Blade daps his brothers. “I was shocked as shit when I didn't see my scars in the bathroom mirror. A good shocked, but still. I never thought I’d see my body without them again.” ‘Thanks, sweetness.’
Dagger nods. “Me either. I knew we’d change, but I never really believed they’d go.”
“Same,” Axe agrees. “We could pass as human again.”
“That’s true.” Unlike Myers and the rest of those morons – including Gia. They must be desperate to get rid of those. I yawn as I take another look at the brothers’ bodies. “I’m not missing your scars like I thought I would. If anything, your bodies are hurting various parts of me right now.”
They like that comment, and I hear the three of them tame their dicks.
Hell, I feel like I need to tame my pussy.
Blade eyes the pot on the side, so I stand to make him a bowl, but he appears in front of me to lift me straight back onto my stool. “Stay your sexy ass there.” He rubs my bump and I see his eyes light up. “I’m naming him Zaire.”
I stroke his hard stomach. “Whatever you want.”
His brothers congratulate him, but I also hear their thoughts turn to teasing Thorn again.
“Congrats to you, too, bro,” Blade says to Axe. “You always were a greedy fucker, though.”
Axe shrugs and throws a wink my way. “It’s my reward for all I do for our queen.”
Dagger scoffs. “Fuck off, ‘cause if that’s the case, I should be getting triplets.”
I stifle another yawn as I turn on my stool. “Now, now, don’t start fighting already,” I say, but I love it really. I’ve missed the hell out of their petty arguments.
Blade grabs his breakfast and sits down opposite me, but he turns his head when our eldest kids run out into the hall.
I guess the next brother’s about to make his appearance.
This time, I brace myself before the shudder hits me, but the rest of the brothers groan when the next piece of our puzzle slots into place.
Pin.
Within seconds, he's standing at the doorway, Jaden and Theo in his arms, Raeni on his shoulders, and he’s smiling devilishly over at me. His dimples are on show and I shiver, but then I admire the way I can see more beauty marks speckling his gorgeous body where his scars used to be.
God, help me…
He looks hot.
“I didn't believe it,” he says, setting all the kids down. He's referring to the babies inside me. He goes to see the kids in the living room before quickly returning to ask his brothers how they feel.
Then he comes to kiss me to near death.
I’m left in a haze of arousal when he steps back. “Can you not do that again until the kids are asleep?”
His dimples deepen. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.” He rests a hand on my belly before rolling his eyes. “We’ll never hear the end of this. He’s gonna be hogging the hell out of you for the next three weeks.”
“Should’ve tried harder then, bro.”
Pin narrows his eyes at Axe. “Well, I suppose you deserve it. I mean, I thought you were firing blanks for a while there.”
Dagger sniggers. They’re teasing him over only having Prince up till now, when the rest of them have planted their seeds twice already.
Axe pushes his empty bowl away. “Yeah, man, keep laughing. See if you keep that same energy when Mikka’s waking in the night, begging me to satisfy her, and not you.”
I blink at hearing the twang of patois in that sentence, and when his eyes find mine, I let him know I approve.
A lot.
‘Anything for you, babe.’
Four
Mikka
Pin grabs his breakfast while Axe and Dagger bring the rest of the kids into the kitchen to sit at the island with us. Pin and Thorn extended the entire kitchen last month, fitting a bigger island, too, so we could all eat together. It was something their parents always insisted on, and so did mine.
The kids are seriously excited, babbling and chatting away, both verbally and mentally with their dads. Jaden is currently telling Pin all about a new game he’s playing, where he gets to build his own town, Raeni is discussing dolls with Axe, who is quite engrossed, and Theo is currently being tickled by Blade on his lap, while showing him that he can now use his mind to tickle back.
My heart warms when I feel how much he’s been looking forward to his tickle fights with his dad again. The rest of the kids might not be so verbal, but they’re just as happy, and so are the three inside me. This has been a long time coming, for us to all be the same like this.
Just one more to go...
Thorn is atrociously bad at rock, paper, scissors by the way, and he was nothing less than pissed to be last. He took his anger out on my body before I bit him—he even bit me—and I swear I could feel his teeth in my shoulder for a few days after.
When he came.
He was frustrated over a number of things, though, not just at losing abysmally. His mind used to be the strongest of all the brothers’, but since they all decided to work on their own minds, they've been very evenly matched, and I know it annoys him that he doesn’t have many advantages anymore.
But as much as he hates it, it’s a good thing. Especially because they’ll all have a lot of work to do again. They need to learn how to mask their emotions from the kids so they don’t feel things from us that they shouldn’t. And most of all, they need to learn all the new skills they have use of.
“Is it just me,” Blade says after throwing a handful of Haribo into his mouth, “or is anyone else feeling anxious about Thorn waking up?”
I nod with his brothers, ignoring the fact he’s feeding the kids sweets like that before our agreed rule of ‘no sweets before twelve’.
“Yeah,” Axe says. “I’m not liking this feeling of being incomplete again.”
“Same.” Dagger turns his head away from Amber to face me. “How long was it between him and Pin?”
