “What are we doing?” Mycroft demands. “It’s after midnight.”

  “I was just telling our girl that she changed my world.” Devlin’s smirk deepens into one of his rare, genuine smiles as his gaze meets mine, and my heart leaps in my chest.

  “Mine too.” Mycroft leans across Devlin to kiss me. There’s so much passion in his kisses, but they no longer carry the edge of desperate need they used to. Mycroft seems lighter than he ever used to be, although he’ll always be my grouch.

  “You changed mine,” I murmur, but the two of them are covering me in kisses, and the others are stirring in bed around me, and there’s no more time for sweet words.

  THE END

  Hi!

  May Dawson here.

  If you enjoyed the Five Kinds series, I hope you’ll take a second and leave a review now!

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  If you’d like to read about the rips between realms from the perspective of a tough young Hunter Dirtside, you might want to check out Her Kind of Magic—I’ve included an except if you turn the page!

  Thanks for reading!

  Best,

  May

  Her Kind of Magic

  After my parents were killed by vamps, my uncle took an early retirement from his life as a Hunter to raise me. I grew up training for battles he hoped I’d never fight.

  Until the night my school dance tuns into a fight, and he takes me out for ice cream after. When the screaming starts, my chocolate-chip-cookie-dough cone splatters on the street. My uncle and I race to help.

  An hour later, I’m covered in his blood, shell-shocked, being loaded in a police car for a crime I could never commit.

  The Hunters’ Academy rescues me.

  Or maybe imprisons me.

  The details are a little dicey, and the men training me—handsome Cade and cruel, cold, perfect Nix—try to avoid the subject.

  But nothing matters to me now except getting revenge.

  I know I’ll make those responsible for my uncle’s death pay. But after my revenge, how will I go on with life, now that the last person who loved me is dead?

  Will I be able to come back to the academy and create a new family, find a new home? Or will I have destroyed my chance here?

  I’ll think about that tomorrow. Today, I’m out for blood.

  Chapter 1

  Deidra

  Homecoming is supposed to be one of those big nights in your teenage life. In a good way. Homecoming night isn’t supposed to end with you splattered in ice cream and blood, being loaded into a police car for a crime you could never commit.

  But let me back up. It started off as a pretty good night, as my best friend Kate and I were getting ready in her bedroom. There was no sign of how it would end.

  “I’m not sure I should let someone who can’t parallel park a car curl my hair.” I eyed her warily from my perch on the edge of her pink-and-white vanity stool. As she tried to untangle the cord, she waved the curling wand dangerously near my face.

  “Those two skills are completely unrelated,” Kate said, finally unplugging the wand so she could untangle the cord. “I could point out that I don’t need fashion advice from someone who terrifies all the boys and almost always wears combat boots to school, but I still asked your advice when we were dress-shopping.”

  “But you really shouldn’t take my advice.” I had always been a hot mess fashion wise: I liked black, I liked denim, and I liked military surplus. Those were the only three categories of clothing for me.

  Meanwhile, Kate looked like an angel, even in her disaster of a room, where she was surrounded by discarded pink clothing and piles of books. Her long blond hair was already curled in soft waves around her face, and she had an ethereal glow in her full, blush-colored satin gown. Unlike other girls in our school, Kate didn’t tan; she had a fifties pin-up girl look, all vintage dresses and pale legs, and she rocked the hell out of it.

  “We look like total opposites,” I added. “Luckily for you.”

  “We are total opposites,” she mumbled around the bobby pins she had in her mouth as she re-attacked my dark, wild mane of hair. “But we’re both fucking awesome, and fucking awesome people have to stick together.”

  Her hands smoothing my hair as I perched on her vanity stool felt relaxing, and I let my eyes drift shut. Right before she accidentally jabbed me with a bobby pin. My eyes opened in a hurry as I sat forward. “Ouch!”

  “Don’t be such a baby. For someone who takes eighty-five martial arts classes a week—”

  “Being jabbed in the skull with a pin is a different kind of pain.”

  “It’s a bobby pin, you big baby. Sweet Jesus, if people could see you now, they might stop re-arranging their class schedules to avoid you.”

  “It’s not that many people,” I said. “And they all deserved it.”

  “I’m not contesting that,” Kate said. “I just wish you’d let everyone else see the real you.”

  “This is the real me.” I held my hand out to admire my freshly painted, shiny black nails.

  “The only reason you slashed Nick Molich’s tires was to stop him from beating the shit out of that chess club geek for ‘taking his parking space’.”

