Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
Kinder bows and I respond with a wink, heading to the SUV. I slide into the back as everyone follows, with Halen directly in front of me and her brother beside her.
I run one of the fingers I used to fuck her with over my upper lip, grinning around the movement.
She clears her throat. “Uh, so who is going to fill me in?”
Vaden snickers, glaring out the window. “How much do you know about Perdita and what it’s used for?”
She shrugs, and it’s amusing. As much as she thinks she can handle what happens, I’m one hundred percent sure she can’t. Which is fine. It just means that she’s easy to mold into whatever the fuck we want.
I.
Whatever the fuck I want.
“Only what is told in the Hayeses’ grimoire.” Those fucking old tales told by equally as old ancestors who couldn’t shut the fuck up. Some things would have been better left a mystery, and everything inside of each family’s grimoire included.
“And by told, you mean secondhand?” Vaden comes back to her.
Her cheeks turn pink, and I know it’s getting to her that she doesn’t know what we’re talking about.
“When our parents got pregnant, they decided to move us all back to Riverside. They spent their young years in the Hamptons, but they knew that when the time came, they would bring us back here. While they were gone, Riverside was a fucking mess. Filled with crime and drugs, it took our families coming back for it to leave. But it did just that. It disappeared. For them, it was fine because they didn’t have to do anything extreme. The trash took itself out. Until a couple weeks ago.”
She blinks at me and I fight the urge to laugh.
“Hmmm…” She crosses her leg over the other, her matte black fingernail beating against her thigh.
A thigh I not long ago had in the palm of my hand.
I grab onto the crotch of my jeans to readjust myself.
“And what has that got to do with the van load of people?”
Priest turns to her. “It’s why they’re here. This is part of what we do.”
She seems to muse over his answer before her hands come together with a clap. “Okay. Since we’re switching stories, which, by the way, I didn’t know, so thanks for that—” She leans over and her fingers wrap around mine when she reaches for the bottle.
My jaw tenses when her touch ripples through me like thunder.
I release it and she falls against her chair, covering her lips around the rim. Lips that need to meet my cock ASAP.
“What is it…” My brows lift.
“Yeah, what is it that you need to tell us?” Priest baits her, and I know—I just know—she’s about to slap us all in the face. The tension in the air shifts as the car stops, but none of us move from our seats.
She takes a swig of the amber liquid, swiping her mouth with the back of her hand. There’s a knock on the window at the same moment her mouth widens.
She gestures outside. “Oh well. Isn’t this a turn of events.”
I look out the window to see River and Stella standing against the two pillars on the porch.
“What the fuck—” I shove the door open, ignoring the prying eyes of the two Lost Boys who have both jumped out of idling cars.
I point to Stella and my sister. “What the fuck are you both doing here?”
Stella rolls her fucking eyes to the back of her head, brushing her hair over her leather-clad shoulder. “What? You think that you’re the only ones who are Kings? Or that it rests solely on Halen?”
River shakes her head. “Let’s go inside. We can’t do this out here, we don’t know who is watching.”
“Wait a damn—”
River cuts me off. “War, I swear to God.”
My lip curls up as I force myself back down into the car, grabbing Halen from around her wrist and hauling her out.
“Ouch! War!” she howls but ambles out.
I shove her against the side of the car and when I catch movement in the back, I glare at Priest. “Don’t fucking even…”
His eyes narrow for a moment, before his big shoulders lift when he climbs out of the car.
I know he isn’t good with this, but he and I will talk about it later, and besides, he understands the way I feel about River and how much I have tried to keep shit from her all her life. She’s even more sheltered than Halen and Stella. Stella has always done whatever the fuck she wants, but River was the good one. She did what she was told, never put her nose into shit she knew not to, and always kept to the girls.
“What the fuck have you done?” I force out from gritted teeth.
Halen has always been the diva. She got what she wanted, whenever she wanted, and no one ever asked questions.