by J Bree
She doesn't make any move to dry herself and that tells me just how fucking bad her head must be feeling. She's not one to wait around for me to do shit for her, she always cooks and cleans and paints and fucking dances around without ever impeding on me.
So I scrub a little harder and faster, eager to get her laying down as quickly as possible. When I turn to wash out the last of the blood from my hair I find her watching me, her eyes still with that glazed look but her bottom lip is between her teeth like I'm a fucking sight for those sore eyes of hers.
My dick just about bursts.
"Baby girl, you're way too fucking sore to be giving me those eyes... I wanna fucking eat you up when you do."
The smile she gives back to me has me growing ten fucking feet taller. She's just been through another fucking round of hell and yet she's all soft and looking at me like I hung the moon for her. I mean, I did. I hung all the fucking stars in the sky for this girl and I'd do it all over again just for her to keep smiling at me like that.
“I didn’t know you had a piercing. Mon Monstre, I want to touch you so badly.”
She bites her lip and then winces again, clutching at her head and moaning lowly. Her towel slips down and her skin is so fucking pale I’m getting twitchy. “My head is all… wrong. Sore and pounding, I feel sick.”
I dive out of the shower, not bothering with a towel, and grab the small trash can for her to vomit in. I don’t care about my floors at all but I know she’d get upset about the mess.
Time to call Doc.
Time to let him know that we’re going to be his top priority for the night, no matter who else calls on him because I’m going to start fucking carving people up if my girl needs me to.
She’s shaking and miserable when she finally stops, so I get her dry and dressed and back in our bed. Once she’s tucked up I dry off and make the call.
“I have appointments tonight.”
I grit my teeth. “The only appointment you need to worry about is the one I’m making right now. Name your price, my girl needs you right the fuck now.”
He clucks down the line at me as if he’s telling on a disobedient child and not the Butcher of the motherfucking Bay.
“It’s not about money, Mr. Illium. It’s about priority. Is she bleeding out? Does she have chest pain?”
I’ll kill the asshole. “Yes to both. She’s leaking everywhere, come now.”
He huffs and then finally says, “I’ll be there soon. Keep her awake, concussions are difficult to manage.”
I hang up and go to make her something to eat just so I have something to fucking do with my hands. Harbin sends me a text, a photo of the pile of rubble that was once Lord Devareux’s mansion.
Good fucking riddance.
I flick through the rest of my messages while Odie’s soup heats up. There’s a whole pile of shit from various members of the Unseen about the Jackal’s missing drugs. No one is happy the Chaos Demons have them but like I give a fuck about their opinions.
When I make it back to our bedroom, Odie is still laying where I left her and there’s a little frown over her brow that has me confident she hasn’t fallen asleep on me.
Thank fucking God.
“Here, baby girl. Have some food and water until the doc gets here to look you over.”
She mumbles softly in French again and, fuck do I need to get around to learning the language.
What if she’s saying something fucking important and I’m sitting here with my thumb up my ass doing nothing about it?
Fuck.
I need the fucking doc.
Chapter Eight
Odie
The doctor doesn’t look happy to see me at all and I don’t think it has anything to do with me having a head injury and everything to do with the scowling man sitting beside my bed.
“She will be fine. She needs rest, no TV or screens for a few weeks, and plenty of sleep. This is not life threatening, Butcher. I have men bleeding out thanks to this little courtesy call.”
That sounds serious but when I look over at mon Monstre he shrugs as if it’s nothing. “Odie comes first. Fuck everyone else, they know what the fuck they’re doing and if they get stabbed because they’re soft then fuck them. You want cash or are you sending me a bill?”
The doctor huffs as he packs his bag. “You are not funny. Cash always.”
When he moves towards the door I call out, wincing, “Merci, doctor. Am I able to sleep now?”
He turns back and gives me the same kind smile he’d given me when he’d checked me after my assault. He’s always so surly and grumpy to mon Monstre but warm and gentle with me.
“You can sleep. You need to get as much rest as you can, it will help your brain to heal faster. If you have any more symptoms you call me and make an appointment. I will come back here and do some tests but for now, you’re okay.”
I nod again and rest back into the pillows a little more, smiling when I feel mon Monstre brushing my hair back and stroking at my skin like he can’t stop touching me.
I feel the same way about his hands on me.
I need more, I need the warmth of his skin and the branding obsession of his touch.
He presses a kiss against my lips and then murmurs, “Rest up, baby girl. I’m not leaving you while you’re hurt.”
And then I remember nothing for twelve hours.
I wake up with the hard lines of his body pressed against mine, his arms firm but gentle as they cradle me into his body. He feels like safety, like home and all of the other things I had no reference for before he gave them to me.
The room is pitch black so I know it’s day time and the shutters over the windows are closed. I don’t want to move but my bladder is so over full that I have no choice.
I brush my teeth again in the bathroom because my mouth tastes like death, and when I walk quietly back to bed I find the lamp on and Illi sitting up, rubbing at his face like he can wipe away the sleep if only he rubs hard enough.
“You okay, baby girl? Does something hurt?”
