Page 143 of I Will Revel in Glory (Death by Daybreak MC 3)
I delivered him Giulia Wolfe’s head for fuck’s sake. The least he can do is let my friend go.
I pop up the steps two at a time, the men at my heels. The tension in the air is thick; I know they’re worried about me. Not simply because tonight was dangerous as hell—it really was—but because they think I’m going to have a mental break over what I did.
Yet, I still don’t feel anything but the spicy heat of adrenaline.
I pound up the staircase and open Reba’s bedroom door to see if she’s in there. She is. I see her sleeping on her bed as soon as I pop my head into the room, the dull glow of a night-light the only light source. Fem lifts his head to look at me, ears perked, body alert.
I fox walk quietly into the room and offer him a pat on the head. “Stay,” I command as I grab a blanket from the end of the bed and lay it across my friend’s sleeping body.
It’s the last kind or decent thing I’ll do for the rest of the night.
By the time I get downstairs again, all four men are in the living room and Grainger is holding a bottle of whiskey by the neck. He takes a swig of it as I walk in, his clever gaze caught on my bloodied form like it’s drawn there by dark magic.
He seems mesmerized by me, and I like that. I want to hold these four in thrall and keep them forever.
“Do you see now what you’ve gotten yourself into?” I ask, and Beast chuckles, accepting the bottle when Grainger passes it over to him.
“You think we didn’t know what you were capable of, sugar?” he asks, raising both of his sandy blond brows. He swigs some of the alcohol, and my throat burns with want for it. That, or a cigarette. Being pregnant sucks. Didn’t stop me from taking care of business though, now did it?
“If you ever decide that you don’t want to be with me, you better come to me first. If I find any one of you balls-deep in some bitch, I’ll kill you both.” I smile as I sit down on the edge of the couch, wondering how I might be able to satisfy the dark urges rolling around me without the use of weed, booze, or tobacco.
There’s only one thing that comes to mind.
“Show me the cut on your hip,” Crown commands, opening a first aid kit on the surface of the coffee table. Sin leans against the wall next to the TV with his arms crossed, watching me with eyes the same color as the storm outside.
“This one?” I ask innocently, popping the button on my leather pants. I push the fabric down lower than I probably should, revealing a neat wound that’s already beginning to scab over.
“You could’ve been killed tonight,” Crown tells me, opening an alcohol swab and swiping it over the wound. He isn’t nice about it either, putting enough pressure on the cut that I hiss in pain. He actually wipes so hard, so aggressively, that the initial clotting comes away, and fresh blood oozes to the surface, a violent, disturbing red.
I sit there panting, my pants pulled low, the other three men sharing a bottle of liquor. There’s a fire crackling in the brick fireplace, too. It’s small now, freshly lit, but the flames are beginning to eat away at the kindling, catching along the length of the log and flaring with bright orange heat. It matches the heat in my heart as I lift my eyes up to look at Crown.
He purposefully ignores me, studying the wound and trying to determine if I might need stitches. He shakes his head, so I take it that it’s not a very serious injury.
“You’ll go shower here in a minute, scrub yourself down. Then we can put ointment on that and bandage it up.” He gives me a dark look that’s very clearly a command. “Any other injuries we need to know about?”
I nod, and his jaw tightens.
“On the backs of my legs. But they’re shallow. Even less important than this.” I tap my finger against the now bleeding wound.
“You could’ve lost the baby you know,” Crown tells me, heaving a huge sigh as he glances over at the other men. He looks back at me before opening a new wipe and swiping the fresh blood off my hip yet again. “You keep reminding us that we’re mortal; so are you.”
“Mm. But only just barely,” I say, lifting up a finger. Crown ignores me, wadding up the bloodied wipes into a pile and snapping his fingers.
“Show me the wounds on your legs,” he commands, but I give him a look.
“That’ll require me to take my pants off. Are you sure you can handle it?” I ask, but Crown is too annoyed with the situation and chooses to ignore the innuendo. My husband, on the other hand, hears it and responds.