  Molich had that poor kid pinned against the kid’s mom’s Hyundai, and he damn near broke his nose. Someone had to end things. “And?�
�

  “And yet you told everyone you were personally offended by Nick’s new boy band drop-out haircut and felt the need to retaliate on behalf of his hair follicles.”

  As she started to curl the strands of hair hanging around my face, she stuck her tongue out between her perfect white teeth in concentration.

  “I don’t see what you’re getting at here.”

  “You’re the world’s biggest softy, that’s what I’m getting at.”

  “Shut your damn mouth, Katelyn Rodriguez. You’re going to ruin my reputation.”

  “You already did within like, a week of starting ninth grade.”

  I opened my mouth, about to argue even though I was defenseless before Katie-with-a-curling-iron, but just then the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Mrs. Rodriguez called as she walked past the open door.

  “Finally,” Kate said. “Wendy and Rach are so late.”

  “Are we done?” I pushed a hot tendril of hair off my forehead, wincing. “I feel pretty. Am I pretty now?”

  “Like super pretty,” Rachel dead-panned from the doorway, in her fakest valley girl voice.

  “Whoa, that is a new look.” Wendy pushed in beside Rachel. “Not you, Kate. You look like a Leave it to Beaver extra as usual. But Hot Topic here looks amazing.”

  “I’d be hurt by your name-calling, but if my name was Wendy, I’d probably develop a bitter, sarcastic outer shell too,” Kate shot back. She took a step back, pumping the curling wand aloft like a prize fighter. That must mean I was finished.

  I stood to hug Wendy and Rachel hello. Despite our banter and vast differences, the four of us had been thick as thieves since we started Bennington High. Freshman year, we’d been four new kids who didn’t know anyone else… and quickly learned that we didn’t need anyone else. We had just seen each other that morning for classes, but it still felt like a hugging kind of day.

  “First dance of senior year, bitches,” Rachel said as she picked her way across the room to hug Kate. I was clearly not the only one who was feeling the celebratory vibe. “The countdown to graduation begins. Everything is about to change.”

  “Don’t start, you’ll make Wendy cry,” I said.

  Wendy slugged me in the shoulder, but I just grinned and let her get away with it for once. Turning, I caught a glimpse of myself in Kate’s full length mirror. My long, sleek black dress had a halter top that exposed my tanned, toned arms. I was never conventionally pretty, with my long nose, heavy brow, and perpetually bee-stung lips. The only feature people looked twice at was my unusual emerald green eyes. Kate liked to say that I looked like more in a world where girls try to make themselves less. I didn’t know what the hell that meant, but I knew she meant well.

  But with my hair in a sleek updo and a few curls loosely waved around my face, and a fancy dress, I did feel pretty that night.

  “Oh, I almost forgot, I brought everyone corsages,” Kate said.

  “Corsages?” I couldn’t hide my grin. “You sweet, sweet dork.”

  “Yes, corsages. We’re each other’s dates tonight. Let’s do this right.”

  After some serious misery at the start of junior year, the four of us swore off boys. Who needed boys when you had your girls by your side anyway, right? I figured I’d try dating again someday when there were men available instead of arrogant little boys, which our school had far too many of.

  I dug in my backpack while Kate retrieved the corsage boxes from on top of her dresser. I never noticed the boxes were up there, mixed in with her perfume bottles and a whole lot of unmatched socks.

  Once she’d pinned scarlet flowers onto one of the halter straps of my dress, I handed her the white-and-blush rose wrist corsage I had smuggled in my backpack.

  “This is so thoughtful,” she said, clutching it to her chest.

  “Let’s not make a thing of it,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m totally making a thing of it.”

  “This is why I don’t do nice things for you.”

  “You do nice things for me all the time, Deidra.”

  The four of us were bickering as we headed out to Wendy’s Prius for the drive to dinner. Because it was senior year, I already felt nostalgic as we got into the car. The bickering was just part of how we loved each other. Wendy drove, Rachel critiqued Wendy’s driving, and Kate sang along to the radio. We were all dressed up and on our way to a ‘fancy’ dinner at our favorite chicken and waffles restaurant.

  That night, I was already thinking about how much I’d miss them when we all grew up. I threw my hands up in the car and joined Kate, bouncing around and singing along to the radio as Wendy turned it up to drown us all out.

  At least I had savored the last moments of my normal life.

  Chapter 2

  “I need water!” I shouted at Kate over the music. “You want one?”

