Page 27

THORIN

“ I s this really necessary?” Aurelia whines for the umpteenth time. “It itches.”

The four of us are sitting around the fire in our living room, waiting for the storms we’ve been pinned under for days to pass. After rescuing Aurelia, we made it back to the cabin just in time for another squall to hit us hard. Only these cabin walls we’d built with our bare hands separate us from certain death while we have the perfect view of the storm-ridden wilds out of the panoramic window overlooking the Cold Peaks.

Khalil had wasted no time rigging an ankle monitor of sorts, using an avalanche beacon, which now adorns Aurelia’s ankle. It’s a bluff that he gambled she wouldn’t call since the tracker only picks up the signal within two hundred feet. All she needs to know is that we can find her even faster if she runs again—which she will.

It’s given us a little piece of mind that our pet won’t get far, but Aurelia’s been spitting venom ever since—even more than usual. Honestly, she’s lucky it didn’t occur to Khalil to make a shock collar instead. She’s lucky I don’t suggest it to him.

Khalil looks up from the small wooden block he’s been carving for the last hour and gives her a hard look. “Are you going to run again?”

He’s still salty from the black eye she gave him after he told her the monitor was for her. It had taken all three of us holding her down to get it on and a very descriptive warning of what would happen if she took it off. She can, of course, if she can find something strong enough to cut through the thick metal cuff.

“Probably.”

“Then it’s necessary.”

“It itches .”

“You said that already.”

“That’s because it really itches!”

“The collar stays on, wolf.”

Aurelia shifts her displeasure to me, giving Khalil a much-needed break from her complaining. “Classic misogyny,” she says with a scoff. “You say it’s because I’m a danger to myself, but I don’t see you tagging Seth. He was out there, too.”

She has a point…

Hearing Aurelia throw him under the bus, Seth sits up and gapes at her. “What the fuck, Sunshine?”

“Shut up, Seth. You want to talk about betrayal? You let them do this to me.”

My brows dip. What the hell is she talking about? Since when is Seth on her side?

“Hey, hey.” Reaching down, Seth strokes her full bottom lip, and my cock hardens when Aurelia looks up at him like she’s finally getting what she was after all along—not the collar off as she claimed.

This.

Our attention.

We haven’t been ignoring her like she thinks—Khalil with his carving, me with weapons maintenance, and Seth with his book. There isn’t a single moment when we stop being aware of her, but keeping our hands busy has been our only way of keeping them off her so she could heal. Right now, Aurelia’s the only one without anything to do since she finished cleaning this morning, and we’re all still full from breakfast, which was marginally better than her recent attempts.

“We told you, Sunshine. It’s for your own good. We’re just trying to keep you safe.”

The eager look clears, and Aurelia yanks her face away. “You cannot be serious.”

“Fuck it,” I say, setting down the crossbow since she won’t shut the fuck up. It draws her gaze again, and I see her interest in the weapon. She’s curious about it, and God help us all if she ever figures out how it works. “You want to know what your real issue is?”

“Thorin, don’t,” Khalil’s pussy-whipped ass warns.

I ignore him. “You keep waiting for us to give you a good excuse for why we’re doing this. There is none. There never will be. We do it because we want you and because there’s no one to stop us from taking what we want. As long as you keep trying to get away, we’re going to keep tightening your leash until you give us no choice but to strangle you with it. This is your home now, wolf, and the three of us are where the rest of your life starts and ends. It’s up to you how much of it you enjoy, but the tracker stays on until you convince us we don’t need it.”

Aurelia falls quiet, and I consider it progress.

A week and a half ago, she would have screamed obscenities and insults, but she’s finally learning that nothing she says will suddenly turn us into good men. We’ve been nothing but honest about who we are and what we want from her. She just chooses not to listen.

Just as we chose to live in the wilds because redemption was the last thing we were looking for.

There’s no saving us.

There’s no saving Aurelia, either.

Aurelia doesn’t talk back, but not a minute later, she starts fucking with that damn tracker again, and even Seth looks exasperated with her. She yanks and tugs and grumbles her frustration when it doesn’t budge. If she could bend that far, I have no doubt she’d chew her own leg free.

“Aurelia,” Khalil says without looking up from the wolf he’s carving into the left half of the block. “Go make me a sandwich.”

