Page 60
Story: Princes of Legacy
When I come, burying myself inside of her with a pained grunt, it feels just like death should be. Earned. Warm. Final. But Verity and I aren’t death. We’re something much more complicated and difficult to earn.
She and I are creators.
I touch the roundness of her belly, the reality of it banging around my ribcage like some wild, unfettered thing.
This is my son.
I brush my lips against hers.
This is my Princess.
I gasp for air, tasting the tang of blood and the edge of old, rusty death.
This is my legacy.
9
Verity
My first nightback in East End, I fall asleep so quickly that it’s hours before I realize Wicker and I aren’t alone in the enormous Princess bed. A part of me was afraid to even expect Pace and Lex. Before I left, neither of them would sleep in here, both practicing their own forms of obsessive vigilance.
But that was before Pace took me to bed in the Royal Ink loft, sliding so carefully inside of me that he never moved an inch once he was seated. On the other side of the door, Lex was saving Nick Bruin’s life, but for Pace and I, the world was whittled down to the curl of his body against mine as I finally fell asleep.
It was also before Lagan emerged from slumber, rough and desperate. Possessive. But not cruel. Not like Lex was so afraid he’d be. To Lex, I’m a duty, but Lagan sees me as his woman. I think both of us understand this now.
So I’m more surprised than I should be to hear their quiet, gravelly voices through the fog of sleep.
“Wicker,” Lex whispers. “Shut up.”
Since Wicker is wound around me like a vine, his voice is louder, my ear pressed to his sternum. “I didn’t say anything.” He sounds confused.
“I can hear you thinking.” Lex sighs. “It’s like nails on a chalkboard.”
Against my other side, Pace mutters, “Seriously. You’d think someone who just got spectacularly laid wouldgo to sleep.”
“Don’t blame me,” Wicker hisses. “Lex is the one who instituted the ‘only one fuck per day’ rule, and both of you got some long before I did. Fair’s fair.”
My lips twitch, but I don’t give away that I’m slowly rousing.
“We have to go easy on her cervix.” Lex’s voice is imbued with a familiar exasperation. Truthfully, this whole ‘one fuck per day’ rule is news to me. Maybe that was part of the discussion they had when Wicker and I returned from the cemetery, bloody and lust-drunk. Lex had dragged his brothers off for what I expected to be a dressing down for the two of us going off territory without backup other than Ballsy.
There’s a flutter against my stomach and then the warmth of rough fingertips. “I was just wondering…” Wicker’s voice is stilted, hushed. “Do you think he’ll look like me?”
Lex answers this a little too quickly. “Statistically, without knowing her exact genotypes, there’s a seventy-five percent chance he’ll be blonde.”
Wicker’s touch on my belly lingers. “No shit?”
There’s a slight jostle behind me, and then Pace’s voice. “Green eyes, you think?”
Lex hums. “Eye color is more complex than a simple Mendelian trait, but for the sake of simplification, yes. Green eyes are inherently dominant over blue.”
“Fitting,” Pace says, snorting, and then I’m shaken as Wicker lobs a punch over my shoulder to his brother’s forehead.
“Don’t,” Wicker hisses, “wake her up. She went through a lot today.”
“The Princess goes through a lotevery day,” Lex replies quietly, “but what’s different is you asking about genetics and hereditary traits. Since when do you care about all that stuff?”
There’s a long beat where I’m sure he’s not going to answer, but then he does. “What happened in the mausoleum. It was… intense.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182