AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not that each death I’ve caused since hasn’t felt as good.
No, each death I’ve caused has felt like a tiny fragment of my soul is being pieced back together. Each death purifying me in purpose. Like a scalpel, I’ve carefully shaved off the rotted pieces of myself and somewhat made myself whole.
Abel moves in his sleep and a small smile appears across his beautiful features.
The voices are different when I look at my son and wife.
They’re still there, but they turn melodic, almost feminine in nature when they look at what little blessings have come into my life.
They urge me to protect and nurture. To guard against harm. To destroy any who would hurt them.
To love.
Love is a foreign word for me.
Never have I felt the need to utter that word before… Not until I saw the smiles Eden and Abel share.
It’s warm and soft. So much so that it almost scares the deeper, more masculine voices in my head. But not quite enough to push them or make them feel threatened.
Somewhere deep inside of me, I expected to feel some discordance between the newer voices and the ones that have driven me for so long. But there is none.
How very strange this all feels.
A buzzing in my hand snaps me out of staring merrily at my infant son. It’s not quite loud enough to wake Abel but I don’t want to take any chances with it.
Moving out of his room, I walk further down the hall to the stairs before pushing the connect button.
“Simon,” I say quietly.
“I’m quite annoyed that I didn’t get to wake you from your slumber like I was not twenty minutes ago,” Simon snarls into the phone. “Do you have any fucking clue why my family just got woken up by a crate being dropped off in front of our home?”
“No,” I say. “Perhaps another one of James’s pranks?”
“It’s fucking addressed to you, Jude, and it’s from Kentucky. The label says it’s from the Royal Bastards,” Simon snaps.
A smile spreads across my face. “I did speak to Coy a couple weeks ago. He said he was shipping me something. I was unsure if I would still be in town, so I gave him your address.”
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Simon growls. “Get herenow.”
“I’d rather not right now,” I say and look back up the hall towards my family. “I’m not sure it’s quite safe to leave them yet.”
“I’ll have the security team park in your driveway and station them in the backyard.” Simon sighs. “Get here and get whatever the fuck this is out of my driveway.”
I want to argue, but I can feel the tension dripping through the phone. It also wouldn’t hurt to pick his brain a bit. Maybe he can see the piece that’s been nagging at the back of my brain.
“How big is the crate?” I ask.
“It’s eight feet long,” Simon says with a huff. “I’ll have Johnathan come get you with his pickup truck.”
Pushing the disconnect button on the phone, I frown down at the screen. I don’t fucking like being taken away from my family. But it was bound to happen, regardless of my desires. I’m just not ready to be separated from them.
Moving back upstairs to get dressed, I feel a weight on my shoulders.
The real world is coming back into focus, and I can feel the weight of too many hidden threats.
When I was alone it was so much easier to move through the world. I could be and do anything I wanted before Eden and Abel came into my life.
Now I must always be vigilant.
