Page 195 of Axel

You don’t deserve to call yourself a man if you’re not as willing to be changed by a woman as she’s been changed by you.

I’m a new man, and Ruby is my woman.

She’s already close to Nick, and now she’s accepted Sire. Nash. Jace. She’s bonded with them as I will only allow.

Hell, it’s more than I thought I’deverallow.

But that’s what initiations do.

I told you.

It’s something in the sandalwood-scented air.

Candles flicker around the room, while I’m tempted to stop. To give Ruby a break. We still have the other part of her initiation, when Grant will become her second king. Fuck, I fear that’ll finally summon the beast in me.I’ll kill him.

But as she cuddles in my lap, sipping water after we refreshed and the others did, too, Ruby lifts her lips to my ear and whispers, “Loch.”

“What about him?”

I look across the semicircle. Since I’m the first king, in this arrangement, he’s the youngest and sitting directly across from me with his queen’s throne glaringly empty beside him.

It matches how Loch looks.

Picking at lint that’s not on his pants, he looks defeated. Left out. Like he wants to be somewhere else.

I know where. I know with whom.

We all do.

And I’ve always protected my baby brother. From letting him hang out with me when he was little to going to his football games when he grew up. Loch never suffered our father, but he needed one, and I tried to be the closest he could get.

But I’m not his father. I’m his brother, and I can’t fix this for him, either.

“I want to include him,” Ruby whispers. “I want to get to know him and make him feel better.”

“Uh, my queen.” I pull back, tenderly lifting her chin. “Iknow what happens in initiationsstaysin initiations, but we’re sticking to our double penetration agreement. Because it will be a double murder if you have GrantandLoch.”

“I’m not saying that.” She smiles. “Jeez, I have my limits.”

“You sure? Because I’m fucking loving how you won’t stop gushing for me tonight.”

“Okay, whose cup wouldn’t runneth over with all this virile masculinity and your dirty Dom talk?” She hushes her voice even more, though the others are talking and distracted. “And who knew Jace could be so dirty?”

I smirk. “Me.”

“I thought you’d punch him for calling me that.”

“I still might.”

Her eyes widen, worried.

“But then again. All’s fair in kinks and kings. And you didn’t seem to mind. You got off on being our sweet slut, and oh, Daddy,” my cock stirs, “you liked that kink, too.”

“And I feel you getting hard talking about it.”

“Mmm, definitely so.” I lace my hands in her hair, tugging her neck open to feast on it. “We’ll be married for decades, so I promise to spice up our sex life for you.”

“Speaking of…” She lets me suck and bite. “Loch: include him somehow.”

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