Her head pops up, and she stops trying in vain to get the bracelet off—to get free of us. Quietly, she stands and leaves the room. I go back to lubricating the crossbow rail, and Seth returns to his book the moment we hear her working on Khalil’s sandwich in the kitchen.

“You know she’s going to spit it in,” I warn Khalil without looking up.

After blowing away some of the loose shavings from his carving, he says, “I know.”

Five minutes later, I’m switching the crossbow out for one of the handguns when Aurelia returns with a plate and glass of milk.

“Mmm,” he hums. “Look delicious, baby.” he lies. “Thank you.” Khalil takes the plate and glass and sets them on the coffee table before pulling her onto the recliner with him.

“What are you making?” she asks as I clear the chamber before taking the handgun apart.

Sneaking a peek at them, I see Khalil frowning down at the carving like it perplexes him. I’d guessed what it was the moment he started carving. “I don’t know yet.”

“Well, if you sell this one, can you please trade it for a decent conditioner? My hair can’t take much more of this two-in-one nonsense you barbarians use. I may have to shave my head.”

I pause at that.

Khalil’s clearly been talking if she knows how we pay for most of our supplies. We sank all of our money into this place years ago and now save every penny of the wages we get from SAR missions in case we have to run again.

When our gazes meet over Aurelia’s shoulder, Khalil shrugs, not even bothering to try to deny giving into his inane need for pillow talk.

“I’ll think about it,” he says before going back to his carving.

It leaves Aurelia’s mind to wander. “So, what do you guys do for fun around here?”

Seth grunts but doesn’t look up from his fantasy book when he answers. “This.”

Aurelia is back to looking horrified. “What, like every day?”

“Only when the weather is bad,” I answer. “But yeah, pretty much.”

“But this isn’t fun. It’s…it’s inhumane. You don’t even have WiFi. Don’t you get bored?”

“Yes, wolf. We get bored. Sometimes downright feral with cabin fever, but that’s only been an issue of late. For the first year, we were too busy learning how to hunt and survive to be bored. And then we started building this cabin somewhere between the second and third year. I wish I could say it went flawlessly, but it didn’t, and it ate up four more years. Learning every inch of this mountain forward, backward, and sideways took another three.”

“Okay, well, that’s eight years. You said you’ve been out here for nine. What did you do with the last year of your life? How did you pass the time?”

Seth is the one who answers, closing his book so that he can meet her gaze. “We thought about you.”

Aurelia immediately stiffens. “But you said you didn’t know who I was.”

“We didn’t. But we knew the kind of woman it would take to handle all three of us. We knew it would have to be someone just as monumentally and irrevocably fucked up—whose darkness rivals our own.” Picking his book again and staring at the pages, Seth says with an ironic lift of his brows, “Got to say, Sunshine, you did not disappoint.”

“If I’m so dark and screwed up, why do you call me that? I’m like the least pleasant person ever.”

Seth sighs wistfully while his gaze moves across the page he isn’t reading. “Because I’ve lived my entire life without seeing the sunrise, and then one day, there it was, sleeping in my brother’s bed.”

The last thing any of us expect is for Aurelia to crawl out of Khalil’s lap and into Seth’s.

Khalil is so pissed he drops his carving when she stands from the recliner and walks the short distance to the couch where Seth and I are sitting. I watch from under my lashes as Seth welcomes her with a grin, and then they kiss.

For a really long fucking time.

When they finally come up for air, Aurelia rests her head on his shoulder while Seth beams like she just reached inside her chest and offered him her beating heart. “Read to me.”

Seth starts reading.

“So, she’s definitely working Seth,” Khalil whispers to me an hour later. Once I was done cleaning and sharpening the weapons, Khalil offered to help me carry them back down to the basement. Seth and Aurelia are still upstairs, and we can hear Seth reading animatedly to her.

“Of course she is.”

She’d be dumb not to, and our girl is fucking amazing.

Out of the three of us, Seth’s the softest on her. He actually likes her, while I enjoy using her mouth and pussy and nothing more. Well, maybe her ass too, but that will come later.

“Any thoughts on what we should do about it?”

“Nothing.” I shrug as I store the crossbow inside and shut the locker doors before securing the chain around the handle and locking the padlock with the key dangling from twine around my neck. It’s a fucking risk keeping our only protection locked up like this and not easily accessible, but Aurelia has given us no choice.

