Page 120 of Queen of Diamonds

Kyan scoffed. “She’s with a Russian fixer, not a kitty-boarding school.”

“Why is my cat with a Russian fixer?”

“She was a Brotherhood target,” Kyan said defensively. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

While Kyan distracted me with more pictures, I found myself drifting a little closer to Knight, who was still pretty quiet. I wanted him close, too, needing his skin on mine. Finally, as I was watching the fifth video of Lucy jumping for a set of keys, I dared reach out and catch his hand in mine.

I didn’t look at him, pulse racing out of control, suddenly acutely aware my hormones were so fucked that if he pulled away, I might burst into tears.

Thankfully, he didn’t.

Instead, he moved closer and I felt the comforting brush of his locs along my arm. I inhaled the fresh scent of pear grove, along with the trace of rose water I remembered he used in his hair.

“She’s too fast for her size,” Knight noted as Lucy scrambled after a tossed bottle cap, and visibly struggled to take a sharp left.

“Doesn’t stop her,” I replied, feeling an unexpected lightness in my chest.

Knight was still stiff, but I didn’t think… Well, he didn’t seem to not want me.

“Where is Zed?” I asked.

“Out,” Kyan replied. “But he’ll be back soon enough.”

I nodded. It felt wrong, not having him here, but I did, at least, catch his scent of snow santal in the room. He had been here.

“Will you let me help you get cleaned up?” Knight asked, squeezing my hand. “I want…” He cleared his throat, and when I looked up at him, he didn’t meet my eyes. “I think it would be best for you… the hormones, I mean, if his scent was gone.”

I tensed at those words, hugging my tea closer, but nodded.

The faintest trace of Ace still lingered, not nearly as much as the other scents in this room, but my nerves were frayed by even the smallest hint of him.

Knight got up, vanishing into the bathroom, where I heard the taps of a bath turn on, and then he was back, offering a hand to me.

Gingerly, I took it, clutching him tight, easily tumbling into a strange comfort as he picked me up like I was a doll, letting me wrap my arms around his neck as he carried me into a grand bathroom. It was the size of my old room at the High Roller, with a massive tub. It reminded me of my father’s manor; a place where I’d never wanted for anything. Or at least, that’s what I’d been told, until I’d met the Maverick pack, and I realised how much I’d been missing.

A little piece of paradise amidst endless bleakness, making everything else less vibrant for it.

41

KNIGHT

Glade waited quietly in my arms as the bath ran, and I found myself lost. She’d just been smiling, watching a video of Lucy, and my brain couldn’t manage it.

She’d almost died, and now she was smiling?

Her fingers wove gently through my locs, and the feeling of it elicited an unexpected purr from my chest. She picked through a few at the front until she found her favourite one—a set of two that had combined.

“They’re so long now,” she said. “I’m glad you still have them.”

She’d always loved them. There were moments in the last few years when I’d considered getting rid of them. But they carried pieces of my life—memories that sometimes I wanted to rid myself of.

I never could do it.

There were so many pieces of that story that made me who I was; the Brotherhood, the grief of being betrayed by everyone I’d known. The grief of losing her, and then the aching weight in my heart when I’d almost lost Kyan, too. But, I’d held onto all of it, afraid of keeping it, but far more afraid of the person I’d be without it all, because it wasn’t possible to cut away the bad without shutting my eyes to the pieces I’d found.

A family. Unexpectedly. Against all odds.

One that never had and never would turn its back on me.

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