Page 100 of Bleed the Shadows
Maeve had said she had a surprise for us. I’d assumed it was food, but instead, she’d filled stockings for each of us. She’d set them out the night before, after we’d gone to bed, and they were full of little treats and useful things: a small sketchbook and crystals for Poe, macro-friendly snacks and a cooling towel for me, complicated little puzzles and gourmet candy bars for Bram.
It made me feel like a kid again, and I didn’t mind admitting I was a little emotional when I held her close to say thank you.
What had we done without her? Not a rhetorical question. Like what in the actual fuck had we done without her?
We had coffee and some of the homemade pumpkin cinnamon rolls Maeve had made for breakfast, and she went off to her parents’ house while I went to mine, Poe went to his grandparents’, and Bram went to Cassie’s.
I enjoyed being with my family, but it was the first time I could remember feeling like my parents’ house wasn’t mine, the first time I could remember being anxious to get home when home was somewhere else.
I knew it was because of Maeve. Somewhere between the Hunt and the protest I’d dragged her out of in the city and the apple orchard and the winter formal, she’d become my home.
It scared the fuck out of me but living without her scared me more so I was willing to risk it.
Back at the loft, we sat down to Maeve’s lavish dinner, the dining table practically groaning under the weight of the food she’d spent weeks planning and preparing. There was an orange-and-maple turkey that didn’t have a single piece of dry meat, creamy scalloped potatoes with a slight tang that Maeve said came from blue cheese, a brussels sprouts salad with Manchego cheese and pomegranate seeds, and fluffy garlic rolls that practically melted in my mouth.
I told my macros to fuck off and cleaned two plates without a single bit of remorse.
We moved to the living room to open presents while we ate Maeve’s Black Forest Cake. She hadn’t had to explain what happened to the first one after Poe and I had found her in Bram’s bed the next day, and my imagination had been vivid enough while eating the rich cake bursting with cherries and whipped cream that my dick had gotten hard.
I was pretty sure the only thing better than fucking Maeve would be licking the cake off her body while I fucked her.
Bram was a fucking dick but he was a lucky fucking dick.
We took turns opening gifts. Maeve got me a vintage leather-bound edition of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and I got her an old edition of Wuthering Heights, complete with 22 carat gold accents and a silk ribbon page marker.
Poe was touched by the leather bracelet Maeve gave him with a tiny buddha in the meditating position, and she couldn’t stop looking at the small metal dog he’d made for her in his studio.
Of course, Bram had to outdo us both with an obscene amount of dog supplies for Ray: two dog beds — one for upstairs and one for downstairs — plus a seemingly endless amount of treats, toys, and even a coat to keep Ray warm.
Maeve laughed as she opened them all (Cassie’s name was all over the wrapping job, too nice to be done by Bram’s giant ham hands), showing them to Ray who was more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts, until Maeve opened a bag of the treats, at which point Ray drooled all over the sofa and Bram didn’t even care.
Then Maeve gave Bram her gift, a knife so beautiful it was a work of art, with an abstract design etched onto the carbon steel blade and a polished oak handle in deep brown.
He didn’t move when he unwrapped it, and at first I thought the whole gift had gone terribly wrong. Then I saw the engravingon the blade —All of you— and I understood what it meant: that Maeve knew what Bram was and wanted him anyway.
She practically disappeared into his big arms, his voice hoarse when he said thank you into her hair.
Then Bram, Poe, and I cleaned up the kitchen while Maeve hung out on the couch with Ray, because she’d worked her ass off to make us such amazing food and she deserved the break.
After that, we brought her a cup of hot chocolate and settled onto the sofa with some beers. My stomach was full but my heart was fuller, as fucking corny as that sounded, and I took a spot on the couch before Poe could get there first and pulled Maeve’s feet into my lap.
“You took my spot,” Poe complained.
I rubbed Maeve’s feet. “Snooze, you lose.”
“I have two feet if you want to rub too,” Maeve told him.
“It’s not your feet I’d like to rub,” Bram said, his voice dark from the chair where he was looking at Maeve like he wanted to eat her whole.
I waited to see what Maeve would say because so far she’d only ever fucked Bram alone. I didn’t want to assume she was down for a foursome, but that didn’t mean my dick didn’t get hard when she reached for Bram.
“Then you better get over here.”
61
MAEVE
I wasn’t goingto lie: I was nervous when I held my hand out to Bram. I had no idea what it would be like fucking all three of the Butchers at once, no idea how it worked or whether it would be awkward. But I definitely wanted to find out, and the hum of possibility in my body was more than enough to override my nerves.
