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My phone vibrates again with a new message from him.
Brantley: For starters? You can sit your pussy on my face and wrap your lips around this.
My phone slips from my hand, and I quickly catch it.
He texts again.
Brantley: Don’t fucking text me again until you’re on US soil.
I turn off my screen and flush, my thighs clenching together. Shit.
“Sorry about that,” Madison says, swiping the tears away. Her cheeks are swollen red, her eyes puffy. She makes her way to the coffee pot, pouring the black liquid into a mug. “They say this stuff is bad for the baby—” She pauses, laughs, and shakes her head. “Babies, but I say whatever right now.”
She heads for the fridge and pulls open a drawer. “Do you want wine?”
I shake my head. “I’m good. Not much of a drinker. Unless I’m—”
“—partying. I get it. I’m just old and I really miss wine.” She slams the door closed and drops onto the chair, sipping on her coffee. “I don’t—I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
I shuffle in my seat, picking at the grapes on my plate. “Well, whatever you decide, I will support you, but please, just—”
“Tell Bishop?” She laughs, shaking her head. “I don’t know what Bishop you have met, but it’s not the one that most people know.”
I curl my lips between my teeth.
Madison’s eyes zone in on me. “You got some sort of witchcraft happening?”
“I wish, then I could maybe make Brantley not be mad at me anymore, though it’s like a daily thing these days.”
Madison snorts, rubbing her belly. “Oh, he’s just lucky that you didn’t come into this world a year or so ago. We would have fucked you right up and made him wish he never let you around us.” I watch as she ties her long brown hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. “They said they’ll have the results back to us in the morning.” Her eyes come to mine. “Tillie told me about you and how you came about, but did that psycho really leave you locked in that creepy house all of your life?”
“He did,” I say, smiling. “It wasn’t all that bad. Especially after Lucan died. It became silent. Lucan always took up a lot of energy with his presence.”
Madison doesn’t answer, and when my eyes come back to hers, I notice her whole face shift. Her eyes fall, though her shoulders sit up straighter, and the grip she has around her coffee mug seems tighter, based on the way her fingers are turning red. “Do you know how he died?”
I shake my head. “No. Brantley never got into the details. Before I knew about The Elite Kings, I assumed an accident of some sort, but now I’m thinking no.”
“You could say that,” Madison whispers, bringing her knees up to her chest. “He, ah…”
I tilt my head.
“Let’s just say I knew him and Brantley before I met Bishop.” My brows curve in. She caught my confusion. Her mouth opens. “Did—wait. Did Lucan ever do anything to you?” Her eyes widen in shock, her mouth agape.
I begin a French braid to the side of my head. “No. There was one time something was going to happen, I think, but Brantley, he—”
Madison sighs, running the cushion of her finger over the rim of her mug. “You don’t have to say any more. You are very lucky.”
“Lucky?” I repeat, struggling to taste the sense of the word.
“Yes, lucky. Brantley is vicious and evil, but not with you. Have you heard of that quote, ‘I don’t care if I will fall in love with a devil, as long as that devil will love me the way he loves Hell’? Or ‘He set fire to the world, but never let a flame touch her’? That’s Brantley with you.”
“It’s all I’ve known from him, but he’s not easy to deal with. In fact, I’ve come to learn after being around so many of you that he is the most difficult.”
“Ah, but that’s what makes his love so rare.” Her eyes collide with mine. “Because his love is the hardest to find. Beneath that hard exterior and void behavior. It’s like finding a gold mine after living in poverty all of your life.”
“Exactly.” I laugh, my shoulders shaking. “Because he starves people of love and affection until they’re wilted and dead.”
“—Or,” Madison says, raising a finger. “He starves them to see who is the last one standing. Loving Brantley will be no easy feat for any girl. It will take a tough-ass female to handle all of the love that boy has to offer. He will be demanding, moody, distant at times, and wildly untamed with his love, but he’s smart. He does it to protect himself.”
I sigh, ignoring the list she just blurted off. She couldn’t have described Brantley more perfectly. “You’re right. He doesn’t love me, though. It’s not in that kind of way, if it is. It’s more of a little sister way, I think.”
