There’s nothing like being on the open road, window cracked, hair whipping in the wind. Sometimes, a lot like that night we ran from the alley, I can still hear Jack’s laughter, always so excited about making an escape. I swear I could hear it now, Jack laughing it up as I speed away from Forsyth, telling me I’m ‘a real bad bitch, girlie’.
I drive for what feels like hours, letting the promise of any destination lift the heaviness that’s gripping my chest. I’ve felt like this once before. It must have been over four years ago that my mom came home to our dreary apartment, gushing about the man she met. This man was nice and sophisticated and wealthy, and he had a son around my same age, and he was going to save us. He was going to give us a nice home and a happy family, and for the first time in my life, I felt something I’d given up on so long ago was within reach. I’d been so naively optimistic, infected by her enthusiasm. I didn’t ask questions. I walked into that restaurant with a light heart and a shy smile.
It’s hard to look back on it, knowing everything I do.
So I look forward, instead.
The LDZ skull swings from my rearview mirror, Dimitri’s jacket keeping me warm enough that I don’t need to bother fiddling with the temperature controls. In some ways, it feels good to take these parts of them with me—the light and the dark—even if I don’t think I deserve them. In other ways, it just makes it impossibly harder to keep my foot on the gas pedal.
But I do.
I think of Dimitri’s words to me that night in the cabin, about how being their Lady is more than a title. It’s something I’ve become—something I can’t shake off. I think of Killian’s words as we lay in front of the fire, his quiet request that I pretend with him, just for a moment. I think of Tristian’s face the morning after, how incredibly maskless it was when he spoke of the promise he made to take care of me—when he spoke of breaking it.
I think of my Lords and the way they’ve orbited me for the last few months, and I think to myself, I’m a goddamn Lady.
I can do anything.
So I shift up a gear and go faster, speeding toward something full of all the promises men like Daniel never planned to deliver on.
I’m ready to finally go home.
I reach my destination in that gulp of time between night and dawn, the world barely threatening to stretch awake around me. It’s colder than I’m expecting when I climb out of the car, everything misty and chilled. I spend a long moment staring at the house I’d shared for so long. I get a prickle on the back of my neck, like I could look over my shoulder and see Jack in that back seat.
The truth is, even though so much has happened since I left, it’s the same as I remembered.
Walking up the steps and touching the knob, I spend a moment wondering if it’ll open for me. Maybe they’re not here. Maybe they’re busy moving on while I’m moving back. I don’t let myself doubt for too long. It’s not very Lady-like.
The door’s unlocked, allowing me to push it open and enter.
This is as I remember it, too, except for the bright lights and the way it sounds. This isn’t a dead house full of dead things. It’s just past four in the morning and it’s perfectly alive.
It doesn’t take me long to find them, sprawled and lazy on the couches, bottles of beer and booze laid out around them. I’m not sure why, but I think I always knew they’d be here, awake and waiting for me. I watch them for a beat, not revealing myself until it becomes a physical impossibility to remain silent.
“I choose where I sleep.” Three heads swing around at the sound of my voice, faces showing varying degrees of stunned disbelief. “I choose who I fuck, when I do it, or if I even want to.” Shrugging out of the jacket, I stand there in the schoolgirl skirt and top that I’d really like to burn some time.
Perhaps I’ll ask Tristian to help me.
“I choose what I eat, what I wear, and where I go.”
Tristian is halfway out of his seat before I raise a hand, stilling him.
“In return, I won’t talk to other guys. You can still track me. We can keep up appearances for the sake of being Royals.” I look at Dimitri, who was slumped back in Killian’s usual leather chair when I arrived, but is now pitched forward, elbows resting on his knees. He’s shirtless, his gaze almost too intense to connect with. Although I’m grateful for him showing up tonight, it doesn’t make what happened to us less traumatic. “No more cameras. No more mind games. No more punishments.” I watch Killian, who’s laying on the couch, clearly still in pain but drowning it in whiskey. He’s shirtless, too, his griffon and lion and patched up gunshot wound on full display. Despite it all, he watches me with those careful, calculating eyes. “And whatever you have planned for Ted,” they exchange a look and I snort, “and don’t pretend like you don’t have one—I want in. I want to be a part of it. Equally.”
Tristian lowers himself back into his seat slowly, and I can tell from the tired glaze of his eyes—from the way his shirt is wrinkled and rumpled—that he’s three sheets to the wind.
But not drunk enough to skip negotiations. “You choose who you fuck?” he asks, and there’s a question within his words he’s not asking.
I know them well enough to suss it out myself. “Among the three of you,” I clarify, voice going low and careful. “No one else.”
Dimitri’s tongue peeks out to fidget with his lip piercing in a way I refuse to admit drives me crazy, even though it absolutely does. “Anything else?”
“Well…” I bite my lip, shifting uncomfortably. “I’d still…expect the same out of you.”
