Page 4 of Midnight Salvation

“Well?” Everyone turned to stare at me when I arrived in the conservatory.

I rolled my eyes. “Ash caught me snooping and locked the door when he went inside their hidey hole. All I heard was something about the Council demanding eyes on me, Catarina, and Sofia.”

Catarina chewed the inside of her mouth. She pretended to be a woman of the world, but she’d lived in the same fishbowl as me. Neither of us were equipped to deal with a threat, and we both knew it.

“Should we contact Sofia?” Catarina asked in a low tone.

“No, she’s got Marco with her in Aberdeen. Any problems, and he’ll bring her in,” I replied.

Catarina nodded.

“What do they want with you and your sisters?” Megan asked.

“They want to teach Papa who’s boss from what I could gather before I was locked out of their conversation.” I sat down with the other girls. At least Ash was in that room. He’d already proved that he would happily decapitate anyone who hurt me. I dreaded to think what he would do to anyone else who targeted me.

“I’m so sick of being helpless,” Catarina grated out. “We need to find ourselves some badass husbands who would fuck up anyone who came near us.”

“Any suggestions?” I teased her.

Catarina had a lot of personality. Her husband needed to possess a stronger will than hers if he wanted to wear the trousers. She belonged in one of those dark romance books that I liked to read when the hero was all growly and possessive. A man who would take a princess and turn her into a sex kitten.

Considering I had found my other half, I already knew that Ash would kill for me and destroy everything in his path. He was already plotting to take his family down so we could have a happily ever after. The man was a tornado of bad intentions who made me want to be bad just for him.

“I have a headache starting,” I muttered, rubbing my temples.

Cassandra gave me that mothering look she had started to develop lately. “All this stress with Ash doesn’t help.”

The ladies had been trying to push us together, much to Ash’s amusement. They had enacted operation lovebug and were constantly dropping hints and leaving us alone together. I felt guilty pretending when we were already married and in love. Ash deserved an Oscar for his performance.

“I know,” I replied with a sigh. “I wish he’d stop ignoring me even for a few minutes.”

Cassandra’s brow furrowed. “I know he feels something for you after the way he looked at you at our wedding.”

“Once he makes his mind up, I don’t think it matters how he feels,” I said. “I’m going to lie down for a while before dinner.”

I did have a headache, but it was due to the worry about Ash going to meet with his family this morning. I’d seen what his father had ordered against Poppy and his brother Aaron. At any time, he could do the same to Ash, and that terrified me. A father who was willing to murder his sons was an enemy.

I curled myself in a ball in the bed, wrapping myself in a soft, fleecy blanket that lived over the chair in the corner. My eyes were heavy and my head eased by the lack of light since I had closed the curtains. I must have dozed off, because when I woke Ash lay behind me, my head under his chin. All we had were these stolen moments far from curious eyes.

“You okay?” I asked in a husky voice.

“Hmmm.” His fingers laced through mine. “Dad is just throwing his toys out of the pram because he’s lost his favourite henchman.”

Ash tugged me closer, his scent infusing into me until I felt his energy permeate into my soul.

“Should I be worried about that conversation I was listening to earlier?” I wanted to know what had happened, and I trusted Ash to tell me the truth. We’d been through too much to be together, and now was not the time to falter.

“Hugh and Dad seem to be playing God at the moment. They think that they’ll soon be in possession of information that will allow them to take over. They don’t realise that they’ve been fed nonsense that Lucas fabricated.”

I turned so I could see his eyes. They held all the secrets in their blue depths. I could tell his emotions by the shade of them. The intensity in them showed that he was spiralling out of control. I pushed him onto his back so I could straddle his waist, my forehead pressed to his.

“What happened?”

“I already told you what was said in the saferoom,” he evaded.

“With your family,” I persisted. He was hiding something.

“Dad has kindly agreed to a marriage proposal for me,” he replied, his gaze boring into mine.

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