Make Me Yours (Top Shelf Romance Book 4)

by Devney Perry

  Inhale the pain, exhale the agony, live another day.

  There’s a long pause before his finger squeezes over my shoulder. “She’s my sister.”

  “What?” I think that was King’s dad.

  “I’m sorry, Dad.” Keaton mutters under his breath. “They have to know about her, or they will kill her.” He must be lying, wanting me to follow his lead in a desperate attempt to save my life. Not sure why. I don’t know why Keaton has been so nice to me, I just bought it down to him not being as dark as he looks. Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is all part of their plan. I can’t trust anyone.

  “Keres, care to explain this?” Dahlia interferes, and I finally bring my eyes up to her. She’d be beautiful if she wasn’t so hateful. Her long dark hair and almond green eyes. She looks so much like her sons it’s almost frightening. But then you see their dad, and it all makes sense. They get their beauty from her and their manhood from him.

  “Stand.” Killian’s hands come around my arm, pulling me up. I obey, leaning into him and not wanting to bring my eyes to anyone. I trust Kill.

  “It’s true,” Keaton’s father says, and I turn to face him, wanting to know who this man is who owns such a smooth voice. Like warm hot chocolate on a cold day. He has brown hair that has greys scattering through it and bright blue eyes. His face is muscular, just like Keaton’s.

  Nothing like me.

  “Her mother hated her,” Keres says to them, but his eyes are addressing me. “They were Klaus and Ash’s love children.”

  “Wait!” King’s mom snaps her fingers. “Are you telling me that she’s a Kiznitch, not a little witch?” She exhales. “That still doesn’t defeat the fact that she’s clinically insane and wants to destroy us. She’s a liability. We will make an exception for this once.”

  Keres shakes his head, his eyes going to her. “You know good and well how this world spins, Dahlia. Her father who wasn’t Kiznitch blood…” He pauses, and I notice a drastic shift in the room. Why do they keep saying they? “She died, but this one didn’t.”

  “This one who?” King demands, but I don’t look at him. I don’t want to. I don’t want to so much as pay him any of my attention. I’m broke, as far as currency spent on Kingston Axton goes.

  “Dove, I’m sorry for what happened to you and your father.” Keres walks up to me, shoving his hands into his slacks. “Ash loves you and your sister.” The lines around his eyes deepen.

  “’Kay,” I say, but it comes out broken, through cracked dry cement. I can’t wait to meet this Ash, only so I can ask questions. I feel nothing for her emotionally right now.

  “Dove,” Kohen murmurs from behind me, and I turn to face him, ignoring everyone in here, especially King.

  His eyes laser into mine, and the world slows for a few seconds. He opens his mouth. “Do you still have that burn mark over your hipbone?”

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  Kohen’s eyes darken as obvious triumph comes over him. “Do you still have that burn mark over your hipbone?”

  I lift my shirt, as if I didn’t already know the answer. “No?” I run my thumb over my bare, smooth skin.

  The room silences.

  Keaton sucks in a breath.

  Killian yells, “Fuck!”

  “Jesus Christ.” Dahlia massages her temple and takes a seat back on her throne. People are still watching, and the room is caving in. “That could have ended tragically.”

  “Why would you ask me that?” My eyes go back to Kohen, who is smirking like a Cheshire Cat.

  “Because Dove Hendry was burned Christmas 1998 after she fell against an iron fire pit.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” I argue. “I mean, not that I remember. I don’t remember much.”

  “You don’t fucking say,” Dahlia groans. “We’re about to lose him,” she whispers, but I don’t miss it.

  “No,” Kohen murmurs. “You weren’t burnt. You’re not my wildcat.”

  “I don’t follow.” His footsteps come closer, the room smaller.

  “Because you’re not Dove Hendry.”

  “What!” I snap, annoyed. “Of course I am!”

  Kohen shakes his head, his eyes flying over my shoulder and landing on someone else. “No, you ain’t. I would know, because Dove was my girl. You are not her.”

  I swing around, finding King standing still, motionless with all of the color drained from his face.

  “Elaborate!” I search Kohen’s deceitful eyes.