My thighs clench together at the rough sound of his voice, the flexing of his arms like a spell luring me into his trap. Our life here is going to be perfect, just the moment we no longer have to worry about people trying to kill us both and destroying the perfect home we’ve built together.
Which reminds me, I can say something now my head isn’t quite so sore.
"I don't want to move. This place is my home.“
His hand drops away from his face and he frowns at me. “That’s what’s keeping you up? Baby girl, you need rest.”
I don’t want to rest anymore, my entire body feels as though it’s full of electricity. I’m jittering and wired, too awake now to be able to go back to sleep. I feel a little bit guilty because mon Monstre looks exhausted.
I don’t want to keep him awake but he motions for me to join him and I move instinctively, climbing back into the bed and moving until I’m curled back up into his chest.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head and murmurs into my hair, “I need you out of the Bay and away from all the fucking evil here. There's some mansions further up on the coast, big fucking things full of light and rooms for painting and security. I'll buy one and we can live there without anyone knowing where we are. I don't want D'Ardo showing up."
He sounds so final but I don't want to leave the only place that's ever felt like home to me. I don't want to leave the window with my sunrise, the kitchen where my bread proves so perfectly, or the gym where le Loup taught me how to take care of myself.
I don't want to lose my home. "Le Loup got extra security for us here, yes? You said there were more alarms and better systems, I feel safe here."
His jaw tenses. "No. I'm not losing you again over a house. We can make a new home somewhere else."
I shake my head and tears fill my eyes. “I don’t want to move, mon Monstre. I’ve never been able to have a home before. My father would move my mother and I all the time and so I never fe
lt… settled or safe. This has been my first real home and I’m not ready to leave here yet.”
His chest rumbles under my ear but it’s not a particularly happy sound. “If we stay, I’m adding more security and we need to work on more defense shit for you. I need to know that if anyone tries to fuck with you that you know how to kill them. You did a good job on the last guy and I’m proud as fuck of you, but we need more options for you.”
I giggle softly. “Will you teach me? Le Loup was an excellent teacher but I’d like to know what you do too. She’s all about subtlety and using people's strengths against them… I know you work differently than that.”
He scoffs at me. “Yeah, a little different. The kid is fucking good at what she does, I’d only have the best teaching you. I’m not sure you want to know about the mechanics of carving a man to pieces.”
I turn over in his arms a little more until I’m laying over his chest more securely. My thigh brushes against his hard dick and he grunts at me, a rumbling sound of appreciation and lust.
“I think you’re underestimating me, mon Monstre. There is nothing I want more than to have that knowledge. How else will I carve their hearts out of their chests?”
He chuckles under his breath, cupping my chin gently and lifting my face up until he can capture my lips with his own. “I’m bringing you their hearts, baby girl. That’s my job as your man and just as soon as your head is healed up I’ll be working night and day to bring them to you. Nothing else matters to me right now. Just you and the hearts of the men that hurt you.”
I lean down and kiss him back, my tongue slipping into his mouth and tasting the words of adulation there. He means every word he’s saying, I can taste the truth.
“Where will we keep them when we’re done? Where would we keep such a thing without frightening our guests?”
Illi’s legs part as he pulls me further into his chest so I’m lying completely over him and resting between them. “Our only guests will be people who know the score. You think the kid is going to be worried about some hearts? I’m pretty sure she eats them for breakfast.”
I scoff at him and push at his chest. “Maybe I’ll start eating them for breakfast too. Maybe that’s where she gets her strength from. Speaking of breakfast, I think I’ll go make us some, mon Monstre.”
The easy and open look on his face disappears in an instant, replaced by a frown and a stern voice as he says, “You’re not getting a fucking thing, baby girl. You’re not leaving this goddamn bed.”
I sigh and roll away from him as he shifts to get up. “I’m feeling much better, mon Monstre, and making breakfast isn’t difficult.”
He nods and hikes up his pants as he straightens up. “I know it’s not, that’s why I can handle it. You’re not doing shit until the doc clears you so keep that perfect fucking ass of yours where it is. Let me take good care of you.”
I giggle at him and call out, “How is that any different to what I usually do? Mon Monstre, I’ll go insane if you force me to stay in here.”
He laughs, a sounds I want to hear so much more often, and says, “Baby girl, if you’re here in my bed, in love and of your own free will, you’re already fucking insane and fuck am I glad about it.”
When I finally convince Illi to let me out of the bed and back into the rest of the house he only lets me so far as the couch. It’s frustrating because I want to get back into our usual rhythm, back to the life that was healing and loving and everything I’ve ever needed, but he won’t budge. When I make murmurings of baking some bread, because store bought is never as good as fresh bread straight from the oven and still hot, he has Harbin drop some off to us, straight from the bakery on the edges of downtown.
It’s so damn good I can’t find it in myself to argue.
Mon Monstre doesn’t go out for work, just as he promised. The furthest he goes is downstairs to the gym to workout and let off some steam. I can tell he’s frustrated and ready to hunt down his old friend, but his worry for me wins over.
It’s sweet.
Until it’s not.