Our wolf is bloodthirsty, just like us.

“Nothing?” Khalil echoes.

“Seth may be a virgin, but he isn’t dumb, Khalil. You see the way she lets him touch her. He’s working her too.”

Khalil hums like he hasn’t considered that before. His senseless jealousy over Aurelia pretending to like Seth more has been clouding his head.

“All right then, so we do nothing.” Khalil is just starting to relax when the sound of Aurelia’s shrieking laughter floats down the stairs, and his hackles raise once more. “But I swear to God, Seth better fuck it up soon, or I might smother them both.” In a flowery voice, he mocks with his arm outstretched, “ I didn’t see the sunrise until you . Who the fuck does he think he is? Yeats Jr?”

I smirk as I tuck the locker key back inside my shirt where it stays safely hidden from Aurelia. “Mad that the student has become the master or because you’ve lost your touch?”

“Can never happen,” he returns smugly. “I’m Khalil motherfucking Poverly.”

I groan as I start for the stairs. “Please don’t tell me she’s rubbing off on you already.”

Aurelia has finally stopped obnoxiously reminding us of who she is—as if we could forget—and now Khalil’s ass is taking a page from her book.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Khalil denies as he wraps his hands and then grabs his boxing gloves from the hook.

The sound of him warming up on one of the speed bags follows me up the stairs.

“And the dragon that everyone thought a myth soared across the field, roaring its fury at being disturbed from its centuries-long slumber,” Seth narrates.

“Oh, no,” Aurelia says.

“Mm-hmm,” Seth hums his agreement. Rolling my eyes, I’m on my way to the kitchen to dig up lunch when I hear Seth ask, “Can you take one more?”

Pausing, I look back in time to see Aurelia give a nervous nod.

Seth smiles and pecks her shoulder.

A moment later, Aurelia tenses, her head tipping back as she moans his name softly. “Seth.”

Forgetting my empty stomach, I sneak over to the living room as Seth continues to read aloud.

“Hardened warriors screamed in terror and trembled in fear at the sight of the terrifying dragon with black and gold scales. Many ran for their lives, but there was no escaping Mantonoth the Bane. Each who ran met a fiery end. The bravest became a feast for the hungry dragon.”

“Oh, God.” Aurelia starts writhing in his lap now. There’s no way she finds the story that enthralling. “More, Seth.”

I round the couch where they’re sitting to see Aurelia with her peasant dress bunched around her waist, one leg slung over the couch arm, and three of Seth’s fingers lodged deep in her pussy, and from the sounds that fill the space between her moans, she’s sopping .

Aurelia’s eyes flick toward me and quickly darts away upon realizing she and Seth aren’t alone anymore, but she doesn’t ask him to stop. Taking a seat in Khalil’s recliner, where I’ll have the best view, I get comfortable.

Seth ignores me as he continues to read and finger Aurelia’s pussy. “The tyrant Fae king looked on helplessly as, one by one, his soldiers and army fell to the claws, teeth, and fire of his grandfather’s greatest enemy. None were a match for Mantonoth the Bane.”

I can see her puffy lower lips parting for him each time Seth tunnels his fingers inside. I can even see her arousal coating his fingers when he pulls out just to push them deep again.

As the tension in the story rises, so does Seth’s pace until Aurelia is crying out for him.

His unintentional edging exacts its toll on our thorny little cum dumpster, and Aurelia bites into her bottom lip, the divot between her brows deepening as she squirms in agitation. “Seth… please .”

I can see Seth’s hand pause in uncertainty, and I give myself permission to stop biting my tongue and help him out.

“Her clit, Seth. She needs you to stimulate it so she can come,” I remind him. The advice draws Aurelia’s grateful gaze to me, and she doesn’t look away even when Seth withdraws his fingers and beelines for the engorged nub.

She’s still staring at me when Seth finds it, her muscles seizing as she comes with a sharp cry.

I stay where I am until Aurelia is relaxed and Seth is reading again, and then I force myself to stand. I can feel their curious gazes following me as I disappear inside my bedroom right off the living room.

I head straight for my nightstand, where I keep the lube.

Aurelia’s already soaked, but a little extra insurance won’t hurt for what I have in mind.

When I return to the living room, my gaze zeros in on Seth’s hand, which is now idly rubbing the inside of her stretched thigh as he finishes the chapter.