  “You’re Persephone Noctem Hendry, not Dove Noctem Hendry, and you’re not my girl.” Kohen’s eyes flash back over my shoulder, and he points to King. “You’re his.”

  King

  I pace back and forth in my father’s office after telling everyone to get the fuck out. Dove—fuck—Persephone is still sitting in the sitting room, this time talking with Keaton and Keres. Her name has always been weird as fuck, but it’s pronounced per-SEF-un-nee. I always called her P.

  “There’s no way that’s her,” I mutter, my hands running through my hair. “P is fucking dead. The reason why she’s dead is exactly why I killed her fucking parents!” I glare at my dad. Keres, Kratos, and Kallisto are all in here, as well as Kyrin and Killian.

  He exhales, placing a cigar in his mouth. “She doesn’t have that burn mark, son. You were there when Dove got that. It was lethal. She was in the hospital with first-degree burns. That type of scar doesn’t disappear. There’s no other explanation, and besides that,” he tests out, his eyes coming to mine, “your brother knew.”

  “And I fucking didn’t?” I argue, my anger bubbling to the surface, because if Kohen knew, why the fuck didn’t I?

  “Did you fuck her?” Dad asks, throwing me off slightly.

  “Yes,” I seethe.

  “So, you fucked her when you thought she was Dove?” He’s judging me now, the smug fuck.

  “What can I say?” I add dryly. “I was starving.”

  He watches me carefully. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, and Kohen won’t know, but that girl is not Dove Hendry. She is Persephone. Your brother will now have to mourn the fact that Dove has been dead all along, and it was Persephone that was alive.”

  My fist flies into the wall, and I feel myself slowly start to lose control, everything crumbling around me. “How can we give her back her memories that Keres took?” I ask, my lip curling as I watch him. I glare at my father. “And Kohen is barely sane. He didn’t even recognize her when she walked in until one of them barked off Little Bird.” Little Bird was what they were both called by everyone. Confusing, but convenient, when no one could tell them apart.

  Keres looks at me, his rough edges smoothing over him. “It was simple hypnosis. As if dealing with addiction, I didn’t take her memories away. I simply made her feel like she didn’t need them after the incident.” He stands, going straight for the whiskey stand and pouring himself a glass. “If she gains them back, she will know everything, King. Everything. Are you sure you want that?” He turns to face me, his eyes going to my father. “It would make her a liability. She’s not known this life. Ever. She doesn’t know the code we live by nor has she been acquainted with her duty as a Kournikova. Her father was weak against her, and her mother was merely a civilian whore.”

  “You can’t do that, P. Our parents will know.” P shrugged her small shoulders, a smirk that raged mischief dangling off the edge of her soft lips.

  “So what?” she said. “As long as I stay top in my class, Momma doesn’t care what I do during the day.”

  I looked at her closely. P was always mischief. She liked to tease people, torment them, and enrage them all at once, right before she’d charm their pants off. Hoping when she’s old enough, it won’t be literally. You see, Persephone Hendry was handcrafted for an Axton. Not just any Axton—me. She was named after a great Greek Goddess who was married to Hades, where they both ruled the underworld. She was born to be a pain in the ass. But my ass, that is.

  “P, please stop doing that!”
Dove whispered, her small frame coming into the room. Dove and Persephone Hendry were identical twins in every sense of the word, but their looks was where their similarities ended. Dove was demure. She was the peace to which P was the havoc. In peace there would always lie havoc with these two.

  P kept swinging higher and higher on the aged swing that hung by rusted nails in the old tree at their house.

  “P!” I barked when she only kicked up higher. I shuffled around the front of her swing, anger simmering below the surface. I glared at her. “Fucking slow down.”

  She laughed so loudly that her giggles reverberated around the small forest that surrounded us, and probably over the beach at the front. “You’re both too careful.”

  “The fuck I am!” I yelled. She knew damn well how not careful I was, but being reckless with myself was different than being reckless with her, which I would not be.

  P rolled her eyes and slowed the swing until it finally came to a stop. She took three steps forward until her little hand clasped over my clenched fist.

