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“Crawl out of your anthill, Doc?” I asked with feigned sweetness.

Ignoring me, he stepped further into the kitchen and peered at the bowl in front of Ronan. His nose crinkled in distaste, skin between his brows furrowing.

“Ew.”

With that proclamation, he sat at the table like the condescending ass wipe he was.

Doc was, as the namesake suggested, a doctor who had saved me after I had been shot. Of course, he was halfway behind it. He’d been part of the rival group who had shot me before we had kidnapped him.

Yup. Kidnapped.

We were apparently doing that now.

Speaking of kidnapped victims...

Kai stepped into the kitchen, stretching his arms over his head.

Honestly, I didn’t know what Ronan and Ryder were thinking when they brought him here. They claimed it was momentary insanity.

“Morning, ladies,” he chirped. Yup. He was one of those people - you know the type. Always happy and smiling and stabbing people.

“It’s seven at night, dumbass,” Ronan snapped. My green-haired leprechaun was not a fan of Kai.

“Semantics.”

He moved to the table and sat beside Doc, two outsiders staring through a glass window at the rest of us. Only, after three months, they weren’t outsiders. Not anymore. They weren’t a part of my “harem” as Doc so eloquently liked to point out, but I didn’t hate them. Doc and Kai were the two older brothers I never had and never knew I wanted.

And, of course, I didn’t miss the looks they sent each other when they thought no one was looking.

“Dinner is served, ma chérie,” Ronan said, placing the bowl onto the table. It appeared to be some type of cold stew and a loaf of bread. In today’s day and age, it was the equivalent of a five-star meal.

Smiling at his over-the-top antics, I surveyed the room once more.

“Where’s Tamson?” I asked. His red hair was noticeably absent.

When no one replied, I felt panic unfurl in my gut.

“Guys, where is he?” My hands gripped the back of the dining room chair, painfully aware that not one of the guys was making eye-contact with me.

“He went on a supply run, Princess,” Ronan cajoled soothingly. He took a step forward, but I automatically stepped away.

“By himself?” I hated how my voice came out as a screech. “No! He can’t be by himself! What if something happened to him? What if he doesn’t come back? Oh god…”

I collapsed onto the ground, my legs unable to keep me up, to keep me balanced. The world was spinning, rotating on its axis, and I couldn’t hold on. The ground continually opened its gaping maws to swallow me whole, dragging me into the dark abyss I knew awaited a broken, rotten girl like myself.

“Addie, he’ll be fine,” Ryder tried to comfort, but I shoved his hand away. They always did that - comforted me - as if their entire world hadn’t also been destroyed at the same time mine had.

They were brothers in the truest sense of the word. Kinship and fidelity was a choice, one they made, and they created ties that could not be severed by the sharpest of knives. While some may have looked at their team as a burdened obligation, a weight on their shoulders, my men saw it as an opportunity to make a family, a family they had lacked. Falling in love with me only fortified that bond instead of breaking it apart.

Losing Calax, Fallon, and Declan was just one of many tragedies. Our lives were a myriad of them.

I knew they could feel their lost brethren's absence as keenly as I could.

I hated how often I fell apart, how grief had shattered the last of my sensibilities. I needed my men with me, all of them, or else I would lose myself completely. I couldn’t fathom a world without them in it, but unfortunately I had to.

Every. Single. Day.

I was sobbing, whispering inarticulate phrases, when strong arms wrapped around me. Without even opening my eyes, I knew the man holding me was Tamson.