Dimitri runs a thumb between his piercings, agreeing, “Okay.”
“And there’s one more thing.” Killian’s frozen as he stares at me, and even though his eyes are heavy, I don’t see him blink once. I say this more to him than the others, and for good reason. “Daniel’s not going to be paying my tuition anymore.”
As I expected, Tristian is the first up. “I can—”
“No,” Killian says, cutting him off. His eyes never leave mine, and I’m grateful for it, because he sees the exact thing I don’t want. Tristian throws his money around like he can buy anything he wants—cars, influence, forgiveness, affection. I’ve taken all I can bear to. “We’ll figure it out,” Killian says.
“I’m going to do it myself. I need to.” I duck my head, only to catch sight of the outfit again. I grimace, gesturing to the staircase. “I’m going to go get cleaned up, try to get some sleep in case I want to catch a class today.”
They all give me slow nods, like maybe they’re still trying to figure out what the thread of the conversation is. It’s very possible I might need to have it again later, when they’re sober and less freakishly agreeable. What I’m asking for is logical, humane and appropriate.
It’s not going to be easy.
Still, I linger for a moment, not partial to the idea of just leaving it like this. When I start toward Tristian, he shoots a look at the others and rises, shoving his hands into his pockets. One of them emerges with the black wrist cuff, and he stares at it, turning it over in his hands. It isn’t until he fixes me with a quick, reluctant look that I realize he’s unsure if I want to wear it anymore. Their mark. Their brand.
Wordlessly, I extend my wrist.
He releases an exhale, shoulders sinking with something like relief as he loops it around, snapping it shut. Tristian opens his mouth, likely intending to say something.
I kiss him before he can ruin the moment.
He rumbles into my mouth, arms winding around my waist and hauling me up against him. The good thing about Tristian is that it never really hurts with him. Dimitri will bite and Killian will bruise, but Tristian only wants to control and be seen doing it. He does it now, with the press of his body and the force of his hand, tangled in the back of my hair. He deepens the kiss like he owns it, and when I push back—mine, too—he grunts, crushing me closer. Tristian tastes like beer and pure, dark thrill, the promise of illicit touches and scorching flames.
I only push away because he lets me, his glazed eyes fixed to my mouth as I turn to Dimitri.
Dimitri does not rise to meet me. He leans back in the armchair, legs spread, black eyes sparking with a hint of wicked challenge. When I accept it, climbing fluidly into his lap, his mouth parts in surprise. He hides it quickly, opting to curl a hand around my neck and pull me down for a kiss. The good thing about Dimitri is that he teases me until I want it so badly, the thought of getting it is enough to make me fly. He tries it now, mouthing at my bottom lip, the hand on my neck keeping me at a distance until I lick out to taste him. He tastes like whiskey and the sharp edge of a blade, the promise of lazy mornings and pitch black nights.
“I doubt you want to hear it,” he says against my mouth, nudging my lips with his, “but you were so fucking good last night.”
He’s wrong, because hearing it brings back the memory of him moving in me, and nothing more. I won’t let anything else invade it. “So were you,” I say, letting him feel my grin.
When I rise from his lap, his black eyes follow me like a laser, fingertips brushing over my bare thighs.
Killian is waiting for me, and before I’ve even perched on the couch at his side, his hand is fisted in the fabric of my shirt, tugging me close, just as demanding as ever. He gives it a sharp yank and crushes my mouth to his in a way that must hurt his wound, neck straining up to take charge of the kiss. It hurts with Killian like it always does. It’s intense and pointed, and sometimes it’s terrifying, but other times—times like this—it’s exhilarating and so easy to get lost in that I’m jarred out of it by the pained sound he makes.
I realize I’m pressing into his injured side, and I jerk back, startled. “Sorry,” I breathe, inspecting the patch of bandage for any damage.
“Fuck it,” he says, trying to pull me back. But I take his hand in mine, keeping this kiss shallow and slow, and I hope I’m showing him that it doesn’t always have to hurt. That the tenderness he shows me when I’m unconscious beneath him has a place here, too—if he wants to give it. Killian tastes like vodka and moonlight, nights so quiet that anything more than a breath could shatter it.
When I pull away, he doesn’t let go of my hand, tethering me to him like two links on a chain. “Wait,” he says, but it isn’t until I turn to him, our hands suspended over the distance between us, that he asks, “What was it I gave you?”
It’s not an easy answer. Killian Payne shared his home with me—more than once. He taught me what it means to be ruthless for the people I care about, and sometimes even to the people I care about. He gave me the knowledge of what it feels like to know someone would kill for me. Care about me. Perhaps even love me. In some ways, he gave me Dimitri and Tristian, as well.
But in the end, the best thing Killian ever gave me was something that went against his very nature to offer. I tell him my answer as I retreat, my fingers dragging against his until the connection breaks.
“A choice, big brother.”
