Page 73
Story: Princes of Legacy
Suddenly, Verity is there beside us, her eyes—a shade of green I could pick out of a lineup—pin me with a defiant stare. “We’re still more yours than anyone else’s. Me, Lex, Wicker,” snagging my hand, she rests it on the swell of her belly, “andthe baby.”
She can’t mean that.
There’s no paper to tell Lex the data.
There’s no shiny secret about it, traded to Wick in a dark, dusty room.
There’s no long, entwined, shared history with her.
All the anger has rushed out of me, leaving a heavy, hollow feeling. “I’m not a creator,” I tell her, unable to shake this abrupt awareness that her son has nothing of me. “All I have to offer any of you is… this.” I nod at the monitors, thinking of long nights spent watching over them all, knowing this is my place.
Lex is the body.
Wick is the blood.
I’m just the empty, watching eyes.
She follows my gaze, mouth going slack. “Is that why you’ve been so on edge these past few months? Pace, you’re more to us than justthe security guy.” She turns to me, the look on her face so achingly sincere that it makes my gut clench. “You’re my Prince.” Resting her hand over mine, she insists, “You’re his father.”
Wicker’s looking at me like I just slapped him in the face. “You’re my brother.”
I hear the words, but I can’t reach them. Can’tfeelthem. The panic is rolling like a rogue wave through my veins. “We only work as a family because we don’t have anyone else,” I tell him. It’s how it’s always been. We’re the discarded remnants of Royal flukes. Stones that have been eroded into misshapen fragments that somehow lock together.
“Wick,” Verity whispers, brimming eyes sliding to him. “Show him.”
Before I can wonder how he could even begin, he has a handful of my shirt collar, hauling me into him. It’s closer to a punch than a kiss, his mouth slamming into mine. There’s an edge of pain, and then a familiar warmth, his tongue demanding against mine.
Without having to think about it, I grab his face in response, meeting his kiss with the sort of aggression I’d never inflict on Verity. It’s bruising and consuming, and when Wicker tears himself away, his eyes burn like fire.
“You’re right,” he says, bending to pull that knife from his boot. “Blood matters.”
The sight of him cutting into his wrist is somehow more confusing than the kiss, although it shouldn’t be. How many times have the three of us done this? Promises and pacts—on my blood—it’s the first part of Wicker’s Baron heritage he ever embraced.
I stand still as he grabs my hand, exposing the ladder of scars made in dark, quiet places. These were etched to track the passage of time, and grasping my wrist, Wicker bisects them with a clean cut. “Family, always.”
I barely feel the sting.
Verity gasps, watching as he clutches my forearm, the wounds meeting.
“Onourblood,” Wicker says, which isn’t how the promise goes. It’s supposed to be made onhisblood. On Lex’s blood.
Onourblood?
Swallowing, I grasp his forearm, knowing it’s a stupid ritual. A Baron ritual. A ritual Lex has always hated but tolerated.
But it’s still ours.
“On our blood,” I promise, squeezing.
The only thing that breaks me away from his gaze is the flash of crimson I see in my periphery. Immediately, I drop Wick’s hand, sucking in a sharp hiss. “What the fuck are you doing?” I knock Wicker’s knife out of Verity’s hand, wondering when she even took it.
The blood trickles down her pale skin—shallow cut, thank fuck—but when I snatch her wrist, she just turns it in my grip, those obstinate green eyes trapping mine. “This is how it goes, right? Now our blood is yours?”
When she strains up to brush our lips together, my fingers flutter over the curve of her belly. “Don’t,” I whisper when we break away, resting my forehead against hers. “Don’t take himaway from me.” She doesn’t ask who I’m talking about—our son or Wicker, maybe even Lex too—which is good, because I couldn’t give an answer.
I just know that I’m nothing without all four of them.
She responds by touching my cheek, the scent of blood and old rain heady in the air between us. “Never.” She breathes, “On our blood.”
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