Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I too, am glad Luke did not kill me.
CHAPTER 20
Ella
I feel better when I wake up, though a little tender. I haven’t been having enough sex, that’s my problem. It’s hard to get laid when you spend your days running around the world and occasionally getting kidnapped. I need to lock in.
Luke is eyeing me, the big blond hulk of a man making the space look small. Unlike Aiden, he’s not concerned with what’s going to happen to us all. That’s above his pay grade.
I smile at him over breakfast. The food isn’t too bad if you don’t mind that everything has to be rehydrated, and I don’t. I’m not fussy. Food is food. If it’s good, that’s nice. If it’s not, it still keeps me alive, which is better than the alternative.
“Want to see my room?” Luke makes the invitation with a purposeful grin. “You spent the first night in Leo’s, so I figure we’d do a rotation.”
“Oh, you figured that, huh?”
Aiden is sitting on one of the couches, pretending not to listen. He’s too busy planning some kind of escape, or perhaps plotting for a war. I think we all know that even though we started on the back foot here, Aiden will turn this to his advantage.
“So? My room?” Luke grins at me.
“We need to talk,” Aiden says, interrupting his artless advance. “Can you all come to the couches, please.”
We go and sit down. I sit between Luke and Leo. Aiden has pride of place in front of us, holding court.
“I am going to leave,” he says. “I need to be able to act in the world. The three of you need to stay here for your own safety. Leo, you need to heal that wound, Luke, you need to keep an eye on Ella, and Ella, you need to keep them both sane. Each of you has a job to do. I expect you to do it.”
I don’t like the idea of Aiden not being here with us, and neither do his brothers.
“I say we all go wherever we go together,” Luke says. “We stay underground until we’re ready to emerge, like…” He pauses for a second, reaching for a metaphor.
“Cicadas,” I say helpfully.
“Sure,” he says. “Like cicadas.”
“If you go, we’re all going to go,” Leo says. “I won’t be able to keep those two in. You’re stuck with us.”
That argument is much stronger. Leo’s not physically able to dominate Luke right now, and Luke’s not interested in keeping me prisoner in the first place. If it were the three of us, the inmates would be running the proverbial madhouse. Aiden’s sanity and strength is needed.
“I can use proxies,” Aiden admits. “But it will be slower, and less efficient.”
“Good. Yes. Use proxies,” Luke says, grabbing me and picking me up. I squeal with laughter as he manhandles me to his room. It’s fun to struggle against him, even though it gets me nowhere. Really, because it gets me nowhere.
Luke tosses me down on the bed and follows me down. He pins me to the mattress with one hand over both my wrists and grins down at me.
“You’re in trouble with me,” he says. “You ran away and left us to chase you. Aiden found you, Leo’s had whatever fun he could have had so far, at least until he is healed, and now it’s my turn.”
“I’m in trouble with you?” I grin the question. “How could I possibly be in trouble with you? You don’t care what I do.”
“I care if you run away. I care if you get kidnapped. I may not be like the other two, but I am a man, and I love you. I want you obedient, and protected, and I know very well what you need. I might know better than the other two.”
“How do you figure?”
“Aiden has always been in charge, one way or another, and Leo… we know Leo’s mind doesn’t work like most people’s. He’s got a darkness in him, a sadism that’s got to be fed or it breaks out and starts devouring people. But I’m normal.”
I laugh at that very hard. “Luke, you’re not normal. You couldn’t imagine normal in a thousand years.”
“I’m the most normal,” he says. “I know what it’s like to fuck up. I know what it feels like when you’re not the biggest or the baddest. I know how you learn to work in shadows and get away with things nobody wants you to get away with.”
His knee is parting my thighs, spreading my legs. I know he’s already hard, keeping me in place against the bed. His eyes sear into mine with intensity that leaves me quite struck.
He’s revealing himself to me, showing me something I haven’t seen in him before.
“You start to act out. Start to do silly things. Maybe you try a few substances. Maybe you run with the wrong crowd. And maybe you become the black sheep. Not the sweet baby, not the trustworthy oldest, not even the magnetic second born. The middle child even in a family of four. Overlooked, but never forgotten.”