Page 82 of Bourbon & Blood

I settled back in my seat and looked to the three Voodoo Bastards around me who all stared like I’d sprouted a second head or something.

“What?” I demanded.

“Did you—?” La Croix looked from me back to his daddy.

“If I’m yours, you’re mine and nobody talks to one of my friends that way, let alone my man, without me saying something.” I sniffed. “It’s something I learned from Maya,” I said.

“Well alright, den,” Chainsaw said with a nod of respect. Something like pride shined in La Croix’s eyes.

“You don’t wife her up, I will!” Hex yelled across the yard, a girl in his lap who was laughing at him.

La Croix made a deep, bass growl in his throat at that, and I hid my smile with my book.

CHAPTERTHIRTY

La Croix…

The party went on into the night, and Alina was exhausted and a little pink despite the sunscreen I had on her and sittin’ mostly in the shade all day. She’d finished the one book she’d bought and her demeanor was much more relaxed after a day around so many people.

After she’d told off my dad, more people came around to meet her and talk with her. I’d like to think my girl’d made a few new friends.

Word had spread about why I’d called everyone together before we’d even got there, but I’d had some questions come my way. I’d done my best to answer them away from my little Alina. After all, I was trying to instill some peace and calm; not damage whatever she had left beyond anything.

I had a feeling that’d come sooner rather than later.

With every day that passed, the outlook on my girl’s girl bein’ alive was gettin’ dimmer and dimmer. The image of that fuckin’ suitcase the dude was wheeling alongside them as they went down the hall in the security footage haunted me.

I got Alina back to my place and drew her a hot bath, lighting the candles in the bathroom for her and calling up to my room where she’d taken her stuff, to go on an’ bring down another book to relax.

She came down with the book in her hands and I took it from her. I leaned her up against the edge of the tub as it filled, taking first one then the other sandal from her feet, working my way up her body, taking a piece of clothing at a time.

She watched me, mute and eyes alight with curiosity. My girl couldn’t keep a thing off her face, and I could see the gears turning in her head.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re so curious,” she said. “As in Alice in Wonderland curious. Curiouser and curiouser.” She smiled, and it was adorable.

“Yeah, what makes you say that?” I asked, genuinely curious about why she would go there, myself.

“You killed that man without a second thought,” she said softly. “By your own admission, beat your own father to within an inch of his life,” she added. “And yet, you’re so careful with me.”

I looked up at her and stood, grasping her tank tops at the hem, and lifting them over her head. She raised her arms obediently, and I stared down into her face, drawing her closer to me by a gentle grasp on her hips with either hand.

“The blood of the covenant is thicker ‘n the water of the womb,” I said. “At least on that last one.”

“Then why do you launch from his house and keep going around him?” she asked. “If he treats you like that…”

“My daddy is a broken man, cher,” I said, cupping her face and stroking a thumb along her cheek. “He has been for a long, long, time.”

“And yet?” she asked softly.

“I guess a man can only take so much afore he snaps… and I snapped,” I answered her.

She shuddered slightly, and I cocked my head. “I can’t promise you I won’t never yell, or say somethin’ cruel even. But what I can and I will promise right now, is if we ever don’t see eye to eye or you piss me off that much? I’ll walk the fuck away before I’d ever lay a hand on you.”

Her eyes were wide as I stared into them, my own eyes fixed on hers, my mouth set in a grim fuckin’ line. I was never more serious than I was right in that moment.

Her mouth closed where it hung open in surprise and she swallowed hard.

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