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Sixteen years old
Iremember the first time I realized my brother was crazy. I was twelve years old, and I watched him rip the meat off a man’s bones after he kidnapped me and locked me in an abandoned house to play dress-up. The man was a stranger, and even though our family business was risky, it had no connection with Midnight Mayhem or Kiznitch. Yet my glorious brother tore him to pieces with his bare hands and didn’t blink once. Tonight is just like then, only worse. Worse because this is someone I know, and it’s someone who tried to hurt me.
Doors slam closed outside, and I stop pouring the cashmere pink bubbles into my bath. Reaching for my phone on the counter, I open Spotify and hit play on “OT” by Niykee Heaton before dipping my toe into the warm water. Bubbles spill onto the dark veined marble floors as I sink deeper beneath the water, closing my eyes in an attempt at scrubbing the night away. I don’t want Kyrin to hear me cry because I know it will only make him worse. I’ve handled this school since my parents dumped me in it when Kyrin threw a fit to keep me away from Mayhem, and I will continue to handle it when he goes back on the road. Right now, I need peace. I need to feel nothing. See nothing. Hear nothing. They say drowning is the most peaceful death, I can imagine why. After being suffocated from oxygen for minutes, you welcome the feeling of numbness. Like now. Void. Stuck between a realm of life and death, I could float and hold my breath until I simply… die.
A hand is around my throat, pulling me out of my haze and I swipe water from my face angrily when I resurface. “What the fuck!” As soon as my eyes open, they land on Keaton, one of the four Brothers of Kiznitch. He and my brother have been inseparable since they were born—they all are—but Keaton isn’t like the rest of them. He is simply… different.
My mouth closes as I take in his clothes. Blotches of blood litter his designer jeans, and when I finally look up at his face, I find mud and more blood all over his cheek and shirt. The Brothers of Kiznitch have all been my extended brothers, all of them except Keaton. He is nothing like a brother to me, and that’s largely because he has never treated me the same way the other Brothers have. He doesn’t seem pissed about my presence, but not that fond of it either. He has always just existed. For a long time anyway. But I don’t know if I’d call what we share a normal friendship. My stomach always twists anytime I catch him staring, and it’s become more frequent the older I get, but that doesn’t change the fact that we both fight. Fight probably more than any of the other brothers, Kyrin not included.
“What the fuck, Keaton?” I glare up at him while leaning back against the curve of the bath, flicking my toe against the faucet to turn the hot water back on.
I see him dip to a kneeling position out of the corner of my eye, when his fingers curl around my chin, forcing my face to his. I hold my breath when his eyes settle on mine. Keaton is the scariest of all The Brothers—to everyone but me. Darkness hovers over him everywhere he goes, and no matter what he does, he’ll never be rid of it. Torment swims beneath the surface of his god-like features, and it has always bothered me that I can never take it away. No one can.
“Was there anyone else involved?” His voice is low enough to be a warning. I find myself losing my train of thought when I trace the edges of his naturally swollen lips.
“No,” I whisper, only it comes out broken from the saliva forming in my throat.
He stands back to his full height and kicks off his boots, tugging his shirt over his head from the back and throwing it onto a pile in the corner.
“Keaton…” I warn. “If Kyrin—”
“—don’t really give a fuck right now, Tigger.” I close my eyes and lean against the edge of the bath, listening as the clink of his belt falls to the floor before a long stretch of silence drifts between us. Just when I think he’s not going to do what he’s going to do, I feel his leg brush mine as he lowers himself into the bath opposite me. Keaton and I have kept each other at a distance, and most of the time I think I’m imagining the things I do. The long stares, brushes of hands, lingering touches. We fight as hard as we clearly care about one another, but it has always been clear. The lines have never been blurred.
Until now.
I should have at least left the lights on, and maybe not lit so many candles. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I have to exhale slowly, shakily and desperately.
“Open your eyes.”
I slowly peel them open, and my teeth sink into my lower lip when I catch him staring at me. His hair’s damp and sticking up messily as if he just ran a wet hand through it, and his cheeks are pinched red from the hot water. Keaton is large, bigger than the other Brothers, so his whole torso is out of the bubbles, his long arms stretched wide across the edges. I fixate on one of the demons that is tatted over the front of his throat. He called it my pet when I was twelve years old. He tried to use it to scare me into thinking if I ever got a boyfriend, it would come out and kill him. Never thought much about that until right now.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asks, and his tone is so low it’s a notch above a whisper. If it wasn’t for the tightness in his jaw, I would say he’s calm. But he isn’t. I don’t want to talk about it any more than I want to think about it. A jock locking me in a bedroom with his weird girlfriend and drugging me? No thanks. Hard pass.
“Was it messy?” I dip my fingers into the bubbles, forming a peak with my middle finger.
“You know we don’t share that shit with you.” His fingers come to mine and I pause, looking up at him behind damp lashes. My heart stammers in my chest, sending a live wire right between my thighs when his dark eyes settle on me. “Come here.”
“Keaton…”
He rolls his eyes, brushing bubbles into my face and leaning back against the tub. He brings his eyes back to mine, his lip twitching. “You wanna make me repeat myself?” Keaton and I have never flirted openly. Nothing as obvious as he’s being right now. What happened tonight was shitty, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy him here with me because he makes me feel safe. Keaton has always been the silent protector of the group, but his bullets are invisible. You never know you’ve been shot by him until it’s too late and you’re bleeding out onto the pavement watching your life flash before your eyes.
We’re in a bath. I don’t know if he’s naked, but I know I am. Not that nudity means anything to a Kiznitch, we’ve all seen each other naked, so that’s not what’s weird. What’s weird is that this whole exchange actually isn’t weird at all…
I slide forward, resting my hands on his tatted knees, as he widens them and leans farther back, his head resting against the back of the tub. He hooks his arm around my back, pulling me in against his chest. Water splashes onto the floor and I sigh as I rest against his solid chest. All the torment from tonight runs out of my system at the closeness of him, as if it knows it has nothing on who is beneath me. I’m not surprised that he has his briefs on still, of course, the sexual tension is all in my head. All one-sided. He’s merely comforting little Ice Princess of Mayhem, all while I’m drooling over my brother’s best friend.
His body shifts beneath me, and I feel his lips brush against my head. I trace the pattern of a skull and motorbike on his inner bicep. “I’m sorry you had to kill someone for me tonight.”
His body stiffens before he shuffles to the side. “Look at me.” His voice is low enough to comfort me, but hard enough to demand I follow instructions.
Tilting my head to the side, I peer up at him from below, my eyelids feeling weighted. Probably from the magnesium salts I poured in earlier. Dammit. Why did I do that?
His thick lashes fan over his high cheekbones when he blinks, but he never breaks our connection. “There isn’t a person I wouldn’t kill for you.” He pulls away, leaving me to decipher his words. “If anything, it helps…” he finishes, running his palm over his face. “But you already know that.”
It’s not until the corner of his mouth curves upward that I realize I’ve been staring at his lips. Soft but with enough swell to accentuate the curves of the delicate bow that dips in the middle. His lips are perfect. Too pretty to be on a man with demon tattoos.
“What are you thinking about? Hmm?” It’s almost a slur and has a direct line to reboot every wet dream I’ve had of him since I knew I could have one.
My eyes slam into his, but my tongue sneaks out and slips over my bottom lip. “Not sure I’m really thinking at all…”
