Page 150 of Reaper and Ruin

Fang switched his glare in X’s direction, and X suddenly saw the error of his ways.

He pointed at Whip. “He slept with her first!”

And that was about enough of that conversation.

Fang looked pained, but he kissed the top of my head affectionately. “I’m just going to tell myself it was a miracle conception.”

Rebel snorted from behind him. “That how our babies were conceived too, babe? It wasn’t that dirty hot foursome where I had your dick—”

Fang circled his arm around her and fit his hand over her mouth.

Her muffled laughter filled the room, and she winked at me.

I searched for the only two little faces I really wanted to see. “Where are Will and Ari?”

Rebel dragged Fang’s hand down off her mouth. “Down at Kara’s place, playing with Hayley Jade and my older two. Little Jax is helping to watch them.”

Little Jax was Rebel and Kara’s youngest sister, who at around fourteen, was the very cool young aunt all the kids adored.

I didn’t need to tell anyone I wanted to go see them. The guys led me toward the door, Rebel and my brother close behind.

War called after us. “Slayers family night tonight! We’ll put on the food and drink. I think we all need it.”

I was exhausted, but he was right. Being surrounded by safety and these people who had opened their doors for us time and time again, was exactly what I needed.

I wanted to live in this bubble for just a bit longer.

It was the comedown from the adrenaline high. Tomorrow, or next week, we’d find our groove again with the kids and withpregnancy, and I’d be asking Bliss for more hours at Psychos or searching for another day job. Whip probably would be too. But tonight, I just wanted this. Family. Friends. A fence around us only to keep out the wildlife, instead of people who wanted to kill us.

The baby in my belly. The two kids we’d opened our home to. And the three men who’d stolen my heart.

Will scrunched his nose up at the ultrasound photo we showed him. “That’s not a baby.”

I chuckled and pointed at the bean-shaped object on the printout. “I know it doesn’t look like one right now, but I promise you, it’s growing every day, and the next time we get to see it, it will definitely be baby shaped.”

Will looked at me like I might be lying to him, and I ruffled his hair.

What I really wanted to do was pull him onto my lap and hug and kiss him to pieces, but we were still letting them come to us in their own way and in their own time. I’d been worried that as soon as they started school, they would say something about the night we’d taken them from that house.

But neither had said a word. Whip thought they were probably smart enough to realize what might happen to me if they said anything, and both were already very attached to me.

I suspected both of them would rather think about anything other than that night. Their childhoods were full of trauma they would need to unpack with therapists at some point. But for now, it seemed to me like they’d blocked it out entirely. I saw it in little things they did, so I knew it was there, buried deep, but I was no longer worried they would bring it up at school.

Will ran off with Madden, and I couldn’t help but smile at the new cousins who had become fast friends. Madden was a boy’s boy through and through, and Will had been happily coerced into games of trucks and Nerf guns and footballs.

I glanced over at Ari. She hadn’t said a word.

I bit my lip. “Did you want to look at the photo of the baby?”

“No.”

“That’s okay,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to.”

X and Levi looked worried, but neither said anything. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do either. I’d had no training in dealing with the grief and trauma of a child who’d watched her parents die right in front of her. Even if they hadn’t been good people, they’d been the only parents she’d known. While things seemed to roll off Will’s back, Ari took them deep, internalizing them, thinking them over in a way that made me feel like she was so much older than her years.

I hated that she’d had to grow up. Hated her parents hadn’t protected her and allowed her to be an innocent child who openly trusted the world was a good place.

Whip inched forward on the couch, wincing as he moved his leg awkwardly but the dad in him needing to get closer to her. “You’re allowed to be mad about the baby. Or sad. Or happy. Or whatever else you want to feel.”