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I saw her as I had in the beginning but with a little more flare.

She reminded me of a lioness, stunning and fierce as fuck, now leader of the pride. She looked like a goddess, but she was a maleficent queen. And she was the mother of my child.

There were lots of nice words I could dress up for her but I knew from experience that words were often empty. I planned to show her all the shit I couldn’t say as soon as this was over.

She told me she wouldn’t do anything purposely reckless that could hurt our baby before reminding me that being pregnant didn’t mean she couldn’t kill anyone who fucked with her. Her bloodlust made my dick hard, and I fell for her a little fucking more.

I turned onto the temporary last leg of our trip and prepared myself to see a face I had left behind years ago to build up the Savages.

The truck ahead of me pulled to the side of the road when I turned off again, moving to an area that would cover my jeep.

My front end dipped down and came right back up, moving smoothly out of a ditch, forcing thick leaves to part as I drove into a small clearing.

Cobra followed right behind me, stopping when we were fender to bumper. I slid out, making sure I didn’t wake Cali. Grimm shifted in the backseat, careful not to wake Arlen, whose legs were stretched across his lap.

“Didn’t think we’d ever come back here.” He waved his hands to the woods we’d be walking through once we formed a mini huddle.

“You two assholes remember to keep your mouths shut,” Cobra directed at Bryce and Dhal.

“You have nothing to worry about on my end. I’m here to keep her safe if things go haywire, not give a history lesson,” Bryce replied indignantly.

I wasn’t real worried about him.

He’d been closer to us than anyone else had for the past two years. It was Dhal I expected to fuck up and tell Cali things I didn’t want her to know.

I had enough to bullshit to deal with. I’d never handled her with kid gloves, never needed to. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t shield her from shit sure enough to fuck up her already fucked up head.

Hearing car doors slam on the other side of the clearing was my queue to get shit moving.

“Let’s get them up.”

It was time to take a step back into my sordid past.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

If there was anything I’d learned in life, it was that traipsing through the woods usually led me right into a shitty situation.

At least those times had been partially my fault. Since Romero was the one leading us like a good little duck and ignoring me when I asked where we were going, if anything went wrong, I was blaming him.

“You get used to it,” Cobra snickered when he caught me side-eyeing one of the acolytes walking on my left.

“Right,” I said slowly. Being followed by someone in a long black robe and satanic mask wasn’t really something I saw myself adjusting to, but I was sucking it up.

Arlen walked on our right with Grimm. A triangular formation of acolytes was behind us and there was one on each outer ring of our little group.

“Hey, I need you to know that I wasn’t trying to leave you behind on the bridge. I thought I could divert the attention off the car.”

“No hard feelings C, you’d know if there were.” I smiled at him, watching as once again, his eyes flickered to Bryce.

I couldn’t blame him for that. Bryce wasn’t overly tall and he had only a few tattoos, the inverted cross being one of them. But he was well built, his face could make a few panties drop, and he seemed the most normal out of all of us—aside from Dhal, who was so sweet I legit couldn’t stand it.

“I like puss––”

“You don’t have to explain it to me. Ever. Don’t forget that I’m in the same boat.” I swiftly cut him off. I didn’t want him justifying his sexuality to me of all people. I didn’t care if he wanted to suck off Adam on Thursday and ride Eve on Friday. That was his prerogative.

He nodded, letting my words sink in. “You’re a pretty cool chick, sis.”

“I know, right?”