“I can paint, mon Monstre. The doctor didn’t say anything about me staying away from canvases and oil paints.” The tone of my voice is colored with my own frustration but he doesn’t move an inch from where he’s standing over me in the living area. I haven’t gotten out my paints yet but there’s a canvas in front of me and I’m using a pencil to stencil on the outline of something… new. Cathartic. Terrifying to put into words but to bleed it out in oils right now, that is something I must do.
“He said to rest. This isn’t resting, it’s working for hours all night and forgetting to eat and drink some fucking water. No. Go back to bed before I tan your ass, baby girl.”
My spine snaps straight. Tan my ass? As in a spanking?
Why does that sound so good?
A slow and lecherous smirk stretches across his lips, and he drawls out, all honeyed seduction but with the undercurrent of whiskey because he’s a real man, “Baby girl, you don’t have to risk that perfect head of yours to get a spanking. I’ll put you over my knee any day of the fucking week if you’re a good girl. I might even let you suck me off too.”
I gulp. Not in terror but because I so desperately want that. The branding heat of his palm, the weight of his cock in my mouth, I want that right now.
My healing time is over. The blood I spilled and the lives I took for daring to touch me, all of them were a trial by fire. I walked through the flames and came out stronger.
I’ve never felt more powerful, more in control, more desperate for a man to own every fiber of my being because I own him just as wholly.
He bites his lip and I nearly slide off the couch right then to beg him.
Beg him to give me everything I’ve ever wanted and needed.
The alarm starts to sound through the apartment, shrill and earsplitting, and I clutch at my head as the deafening sound makes my brain scream.
“Fuck. Get into the bedroom, baby girl. Grab your gun and wait for me to tell you everything is clear.”
I nod, my palms pressing into my temples to try to lessen the pressure of the pounding there as I follow his instructions. By the time I have the door shut behind me he’s got the alarm shut off and I wait to hear the sounds of a fight.
There’s nothing.
No gunshots, no sounds of a fight, nothing.
I crouch on the ground on the other side of the bed where I’ll be harder to spot if someone actually makes it past Illi and in here, my gun in my hand and aimed at the door, ready to fire the second I need to.
My arms quiver a little, not because I’m scared but because the alarm has made my headache return. My stomach roils at the pain, bile creeping up the back of my throat but I swallow it back down as best as I can. It only takes a few minutes before I hear Illi call out.
“Everything is fine, baby girl. It’s just Roxas’s bitch ass needing some fucking stitches.”
I blink then lower the gun, scrambling to the bathroom to vomit. I brush my teeth afterwards, wincing at the sight of my reflection. I look like a mess, sweaty and pale, and I find some of the little pills Illi had given to me earlier on in my recovery.
When I finally emerge from our bedroom for a second I think I was mistaken and mon Monstre hadn’t called out to me, because there is blood everywhere.
The apartment door is flung open and a trail of blood leads over to the table where Roxas sits with a large bottle of whiskey in his hand as Illi crouches over him.
I slink slowly into the room, careful to step over the thick pools of deep red, and come up to watch as Illi does indeed stitch his friend’s wounds back together.
I had no idea he knew how to do these things.
“Can you pass me the iodine, baby girl? He’s going to get a fucking infection and lose his arm without it.”
Roxas chuckles under his breath, and when I step closer I see the huge flap of skin and flesh that’s been sliced open and very nearly off of his arm.
&nbs
p; It doesn’t scare me at all.
In fact, I can’t keep my eyes away from the sight of the neat little black stitches that are slowly lining up as Illi works on the patch up. Roxas doesn’t wince or make a sound, he just sits there drinking his whiskey and telling the story of what happened tonight to get him these wounds.
“Motherfucking Demons. We’ve got spies everywhere, man. Fuck knows who they are but there’s gotta be some on the Council. None of the lower members knew about tonight's pick up. We were real fucking careful about it too, after the last one. So I’m standing there, my dick in my fucking hand, waiting for the pick up and out of nowhere there’s scum Chaos Demons coming at us and I’m caught out.”
Illi grunts under his breath. “Where the fuck was Harbin? I didn’t know you guys did jobs without each other.”
Roxas sighs and stares up at the ceiling. “Problems with his baby mama. Her new man is a dealer and now she’s a tweaker.”
Oh.
He has kids?
Mon Monstre looks just as shocked as I feel but he doesn’t look away from his work. “Since when has he had a kid?”
Roxas huffs. “She was a stripper we both fucked. She stuck pins in the condoms and it was a gamble which one of us ended up tied to the cunt. Harbin lost and now he has twin boys. I keep telling him to take them and keep them at the club but he doesn’t want his kids growing up without a mom. That shit fucks you up but now she’s found some other way to fuck the kids up anyway.”
That sounds terrible and an awful lot like le Loup’s upbringing. I know mon Monstre is thinking the same thing at the tightness of his jaw. He doesn’t care enough about other people for his anger to be about the woman. No, it’ll be the thought of the little le Loup, the one who desperately needed a mother and yet she had a woman too addicted to function.
Roxas swallows another big gulp of the whiskey and continues, “The boys are nearly eleven, too old not to know what the fuck is going on with her. Time to get them the fuck out and deal with that fucking cunt.”