I yawn again. “It shouldn’t be too much longer.” I hope.
He gets up to make me a coffee. “You should sleep when he’s up, Princess.”
“I will. Raeni, Jaden, and Theo have been amazing, though.” I give them a wink. “They've really helped.”
“We made mummy the best,” Jaden says out of nowhere.
Oh, God…
“Huh?” Pin asks, trying to make sense of his son’s memory. “What happened?”
“I—”
Every single one of us gasp from the sudden surge in our strength; the kids included. Shit. But a contented feeling of peace soon follows, and I immediately feel not only my abilities reach an entirely new level, but everyone’s. I can feel all our limits.
“Now we’re all the same,” Raeni says triumphantly. “Thank goodness.” She jumps down off her stool, quickly followed by her eldest two brothers who are equally excited.
This is what she’s been waiting for. So many times she asked me why her daddies were different to us, and dare I say it, times I felt her unknowingly encouraging me to bite them. I know I should’ve done it sooner, even for their sakes, but at least now it is done.
“Angel,” we hear him say as he makes his way down the stairs.
“Daddy!” Raeni screams when Thorn grabs her on the bottom step. He makes it just inside the doorway to the kitchen by the time Theo and Jaden reach him, and they scream for him, too.
My heart flutters like crazy when he drops to his knees to pull them into his arms. There’s no doubt the kids have weakened his barriers, and we’ve seen a completely new side to him that we all approve of.
He snuggles his head into their shoulders and inhales deeply, re-connecting himself to them, just as his brothers did when they woke.
“We missed you,” Theo tells him. “You daddies slept aaaages.”
I hear him sigh. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I played with my trucks on your face,” Jaden confesses randomly, making us all laugh.
I remember catching him, too. T
hey spent a lot of time with them when they slept, that’s why I had to dress them fully in the end.
“Did you now?” Thorn asks, pulling back to smile at him.
“Yeah, and Raeni let you sleep with her doll so you wouldn't be on your own.”
He chuckles. “Thank you, Angel.”
“You’re welcome, Daddy.”
He rests a kiss on each of their foreheads before looking up to meet each of his brothers’ gazes, and finally, mine.
His look tells me everything.
I can already feel his attempts to slip deeper into my mind, and then his hands on my body all the way from over there, causes a moan to catch in my throat.
Using his new abilities already...
He stands to bring the kids back to the island, then proceeds to dap his brothers and kiss the rest of our kids before standing behind me. I turn to face him, but my attention gets stuck waist-high, because his indented V and taut abs are literally centimetres away from my face.
How badly do I want to lean forward to run my tongue through all those defined dips and valleys?
“I see our queen is harbouring more heartbeats.”
I look up into his dark, penetrating eyes and exhale. “Yeah...”
“And none of them are yours,” I hear Axe snigger.
“I had to give you a chance,” Thorn replies evenly, but his eyes don’t leave mine. They just darken.
‘Aren’t you going to kiss me?’ I ask, ignoring the banter now filling the kitchen. He’s slept for two weeks and is really going to make me ask for a kiss?
I see the familiar tilt of his mouth as he lowers. ‘If you want one.’
I glare at him, but then his lips finally brush mine, his mouth barely parting to capture just my top lip.
Then he stands back up straight. ‘That’s all you get. For now.’
‘Still a fucking tease,’ Axe says to him, and I know he’s rolled his eyes.
‘And you’re still the annoying little brother,’ Thorn claps back. He rests his hand on my belly to feel the babies before lifting it to my face. “So, did you miss us as much as we missed you?”
I nod, suddenly overwhelmed with just how much.
His thumb sweeps across my cheek. “Never again, Angel. Never again.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “I know.” Never again will I have to be without them.
“Apart from being exhausted, how have you been?”
“Fine.”
He nods. “And the kids?”
“Good, but there is something I need to—”
“Mummy took my iPad,” Raeni blurts out. “Can I have it back now?”
Thorn frowns as he looks between the two of us. “Took it? Why?”
“Sit down, and I'll show you all.”
He sits beside Raeni, and then I show the rest of them what happened with the zombies at the edge of the garden, and what I’d figured out a few days before that.
Silence falls, and their disbelief is tangible.
“Are you upset, too?” Raeni asks them.
“Baby, I told you, I wasn't upset, and neither are your daddies. They're just surprised, like I was. And, I took your iPad because you snuck yourself and your brother out of the house in the middle of the night, which is naughty.”
Her brows furrow, and I hear her trying to make sense of what I’ve just said. “Oh. So can I have my iPad now I’m not naughty anymore?”
I shake my head. I suppose I can’t really expect her to fully understand at her age, no matter how advanced her mind is. “Yes, you can have it back. It’s in the top draw in the living room.”
She quickly disappears with Jaden and Theo, but then I suggest taking the rest of the kids back in there, too, so we can talk in private.
Pin makes his brother a bowl of porridge and then we all sit back at the island.
“So that's how it's gonna go,” Thorn muses.
“Seams so.”
“I did smell something off when I woke up,” Pin says, “but I just thought it was all the vermin sleeping near the house.”
