by Olivia Ryann
A final thrust and my world shatters into a million pieces again. The knot that has been building inside me releases.
He nips at my bottom lip, then his eyes roll back, his muscular shoulders flexing, his thighs shaking as he fills me to the brim. I feel his orgasm pour into my core, his cock twitching deep inside of me.
And it is the most exquisite thing.
For long minutes afterward, I lie there, clinging to his sweat-dampened body. I swear I can feel his heart racing in time with my own as we both suck in long, deep breaths. After a while, he shifts his weight off of me, pulling me close as he stretches out on the bed.
I raise my hand to push my hair back from my forehead and catch him looking at me. Not sexually, not angrily. Not with that expression of distance he used to get right before he got up to leave me alone for the rest of the night.
This time he looks at me… fondly. With an expression of tenderness.
“Do you know how fucking much I love you?” he says, his voice hoarse.
My cheeks turn pink. “Monster—”
“Arsen,” he corrects me gently. His lips twitch. “You realize that you’ll have to stop calling me Monster in public? Now that you’re carrying my child, we wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea about us.”
I laugh. “It would be unseemly.”
He pauses, obviously trying to decide how to say something. “How do you feel about… you know…”
I raise an eyebrow. “About being pregnant?”
“Yes. About that.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I was so worried about what you would think, how mad you would be…” He flinches at my words, and I put a staying hand on his arm. “It is what it is. I really haven’t had time to think about it. I mean… I’m young…” I pause, biting my lip. “But I’m also in love with you. And I know that I’m carrying your baby. That part, I’m definitely okay with.”
He nods quietly. “Can you imagine, a baby that is half mine and half yours?”
I smile. “It’ll be so damn gorgeous. That baby will be breaking hearts before it’s out of middle school.”
“Actually… you didn’t go to middle school, did you?”
I shake my head. “Nope. After my mother passed away, I was homeschooled. For whatever that is worth, I guess.”
“I didn’t go to school, either. My brothers and I were too busy trying to keep ourselves off the streets.”
I put my head down, all but pressing my face into his chest. “This baby will know privilege, then. It’s already going to be better off than either of us, isn’t it?”
When he responds, his voice rumbles up from his chest. “Yes. It will be taken care of.”
“And loved,” I whisper, my eyes growing heavy.
“Definitely that.” He throws his arm over my body, and I drift off to sleep.
19
Arsen
I climb the stairs of the little balcony that Dryas has picked as our meeting place. Each step is heavy, each footfall one closer to the moment when I tell my brothers what I have planned.
I know that my brothers will be angry at my announcement. I know I was meant to do better. Meant to be better at taking over New Orleans. After all, it is what I’ve single-mindedly worked toward for two years.
But then I picture Fiore’s delicate frame, her face smiling, and I just can’t take the chance. Because the ruler of New Orleans needs to be cruel and hard… and most importantly, he can’t have anything worth losing.
If my enemies knew aanything about Fiore, or if they figured out that she’s pregnant… she would be snatched off the street so fast, it’s not even funny. I’d give up anything to get her back, even though anyone smart would make sure I never saw her again.
I just know that I can’t live like that, wondering if Fiore is okay, wondering when she’ll be taken from me. I won’t.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I see with some surprise that Dryas is waiting, drink in his hand. He turns, his lips lifting as he sees me. He lifts his glass to me.
“Brother,” he says, greeting me simply.
I glance around the balcony, which has a few tables. I stroll onto the floor, but inside I am a tangle of knots. It’s not like me to be nervous about things like this. “Where is Damen?”
He shrugs his suit-clad shoulders. “Does it matter? We both know that we are the brains of the operation, while Damen is the terrifying hound we keep chained up until we need him.”
I sigh, looking around for a waiter. I would like a drink, too. To calm my fucking nerves. Honestly, Dryas isn’t wrong about Damen, but I had hoped to have him here to take my side. After all, it was Damen that got all mystical and encouraged me to find my High Priestess, whatever the fuck that means.
