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CHAPTERFIVE
Power Over Me
BEAST
“How are you feeling, mate?” Connall asks a couple nights later whilst we sit in his older brother’s pub nursing a few beers.
“Looks like your brother could use a hand,” I remark, absentmindedly watching Tom as he serves his regulars here at The Noble Arms. They’ve been getting more and more inebriated as the night drags on. “Shouldn’t you go and help him out?”
“Tom’s used to it,” he replies, waving my concern off. “Now stop avoiding the question. You’ve been tighter-lipped than a virgin fucking for the first time. Spit it out.”
Downing the last of my pint, I place the glass on the table and scrape a hand over my face. “It ain’t me who that question should be aimed at.”
“Grim take what you told her badly then?”
“What doyouthink? I should’ve stayed to see if she was okay.”
“Yeah, I imagine hearing the news was like getting punched in the bollocks.”
“Or the tits…”
“What the shit?” I exclaim as we both look up at Nancy, Dom’s girl, who’s standing by the table with a tray of drinks in her hand. I’m about to ask her how much she knows when Dom pushes through the crowd and pecks her on the cheek.
“Alright?” he asks, looking between us.
Nancy slides the tray onto the table and hands out the drinks, taking a seat opposite us, then says, “Beast was just explaining to Connall about how Grim took the news about Carter and that prick the King.”
“You know?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at her.
“Yeah, about that,” Dom begins, pulling a face as he sits down next to her.
“What part ofkeeping that information to yourselfdidn’t you understand?” I hiss, pissed off that he broke my trust.
“Easy now,” Connall warns, forever the voice of reason. He’s got me out of untold scrapes over the past couple years when my head has been all over the place and my fuse short.
Dom meets my hard stare. “You’ve got a right to be angry, Beast,” he says, lowering his voice even though the punters in the pub are far too busy getting merry to give a shit about what we’re discussing. “Truth is, Nancy was getting suspicious of all of the secret phone calls and texts that I had no choice but to tell her the truth if I wanted to keep my bollocks intact. Besides, after you left, Grim needed a friend of the female variety. Being surrounded by all those pumped-up men, she needed some female company to balance shit out. Nancy was more than happy to step into that role given the friendship they’d already begun to form before you left.”
“Surrounded bywhatmen?” I grind out, forgetting about everything else he’s just said and honing in on that fucking part.
Connall laughs. “Did that bullet Grim fired into your chest somehow affect your brain or was it the crack to the head from Derby that did the job?”
“Shut the fuck up, “ I retort, grabbing the drink Nancy brought over and gulping some back, knowing I’m acting like a possessive prick, but unable to help myself.
“Seriously mate, Grim’s theQueen of Tales, and spends every day with a fuck-load of men. She’s stunningandpowerful. What man in his right mind wouldn’t want to pursue her?” Connall says.
My head snaps around, and I glare at the bastard for speaking the truth. I know Kate’s been surrounded by a whole host of eligible men these past two years, and without me as a buffer, to protect her from their greedy motherfucking hands, they’ve had ample opportunity to try and get into her knickers. It doesn't make it any easier to hear though. Just thinking about it gets me raging, and my fingers twitching to cut out their damn hearts.
“You know you don’t have to worry about me,” Nancy says, defusing my anger a little with the change of subject. “I’d never do anything to hurt Grim. Iswearit. I’ve got her back just as much as you do.”
I meet her gaze and nod. Nancy’s a good woman, I already know that. “I believe you.”
Her shoulders relax and she gives me a warm smile. “Good, because it’s the truth.”
Next to her Dom takes a long swig of his drink. “Thank fuck, I wasn’t looking forward to going at it with you, not after how you finished off Derby.”
“Luckily for you I don’t fight my friends.”
“We’re friends?” he asks jokingly.
