“Lord,” Calliope whispered, fanning her face. “I’ve never seen him so . . . so . . .”
“Overbearing?” Violet supplied, heart pounding still. “Territorial? Theatrical?”
“I was going to say out of control, but that works, too.”
“Then we must pray he confines such enthusiasm to private spaces,” Violet complained half-heartedly.
Calliope laughed, lowering her hand. “Give it a fortnight and he’ll be marking territory in other ways.”
“I can go through all the ways,” Reaper called from the table. “There must be over a hundred—”
“Reaper,” Drake growled, cutting his brother off.
“Welcome to the family,” Calliope said warmly, squeezing her hand.
Welcome, indeed.
*
Drake clenched hisfists beneath the table. His eyes lifted to Violet again. All he wanted to do was haul her over his shoulder and carry her back to their chamber—lock the door, shut out the world, and remind himself she was still his to touch. Not marry him? There was no way. He’d marry the spitfire, sooner rather than later, and he’d seduce her into wedlock the moment his cousin, Dare, could help him out with a special license.
A slow grin spread on his face.
“Pay attention,” Maxen growled.
He wrenched his attention back to the table reluctantly, where his brothers convened around him with solemn faces.
Serpent leaned back in his chair, one arm draped carelessly over the rail, as though he hadn’t apparently staggered in half-conscious an hour earlier. The deepening bruise beneath his eye had already bloomed into an ugly wash of blue and purple, a cursed reminder of Deveraux’s betrayal.
It would have been a devil of a blow. Their traitorous brother had never shown them his full talents. “Deveraux is more capable than he wished us to believe.”
“Don’t say that turncoat’s name,” Reaper growled.
Serpent rolled his jaw once, testing it, his expression unreadable. “He knows how we operate now.”
Drake thought of his stronghold and cursed. He’d since cleared the space, but what else had Deveraux witnessed? What else had he learned? Memorized? “We need to make a list of all the places we took him along and all the things he might have learned.”
Across from him, Dagger drew a blade halfway from its sheath, then slid it back. Over and over. A bad sign. Dagger only played with his knives when he was thinking very hard about where next to sink them.
Knight leaned forward, forearms braced on the table, hands clasped so tightly the scars across his arms stood out pale. His face was carved from stone, jaw locked, eyes fixed on nothing at all. Saint, beside him, mirrored the stillness, but where Knight radiated barely contained violence, Saint’s grim expression carried something colder.
Drake sighed. They didn’t trust easily. None of them did. He didn’t know if their code would survive that blond haired deceiver. He almost felt pity for the man. “Perhaps he has a good—”
Deveraux has a part to play. He played it.
“—reason.”
“What is it?” Maxen asked softly.
Drake bit down on his jaw. “Something Sirius said when he met.” He repeated the words. “I thought he’d already played his part before he switched loyalty to us, but he never did switch.”
Maxen did not utter a single word, his gaze glacial and unblinking. Even Reaper, the most vocal of them all, said nothing.
Drake drew a slow breath and shifted his gaze to his red-haired flame. His beacon of light and fire. She had declared they would protect one another. He would honor that as far as it was possible. But Sirius and Deveraux would never reach her. Not while he still drew breath. Not while he still had blood left to spill.
“He was in my house,” Maxen said steely. “I won’t stand for his betrayal.”
Drake felt a chill beneath his spine.