“The once green meadow became an oasis of blood and body parts and death as Mantonoth exacted his revenge on mankind for the death of his beloved. His mate. Ollantia.”

Seth closes the book and sets it aside.

“Did everyone die?” Aurelia asks sleepily.

“Of course. Gruesomely.”

She sighs in contentment, then leans her head back and closes her eyes. “Good.”

“Sorry about that,” I say as I reach them. “Aurelia seemed so greedy for your fingers. I thought she might need a hand.”

Seth tears his face and nose away from Aurelia’s hair, where they were buried, and raises his brows in question. His gaze drops to the lube in my hand and then returns to me several times before understanding finally dawns in his green eyes.

He’s always been fascinated with that particular kink. Now’s as good a time as any since Aurelia’s already come once and doesn’t hate him at the moment. She’s nice and pliable.

“Go slow,” I warn when I toss the bottle next to him.

Seth nods as I take a seat on the coffee table and pray it holds my weight because I have to see this up close. “Sunshine.”

Aurelia doesn’t respond, and Seth has to nudge her ass awake because she dozed off that fast from coming so hard. Her thighs are still gapped open and I can see her pretty pussy glistening. I have to grip the table with both hands to stay where I am when Aurelia jerks awake. Her brown, sleepy gaze is unguarded for once as she blinks at me.

“Huh?”

The urge to tell her how beautiful she is gets stuck in my throat while Seth nuzzles her neck with a smile. “Wake up, gorgeous. We’re not done with you yet. Thorin wants to see if you can take more. You can do that for him, can’t you?”

She blinks sleepy eyes at Seth, and slowly, some of her vigilance returns when she notices the lube. “I think so.”

Seth continues to rub her thigh with his free hand. “You’re so good to us, Sunshine.”

Aurelia doesn’t respond, so he quickly helps her out of her dress before she can change her mind and then shifts them both so that they’re lying on their sides. I grab the bottle of lube before they crush it and make a mess.

Once Seth has them arranged the way he likes, he props his head on his fist and stares down at Aurelia. “You okay, Sunshine?” Her eyes are closed when she nods. “Do you want me to stop?”

Her eyes pop open, and the surprise in them makes me drop my head for some reason.

“You mean you would?”

“Probably.”

Aurelia snorts as she shifts onto her back to stare up at him. Her eyes even twinkle when she grins. “Liar.”

“I’d seriously consider it?”

“ Liar .”

I lift my head when Seth and Aurelia’s teasing ends, and they fall quiet as she makes up her mind.

True to her unyielding nature, she makes us wait.

My skin prickles with anticipation when the seconds tick by without her answer. Seth doesn’t seem all that worried, though, as he traces shapes—fucking hearts —on her stomach.

“No, I don’t want to stop.”

The breath I didn’t know I was holding rushes out of me, and I don’t even care if they hear it.

“Are you okay with Thorin staying, or would you like him to get lost?”

My gaze shoots to Seth and narrows, but his focus is on Aurelia.

I can still hear Khalil taking his excess energy out on the punching bags downstairs. Maybe I’ll join him if Aurelia says no because if I don’t get off in some way that doesn’t involve my hand, I…will…lose it.

She peeks at me but can’t quite meet my gaze when she answers quicker this time. “He can stay.” And then she just has to add, “Maybe he’ll learn something.”

The two of them snicker at my expense while I roll my eyes since we both know she’s full of shit. Aurelia had no issues coming on my dick—more than once, so she can’t even claim it was a fluke.

“Just get on with it,” I say with a sigh.

Seth palms one of Aurelia’s breasts as he leans down and kisses her with tongue and teeth and a hunger for her that can never be sated. Aurelia moans in his mouth as she squirms beneath, and my dick jerks in my jeans, watching them both.

“Before we begin,” he says. “I need you to do something for me, Sunshine.”

“What?”

He leans down and whispers something in her ear. I don’t get that he’s talking about me until her gaze nervously flicks toward me, and she grabs the hem of Seth’s shirt for dear life.

“But he’ll be mean .”

“No, he won’t.” Seth lifts his gaze and glares meaningfully. “Will you, Thor?”

I have no idea what’s happening or what the fuck I’m supposed to do, but I wave the white flag anyway.

At least for tonight.

“See? Thor wants to make you feel good, too. Go ahead.”