The waiter comes up the same set of stairs.
“Thank God,” I say. “A Vieux Carré for me.”
Dryas wanders over to the edge of the balcony, looking down as he takes a drink from the glass in his hand. “Do you know that they grease the poles under the balconies here during Mardi Gras? It’s supposed to be to keep the hoi polloi from drunkenly climbing up the poles and looting in the hotels. Of course, being New Orleans, it turns into a circus. They have a party and drink more to celebrate the greasing of the poles.”
I take a seat underneath a bright red patio umbrella. I’m not sure what Dryas is even talking about. “You don’t say.”
He turns to me with a humorless smile. “There are tons of those odd traditions here, in a city that is as old as this one. Did you know that New Orleans is almost three hundred years old?”
I look at my watch. Is Damen not coming or is he just late? Dryas didn’t say either way. “Is there a reason you are so full of trivia right now, Dryas?”
He sits down across the table from me. “What else are we supposed to do to pass the time? Not all of us can devote months of our lives to training a whore to do everything we like, can we now? It would be insane.”
Ah, there it is. Dryas is obsessing about Fiore, making her the centerpiece of his troubles. In truth, it is me that is failing him, or maybe his own ambitions. Either way, blaming her will not help him, and I think part of him knows it.
The waiter returns just as I am considering my brother through slitted eyes. He sets my drink down and scurries down the stairs once more.
“You’ve been stalking her,” I say idly, picking up my drink. I take a sip, feel the burn traveling down my throat.
He smirks. “Can you really stalk a slave? Stalking is to strike fear into someone by following them. And slaves don’t have feelings, from what I have heard.”
I actually growl at that. “Stop calling her a slave.”
“What?” he taunts. “She’s so much more than that? You’ve given her your heart?”
He laughs at that, the timbre of his voice deep and haunting.
I set my glass down, my mood turning black. “And what would you know about it? I seem to remember that the only girl you ever loved died horribly. She burned to death, didn’t she?”
Dryas lurches to his feet, swearing. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
“I’d like to see you try.” I stand up, a reminder that we can go toe to toe. We are perfectly matched, except for one thing…
I have something to fight for. A face to keep in the back of my mind.
Dryas doesn’t.
“Will you two calm the fuck down?” I turn to see Damen at the top of the stairs, looking at the two of us like we’re insane. “Don’t you think that our rivals want the two of you at each other's throats like this?”
Dryas folds his arms across his chest. “You’re one to talk. Last I heard, you had run off with some girl too. Where is she, waiting for you in the car like a gun moll?”
Damen levels a look at Dryas. “Why are you suddenly so bitter?”
“Ask Arsen. Arsen, why am I so bitter? Why now? Could it be that I don’t want to lose hold of a city we’ve worked for years to take hold of?”
Damen and Dryas
both stare at me. In the pit of my stomach, acid burns. “Fiore’s pregnant. I can’t risk her life and the baby’s life, not after what happened to Anna. Would you want to look forward to the day when you open a box and find Bianka’s head, Damen?”
Damen pales a little. “No, of course not.”
Dryas makes a strangled noise. “I’m surrounded by the worst kind of fools. Men in love will do anything that will turn their beloved’s head.”
I growl again. “I’m not trying to turn Fiore’s head, I’m trying to keep it attached to her body. And close to me, I suppose.”
“Wait, wait. So, you’ve made your announcement?” Damen interrupts me.
I cross my arms. “No. Dryas is jumping the gun, as usual.”
Dryas sneers at me, which makes my lips turn up.
“Go ahead, then. Make your announcement,” he grits out.
Looking back and forth between my two brothers, I sigh. “I plan to step down as the public face of the Cypriot faction in the takeover of New Orleans. It’s really not a choice; I have to. I have a couple of plans ready to drop into place.”
“Really?” Damen asks, looking intrigued.