  “King, you can’t always be angry at the world.” For a nine-year-old, she was too smart. Smarter than my eleven.

  I brought my calloused knuckles up to her soft cheeks. “As long as you’re walking in it vulnerable, I fucking will.”

  She leaned into my hand, just as her mom came rushing out onto the porch. “King, your mom and dad want you home for dinner.”

  I left after that, and that was the final time I ever saw Persephone Hendry. It was the day I began to mourn her, only I was mourning the wrong sister. My world ended that day, my mind caving in, shutting everyone out. I’m fuckin’ reeling that she’s alive, but I know I’ve fucked up, and once she gains her memories back, I’m even more fucked, because she’s going to remember everything about us and be even more hurt by the shit I’ve put her through lately.

  P

  “I need to know what happened, Keaton,” I whisper softly. “I understand why you would lie and say that—”

  “It wasn’t a lie.” He takes a seat beside me on the sofa, handing me a glass of something brown. “I’m your half-brother, Persephone.” I wince at that name. “Sorry, would you rather I call you Dove? Just feels weird calling you that now that I know you’re not her.” I pause, tilting my head and examining his features. I don’t think we look anything alike, but then again, he looks a lot like his father. Maybe our mother was like me. What a mess. Everything I thought I knew about my heritage, my family, was all an illusion. My mother wasn’t my real mother. It made sense with her detachment from me.

  “What did she look like?” I ask, my eyes zeroing in on the lights that are illuminating near the pool outside.

  “She’s still alive.”

  My heart sinks.

  “Listen, Persephone. Shit, is it okay to call you that?”

  I shake my head, tipping my head back to take a sip. “No, it’s okay. It will take some getting used to, and I still don’t understand, but I think deep down, I always felt a disconnect to the name Dove. The name felt so—”

  “—Placid?” Keaton chuckles, running his hand over his tattooed neck.

  I snort. “Yeah, placid.”

  “I’ll tell you everything.” He slams his whole drink in one go. “What do you remember about the day you moved?”

  “I don’t remember anything about that day,” I whisper, shivering.

  “That’s because they didn’t want you to remember,” Killian murmurs from the entry.

  I stand, staring at him. “Why?”

  His eyes stay on mine, but for the first time since I’ve known Killian and been caught up in this clusterfuck of a life, Kill looks normal. There’s no ulterior motive to his words or even a hidden smirk behind the easy smile.

  Killian points to the sofa after looking over his shoulder briefly. “Sit down.”

  I do.

  Killian walks closer to me, running his hand through his dark hair. “You’ve been getting flashbacks, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, twisting my fingers together on my lap. “I mean, they’re not flashbacks. They’re more feelings and images. Like I remember feeling a certain way and a shed near an ocean. Stuff like that.”

  “Good.” Killian’s fingers come to my chin. “When you kissed King, did you get anything else?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. I remember dreaming, I think, after he left. Mainly, my flashbacks came whenever you were around.”

  Killian smirks. “I figured.”

  “You fucking knew?” King’s voice shocks me. I refuse to look at where he’s standing, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of my attention. “You knew who she was?”

  Killian’s hand stills on my chin. I keep my eyes on Killian.

  “Yes,” he answers, glaring over his shoulder. “But not right away. I saw it.”

  “Saw fucking what?” King yells, though I still don’t understand his rage. He was about ready to dish me up to his father and mother as a fucking six-course meal.

  Killian chuckles, shaking his head. “Saw it between the two of you, fucker. The fucked-up thing is that you didn’t, King. You’re that fucking detached from feeling any kind of emotion that you couldn’t even feel the reason why you switched off those feelings in the first place is standing right in front of you. In the flesh.”

  My eyes begin to water, but I swallow them down angrily, not wanting them to spill over my cheeks and expose my vulnerability. Did I feel it with King? I don’t know. I felt something, but I always brought it down to hormones and me being a girl and him being him.

  “Give them back to her. Now.” King slides down the wall, landing on his ass.