Aurelia casts me another unsure look before she climbs off the couch. I sit up straight when she comes to stand in front of me, and then she shocks the shit out of me when she kneels and reaches for my belt.

I sit there dumbfounded when she undoes the buckle and then the button on my jeans. All I can do is swallow down the need to take control when she pulls the zipper down, and then I lift my hips so she can wrestle my jeans and boxers down my legs.

“Aurelia is going to use you,” Seth finally explains when she stands and straddles me. My hands automatically find her wide hips to steady her, and that’s when he adds, “But you’re not going to touch her.” I’m going to kill him. “I need her slick, Thor, so feel free to come inside her.”

Jesus Christ.

I drop my hands, and Aurelia lines up my cock with her pussy and then sinks down the length like she’s been doing it forever. She’s so slick already, so she takes me in her snug pussy easily enough, and the moment I’m balls deep, I realize what an asshole Seth is.

I have to let her use me without touching her, and I don’t know if I can.

“How does it feel, Sunshine?”

“It feels…” Her entire body trembles on top of me before she moans, “ good .”

My dick grows inside her as if wanting to make sure she feels me everywhere, and Aurelia whines.

“Perfect,” Seth says as he sits up and takes his own dick out of his jeans to stroke it slowly. “I want you to fuck yourself open. Stretch that pussy nice and good for me, Sunshine.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Okay.”

They talk to each other as if I’m not here, and I can’t bring myself to mind once Aurelia starts riding my cock.

The coffee table rocks under our combined weight, and I say another prayer that it holds because Khalil might kill us both and keep Aurelia for himself if we break another piece of furniture that he made.

Sweat forms on my brow from the effort it takes to keep my hands to myself. Aurelia’s hands find my shoulders to hold on when I lose a little bit of control and start thrusting my hips up to meet hers.

“Oh, God, yes.”

“You like that, my wolf?”

“Yes, yes, fuck me, yes.”

Aurelia looks like a queen while she uses me. I grit my teeth and look past her shoulder at Seth, who is watching us through a half-lidded gaze as he jerks his veiny cock to our rhythm. “Seth, goddammit. Please .”

“No touching,” he groans. “She’s mine.”

I don’t bother to remind him that she belongs to all of us since I know what he means. It’s his turn with her, so he’s in charge tonight.

Lowering onto my back, I tuck my hands behind my head and stare up at the vaulted ceiling while Aurelia rides me. It’s the only possible way—short of being tied down—that I can play by their rules. The change in angle causes Aurelia to gasp, and then she loses her mind, snaking her hips back and forth while her nails dig into my abs.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” she rushes out, making the words sound jumbled. “I’m going to come. Make me come…please?”

I’m still thrusting up, fucking her back, and giving everything I got because Aurelia George has to be the sexiest, most addicting woman I’d ever met.

If she wants it, you better be damn sure I’ll fucking give it to her.

Seth swears and rises from the couch, roughly grabbing her chin from behind just as I feel her pussy squeezing my cock and forcing my orgasm from me. His grunt and arm jackhammering his cock tells me he’s coming to, spilling on her back while I come inside her with an equally animalistic sound.

When Seth recovers, he brushes her curls aside. “Did you enjoy that, Sunshine? Didn’t I promise Thorin would be nice?”

Aurelia’s eyes are half-closed when she gives a sated nod.

Her nipples are hard as fuck and pointed right at me. I start to sit up so I can give them the attention they need when Seth pulls her off my dick and bends her over the couch arm.

I already know what he’s going to do before he even kicks his jeans away from his ankles.

“What about—”

“Another time,” Seth cuts me off before lining his cock up with Aurelia’s pussy. If he’s miraculously hard so soon after coming like a fire hose, then I get why he changed his plans.

“Seth—” It’s all the protest Aurelia can get out before he’s easing into her and stealing her breath. “Seth, wait,” she insists once she’s caught it. Aurelia starts to struggle when he ignores her, fucking in and out of her pussy slowly.

“Jesus, look at you,” he praises as he wraps a hand around her nape to hold her down. “You’re so fucking beautiful, baby. You know that, don’t you? You’re so special to us. I’m glad you’re my first. My only.”

“Seth, really…I need a minute,” she whines. “Seth!”