“Yeah, I didn’t get a chance to move them.”
Axe shakes his head. “We wouldn’t want you doing that shit anyway. We’ll deal with them. So, have more been coming, or did you not kill them all?”
“No, I killed all the ones they gathered. These are new arrivals. I’m starting to think the older the kids get, the further away the zombies are being attracted to us.”
“It will be interesting to see how far away they come from,” Blade says.
“Only time will tell,” Thorn says between another mouthful of porridge. “If that’s the case, though, someone will start noticing. I can feel them pretty far away.”
“I know.” It makes me nervous about being found…
Dagger rests a hand on mine. “We won’t let that happen.”
“Alright.” I just hope they’ll be able to do what me and the kids did, because it will make everything a whole lot easier. We’ll also be able to kill them further away, too.
“More importantly, though,” Dagger continues, “we need to make the kids realise that as much as they might feel the need to deal with zombies, it’s not their problem. They need to be kids.”
“Right,” Axe agrees. “They’re growing too damn fast as it is. I don’t want them missing out on normal kid shit.”
We all agree with him, but we’ve had this conversation too many times to mention.
“We'll talk to them today,” Thorn says before looking at me. “And sleep for you, Angel. We don’t like feeling how tired you are.”
I know I need to sleep, but… “I don't want to sleep now you're all awake.”
Axe leans into my ear. “Tough shit.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Pin agrees.
Dagger stands to help me off my stool, forever the gentleman. “I’ll bring the little ones up to feed if they need to. We’re dismissing you.”
I pretend to be hurt. “Oh, so it’s like that?”
He nods. “For now.”
“Besides,” Blade says. “we need you ready for later.”
They all agree with that statement.
That’s true…
Dagger scoops me up into his arms. “Now, bed.”
Five
Dagger
As soon as Mikka’s settled in bed, I find the clippers and get to work cutting my brothers’ hair. They disappear to the bathrooms after to trim their own beards, and then I let Thorn cut my hair.
He’s the only one I know won’t fuck it up for jokes.
Mikka’s fast asleep by the time he’s done, so we sit back at the island to discuss what she told us. We’re all still shocked over what the kids did. Thorn more than anyone.
“I never thought I'd wake up to news like that.”
“Me either,” Axe says. “I thought there was more to what her and the kids could already do, but I never thought it would be shit like that.”
“You think we can do the same?” Pin asks.
Thorn and I nod.
“Won’t be able to test it with the kids, though. We’ll have to try with just us.”
“Right,” Axe agrees. “We need to nip their zombie fascination in the bud. They’re kids for fuck’s sake. I don’t want them worrying about big people problems.”
Blade sighs. “Damn right. The fact Little Miss has even felt the desire to do that, doesn’t sit well with me at all.”
It doesn’t sit well with any of us. I can understand the urges they must feel, especially now we feel the same, but just because they’re not typical kids, doesn’t mean their upbringing shouldn’t be as normal as possible. We’re all in agreement with that.
They’re gonna miss out on enough as it is.
Thorn turns to face the living room and little Rae-Rae immediately looks up from her tablet. “Yes, daddy?”
He waves her over. “Come here.” She leaves her iPad to come, and Thorn quickly lifts her onto the stool beside his. “Angel…”
“Ye
s, daddy?” she replies, and I smile. Raeni, although close to all of us, idolises Thorn. She’s always so eager to please him, and after the few occasions when he’s had to discipline her, she always tries her hardest not to do it again.
“Mummy explained what happened with the zombies in the garden.”
Her eyes light up. “Do you want us to help you, too? There are more.”
He shakes his head. “No, baby. I don't. At least not yet.” He sighs and forces a smile to soften his reply, trying to think of how best to word this to a three-year-old. To tell a child with deep-rooted urges, not to act on them.
Even though our eldest kids are only four and a half months old, they're really closer to being four, and Raeni, especially, is by far, much more clued-up for her age than she should be. Which means, we’ve had to be careful about what we were thinking and feeling for a while now.
But the five of us had been struggling to do that in the few weeks running up to Mikka biting us, which was why we knew it was time. Mikka worked non-stop to find a way to control what they heard and felt from her, but we haven't had that chance yet, and it's something we’ll all have to start working on straight away.
Mikka’s control over her abilities have been nothing short of incredible—especially when it comes to the kids. Now we’re like them, though, it’s clear to see why. The connection to them is deeper than I expected, and like Mikka’s said time and time again, our strength is linked.
And I want to say, through her.
Thorn holds Raeni’s hand. “I want you to promise me that you won’t go outside at night on your own again.”
Her face falls. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not upset with you, but what you did, it wasn’t safe. You worried mummy, and that’s why she was sad and took your iPad.”
Her lip trembles, and I feel her becoming upset. “Oh…”
“Do you understand?”
She nods.
“Good, because we don't play with zombies, no matter how harmless you might think they are. I know you feel things in your head and your tummy, but you are still a little girl, and we don't want any of you worrying about those things yet.”
The World For My Zombie Kings: A Reverse Harem Romance (Zombies Rule The World Book 3) Page 3