“Fucking asshole,” Dyas spits out. “It looks like he’s chained to that good pussy he’s been getting. What do Americans say, pussy whipped?”
I grimace. “You’re just angry because she turned down your proposals. Did you know that, Damen? He tried to buy Fiore’s attentions and he was rejected.”
“I’m not trying to get revenge. I’m trying to keep what we’ve worked toward for so long!” Dryas roars.
“Calm the fuck down,” Damen says. “And stop intentionally making him angry, Arsen. For the love of God, it’s not good when I’m the most sane one of the three of us.”
Dryas and I quiet down, glaring at each other. Damen points at me, his brow furrowed. “You said you have backup plans. What are they?”
I suck in a breath and force myself to even out before responding. “There are options. One of you can take the reins, which would be preferable. At least until this period of bloodshed is over. Or, we can set a puppet as figurehead here, someone malleable. We have plenty of underlings to choose from.”
Dryas looks contemptuous. “One of us can step in and take care of things during the hard parts, you mean.”
I look at Damen. “I would suggest you because you’re not visibly insane.”
Damen ignores me. “A puppet would be tolerable, but we have no guarantee that he will hand the business back to us when we’re ready. I don’t know if I’m willing to risk that.”
“Why would we hand the business off to someone else?” Dryas raves. “That would be suicide. We might as well just vacate the city! Why the fuck have we done any of this, huh? Was it to make it this far, only to give up because one of us wants to start a family?”
I grit my teeth. “We never discussed what we would do in this scenario. I never imagined it. Honestly, it is just as surprising to me as it is to anyone else involved.”
Dryas leans in. “Maybe I should solve the problem myself. Fiore is clouding your judgment. She has been, ever since the first time I laid eyes on you two together. It would be better if I just made her disappear.”
For a second, I say nothing. I can only hear the blood rushing in my head. Everything is tinged red, just like the first time I killed someone out of anger. I take one breath, then another.
Dryas just threatened Fiore. Not just that, he just threatened the family I can barely claim to have. He talks about Fiore like she isn’t the only bright star in the deep black sky of my anger and hatred and rage.
“Arsen,” I hear Damen say, coming over to put his hand on my shoulder.
For some reason, that touch is the trigger. And I am the bullet, shooting my whole body out across the table toward Dryas. The table starts to tip as Dryas comes back at me, bucking.
“What?” he snarls. “I said it. I should kill your girl, hands down. She’s in the way of plans we’ve worked to complete for years.”
I grab the edge of the table and turn it over to the side, where it crashes against the building. Both of our glasses fall to the ground, smashed beyond reckoning. “You fucking coward. I can’t believe you would be so stupid. If New Orleans is so important, then you stay and defend it.”
He circles, forcing me to move. Soon we are both circling each other, our fists in the air, ready to attack.
“You think I don’t want to?” he grunts. “I have other things to do than to clean up your messes, little boy.”
“What, like go after Father Derrick some more? When will you get it through your head that the girl you loved is gone?” I let out a bewildered laugh, shaking my head. “The Brotherhood, or whatever the fuck they’re calling themselves these days… they found out about you two, and…”
I draw a finger across my neck, making a cutting sound.
“Arsen,” Damen warns.
Dryas scoops up one of the pieces of broken glass on the floor, his face contorting with rage. He launches himself at me with a primal scream, knocking Damen to the side.
I’m ready for him, grabbing his hands as we both topple over to the ground. Dryas is wild-eyed, his breathing erratic. He lands on top of me, trying to stab me with the shard of broken glass. I grab his hands, closing them a little.
The glass cuts into his hand, but he doesn’t even wince. Blood pours from his hand onto my chest and face. I can taste his blood in my mouth as I grimace and try harder to close his hand around the shard, to force his hand away from my body.
Damen groans angrily and tries to tackle Dryas off of me. In the moment of confusion, I let Dryas go. That’s all the time Dryas needs to turn the glass shard outward and plunge it into my ribs.