  I finally bring my eyes to his. I wish I didn’t, because I feel my heart split open in my chest and a sob leave my body. His usually somber and stoic expression is filled with turmoil and pain. Regret, maybe? “I’m sorry,” he whispers, reaching for a bottle of scotch and downing it.

  I bring my eyes to Killian, ignoring his silent apology. “Give them back to me.”

  “Well, I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll try. One thing you have to understand, Perse.” King sucks in a hiss on the other side of the room. Killian continues. “Is that along with those memories will come the pain and anguish that was taken from you. My father didn’t remove the memories from your head because that would be some sort of vampire shit. He merely hypnotized you into thinking you did not need them. He put them into a box in the corner of your brain and trained your mind to not open it. But hear this, Little Bird,” Killian’s fingers wrap around my chin, bringing my attention to him, “once this box is opened, everything could come back to you tenfold. You will know, feel, sense things that were put into that box. You may not feel like yourself after.” I want to say that I haven’t felt like myself for a long time, but that would mean I know who I am. Which I don’t.

  “I don’t care,” I whisper, swallowing past the pain. “I want it opened.”

  “Lie back,” Killian murmurs, and I do, lying on the sofa. Someone enters the room just as Killian’s fingers come to my temple.

  “Let me, son. She’ll have a better chance if I do it.”

  Killian steps backward, and Keres takes his place. We lock eyes for a second, but before I can say anything, my eyes are rolling to the back of my head, my back arching off the sofa. Images flash before my eyes.

  “King! You can’t do that! It’s cheating!” I scolded, reaching for his deck of cards.

  “Nah-uh, Little Bird. Kohen is the cheater.”

  My eyes flick, my head thrashing from left to right. Keres continues to whisper an ancient language, his tongue wrapping around the dead syllables softly.

  “Persephone, you can’t go to the beach house today. I need you to stay home.”

  My breathing deepens.

  “She can go, Klaus. Stop being so overbearing.” My mom walked toward me, kneeling in front of my face. Her long blonde hair was like a curtain, shadowing over half of her face. “You want to go to the beach ho
use, don’t you, Persephone?” I nodded, excitement shaking inside of me.

  “Can I see King?” I asked, tilting my head. My father was a Kiznitch, only not like King, Kohen, Killian, Kyrin, and Keaton’s parents, but my sister Dove and I weren’t allowed around them sometimes. The Brothers of Kiznitch were originally from a small town called Kiznitch in Romania. Essentially, my father was a civilian, so I didn’t actually know how he became involved in this world. But the Kiznitch brothers were all part of a founding family. The Axton family, Cicero, Nero, Cornelii, Kournikova—all founding families who created Kiznitch. Back in the 1600s, a show called Midnight Mayhem was created by the Patrovas to entertain the people of Kiznitch. Well, that’s what Daddy told me, but King told me the shows covered up all kinds of evil. The Kiznitch families were all branded as babies and now wear their patch with pride in the art of a tattoo. Cartier was getting hers soon, and she’s two years younger than Dove and me. She’s just lucky she had Kyrin as a brother. He always protected her, and Kyrin didn’t care about anyone, but we all knew she had a big crush on Keaton. Kyrin once tried to drown me when I was four years old. That was the first time King broke his nose.

  My mom clipped my chin with the tip of her finger, edging my attention back to her. “Yes. King and Kohen will both be there.”

  “Yay!” Dove said, running down the staircase. “I didn’t see Kohen last night.” I rolled my eyes, not because I didn’t understand her and Kohen’s bond, because, of course, I did. If anything, King’s and mine was stronger. We shared a crib together as babies, shared everything together. But the older King got, the more I witnessed him shift. As time passed, he was turning more into his father. I figured, as long as he had me, he would always keep the part of himself that I loved open.

  Something was off with Mom today, though. She never wanted us to see Kohen and King. In fact, she despised the entire family of Kiznitch, even the branched-off families. I’d hear whispers and people called Mom a witch. An evil witch. I could see where they were coming from, but in all of my nine years, she was still my mom. She would say that it was because she was an outsider, and they didn’t allow outsiders into the cult. She called it a cult too, but Daddy said it was more like a family.