  She shook her head, content to bounce along to the beat with her curls beginning to fall out. It was almost eleven. One more hour until Homecoming ended and the after party began. I’d had fun dancing my heart out, but I was ready now to move on to the pajamas-and-ice-cream part of the evening.

  As I slipped through the crowd, two of the baseball guys gave me a slow once-over that I couldn’t miss even with the low, pulsing light. They were both friends with Nick Molich. I didn’t know their names because I didn’t care.

  One of them caught me looking. As his gaze met mine, his lips twisted in a shameless grin.

  I guessed he wasn’t going to ask me to dance. I stared him down as I crossed the last few steps to escape the dim, heated room. I pushed open the double door and stepped out into the hall.

  It was blessedly cool and quiet out here. I’d never been so appreciative of the school’s white cinderblock hallways before. A handful of people dotted the hallway, along with a half dozen freshmen and sophomores who were selling bottles of water at a folding table.

  As I handed over my dollar and took the sweating plastic bottle, I breathed in a patented combination of offensively intense cologne and mild body odor.

  “Hi, Nick,” I said without bothering to look back.

  When I swiveled to face him, he and his two friends from the baseball team were right behind me.

  “Hi, Deidra,” he said, his voice mocking.

  His eyes studied me carefully as he looked down at me; he had a good foot of height on me, and a combination of muscle and chub that my uncle Liam called prison fat. I used to think Nick was handsome, with his ruddy cheeks and wavy dark hair.

  “You look nice,” he said.

  “Thank you.” Kate would be proud of how polite I was.

  I slipped between him and his friends, fast enough that when I turned back, one of them gaped at me. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”

  “Dance with me,” Nick said. “Let’s forget about the past.”

  I flashed him a tight smile and reached behind me for the doors. My politeness quota was maxed out.

  I’d never been a very forgiving person, and call me crazy, but I didn’t think Nick was a better human than me. I was pretty sure he hadn’t forgiven me for humiliating him.

  “Fine,” he said. “Then let’s talk outside.”

  “No thanks.”

  The door opened behind me. As I took a step forward to avoid being hit by the door, I twisted to see who it was.

  Another baseball boy came out behind me, crossing his arms and flashing me a smug smile. Great. Now there was nowhere I could put my back against the wall and keep all of them in front of me.

  When Nick stepped in toward me, I didn’t hesitate. It didn’t take a psychic to see where this was going.

  I got the first punch in, coming in low and slamming my fist into his side. As he tried to wrap his arms around me and slam me down to the ground, I ducked my weight low, staying on my feet. Nothing good happens once four guys get a girl down on the ground.

  I slammed my head forward into his nose and felt it give. Crunch.

  He stumbled back, his hands going up
to his face. “You bitch!”

  “Break it up!” The principal was right there, pushing Nick and me apart. Nick stumbled back into the waiting arms of his buddies. Blood poured down his face, splattering down his suit jacket and white dress shirt.

  “He didn’t do anything to her,” one of his buddies rushed to tell the principal. “He just asked her to dance, and she went off like a crazy bitch and hit him.”

  “We’ll sort it out Monday morning with your parents,” the principal said. He glared at me. “For right now, Deidra, it’s time for you to go.”

  “Fine.” Nothing good was going to come from arguing with the principal. My uncle Liam would back me up on Monday morning.

  Liam always told me to trust my gut. If my instincts were that the four intimidating guys trying to drag me outside were up to no good, he’d believe me.

  “Make sure none of these yahoos come after me. I don’t want to break any more noses tonight.”

  “Get out,” the principal repeated, pointing toward the door. As if I didn’t know my way out of this place.

  I waved at them all over my shoulder as I headed for the parking lot. The quick flick of my hand was a lot more flippant than I felt. My heart pounded, and adrenalize buzzed in my ears. Four guys versus me. Damn. That could have gone a lot differently if I had waited to make sure they really meant to hurt me.

  I yanked out my flip phone as soon as I cleared the doors. The fall night was warm, but rain fell softly in a constant light mist that seemed to hang in the air. It made the world feel fresh and clean, something I needed right now. My skin prickled like it was covered in grime after having Nick’s hands on my body.

  Liam picked up on the first ring. “Everything okay?”

  “Were you just waiting around in overprotective mode with your hand on the phone, assuming I’d find some kind of trouble?”

  Guilty pause. “No.”

  “Oh good,” I said. “Because I found some kind of trouble. I got kicked out of the dance.”