I open my mouth as a bright blossom of pain sprouts up on my side. Looking down at my wound, I see Dryas is grinding the shard against his own sticky red fingers, driving it as deep as it will go.
“This is what I will do to your girl,” he whispers brusquely, flecks of spit flying out of his mouth to hit my face. “Then you’ll wish you’d thought twice when you had the chance to save Aurelia. You will pay for that, brother.”
“Dryas, what the fuck?” Damen yells, prying Dryas off of me.
I look down again and see blood pumping from my wound. The fucker didn’t just stab me, he must have hit an artery too.
Dryas just stands up, limping a little, and grins. “You’re going to die, right here, right now. Then we’ll see who the best of the three of us really is.”
“Get the fuck out of here!” Damen cries, falling to his knees beside me. “Oh shit. He got you bad, Arsen…”
“Fuck. You.” I manage to heave out the words as I fall onto my back.
As I lie there, pumping blood onto the ground, I grab for Damen.
“Fiore… you have to…” I suck in a breath, wheezing. “You have to take care of…”
And then everything is black.
20
Fiore
No.
It can’t be true.
Monster… Arsen… he can’t be dead.
When Jack tells me, my mouth flies open, the steaming mug of tea falling to the floor and shattering all around me like so much noise. One hand flies to my abdomen, unconsciously protecting the faint flicker of life within.
“Ma’am?” Jack says. “Ma’am, should we go to the hospital?”
He’s looking at me for instructions. I clutch the counter to keep myself from falling. “What… what did the doctor say?”
He gives his head a little shake. “I don’t know, ma’am. It was Damen that called, saying he was on his way to Tulane Hospital. He only had a second to use the phone.”
“And… he didn’t say what happened to Arsen?” I ask, my chin wobbling.
“No, ma’am. He just said to come as fast as you can.” His brow wrinkles with concern.
The only thing is, I’m not even a hundred percent sure that this isn’t some kind of setup. If someone was trying to g
et me to leave my house and rush somewhere, this would be the way to do it.
“Hold on,” I say, holding a finger up. “Let me try his cell.”
I call Monster’s cell number, my heart pounding. I grab my cell phone from where I left it on the bed, pressing it close to my ear. Each ring seems to take forever. Finally, his voicemail picks up, something that hasn’t happened the whole time that we’ve been together.
My whole face collapses. I try to stave off tears as I look around. “Fuck! Let me get my coat. We’ll go right now.”
As I pull my coat from the coat rack beside the front door, I can’t stop picturing Monster — Arsen, I correct myself — dying. For some reason, I imagine Arsen in the place of my mother, dead in that little bed in that god-awful dark basement.
I repress a sob. It seems like an eternity for the elevator to come up. Shuffling inside with all three of the guards assigned to me, I’m certain that we’re in some kind of Kafka-esque nightmare, the clock in my head counting down the seconds until…
What? They pronounce him dead?
I place my hand against my stomach as the guards drive me over to the hospital. Every red light is a torment, every bit of traffic sheer torture. I’m on high alert as we head to the hospital, expecting something to happen at any moment.
An explosion that rocks the car.
Gunfire that riddles us with bullets.
A freaking surface-to-air missile, for God’s sake.
Anything that would mean I was wrong, that someone wanted to lure me out of the apartment, that Arsen is safe. I would trade myself for him, at this moment. But I don’t know about our baby…
I am going to have to get used to thinking that whatever happens to me, happens to the baby too.
But nothing impedes our progress as we hurry to Tulane Hospital. I grip my comfortable grey sweatpants, realizing only then that I’m sort of half-dressed. Sweatpants, pink crop top, and a huge mint green winter coat over all that.
Well, I definitely look like I left in a hurry. When we pull up to the Tulane ER, Jack and I get out, sprinting inside the cool, white-tiled waiting room. I run right up to the reception desk, a little out of breath when I talk to a young male nurse.