I’m still feeling boneless from my orgasm, so I’m slow to rise from the coffee table. I’m pulling up my jeans when Khalil stomps up the stairs with a scowl.

He takes one look at Seth pummeling Aurelia’s sweet pussy, and walks over to whisper something in his ear. Whatever he says has Seth pausing to put one foot on the couch cushion. “Like this?”

Khalil claps him on the back. “Perfect.”

Seth thrusts forward again, and Aurelia squeals while rising onto the tips of her toes to run from the deeper penetration. I’d bet anything that being ignored and used has her fucking drowning his cock right now—maybe even more than mine when she was in control.

Khalil catches me buckling up my belt and raises his brow. “You too?” When I shrug, he says, “Thanks for the party invite, jackasses.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

Though not entirely.

We’ve been leading Aurelia here ever since we got her back to the cabin. Khalil will have his turn next, and then we’ll be square for the risk Aurelia put us all in when she ran.

The tracking monitor was only part of it.

After that, it was just a matter of waiting until she was fully healed because we might break what’s ours, but we’ll always piece her back together with the utmost care.

“At least he’s finally getting his dick wet,” Khalil mumbles as we fall into a trance, watching them.

“Yeah….”

Having already come, Seth lasts a lot longer than any virgin should.

Aurelia is now biting into the couch arm to muffle her screams while he fucks her so hard the couch scrapes across the hardwood floor.

They’re damn near in the dining room when he finally comes with a hoarse shout. He pulls out of her and doesn’t make it further than two steps before he collapses on the couch next to her with his spent cock resting on his thigh.

Knowing it isn’t over yet, Aurelia remains where she is, with cum seeping out of her as she dutifully waits for Khalil to take his pound of flesh.

He doesn’t keep her waiting long.

Khalil walks over to the couch, lifts her by the waist, and carries her into the dining room like a limp rag doll. He deposits her on her back at the edge of the table and spreads her legs wide with one hand while dropping his shorts with the other.

Aurelia’s barely conscious when he enters her, but he doesn’t seem to give a damn as he palms her tits while fucking her slowly. I leave to wash my hands and dick, and when I return, he’s still fucking her. Seth has disappeared as well, and I can hear the downstairs shower running.

I walk past Khalil and a now passed-out Aurelia to get started on dinner since she’ll be no good to do it herself once he’s through with her.

Khalil takes his sweet time, too, now that she’s not awake to fight him. Aurelia’s eyes are closed, and her head is tipped back, exposing her graceful neck while her legs rest in the crooks of his elbows.

When he grows closer to his nut, he picks up the pace.

The dining table rocks noisily from his thrusts, and she’s luckily not aware of his roughness to complain about it.

She will be in the morning, though.

Also, I’m pretty sure Aurelia just activated a new kink of Khalil’s because he’s staring at her lax face and body with an intensity that I’ve never seen.

“Aww, fuck fuck fuck ,” he barks when he finally comes with three hard shoves. Aurelia’s brows are pinched now like she might be coming to, so Khalil pulls out of her and yanks up his basketball shorts. “Damn,” he suddenly mumbles as he stares between her legs. When his head turns toward the kitchen, our gazes meet. “Thor, you got to see this.”

“What?” Abandoning the carrots Aurelia took from the root cellar this morning, I walk over to the table, something like worry twisting in my chest.

Did we go too far? Did we hurt her?

When I reach the table, Khalil makes room for me so I can see between her legs.

And just like that, I’m hard again when I see our collective cum seeping out of her pussy—Seth’s, Khalil’s, and mine.

I can even tell the difference.

Reaching out, I scoop our cum with two fingers and push our seed back inside her.

“I swear, this girl is going to destroy me. Her pussy is too fucking good. She’s too fucking good. Fuck,” Khalil grumbles as we watch me shove more of our cum between her lips.

I grunt my agreement.

Aurelia’s hell-bent on being free of us, but she hasn’t even caught on that all she has to do is fuck us to death. She really has brought out the worst in us. Her darkness feeds our own, and each day, it grows large enough to swallow us all whole.

Until then…we’ll use her, make her ours, and keep her safe.

“Seth’s still in the shower. Is it cool if I use your bathroom to get her cleaned up?”

“Fine by me.”

Khalil lifts Aurelia like the precious cargo she is and carries her into my room while I return to the kitchen to finish butchering our goddamn dinner.