Page 122 of Wicked Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 1)

I roll my eyes at her. “She’s hardly gonna repeat me.”

“One day she will. I’m already convinced it’s going to be her first word.”

“She’s gonna be a bad-arse. Of course it will.”

My words conjure up an image of another bad-arse princess that I really don’t need in my head. My phone burns a hole in my pocket as I think about that image once more.

Damn, she really missed the mark with that message.

I—hopefully—subtly tug at my jeans, hoping that my reaction to talking about Stella isn’t obvious to every other adult in the room.

“Did she try to kill you, too?” Mum says, being weirdly observant. “Looks like someone’s had a knife to your throat as well as their teeth.”

“Yeah, actually. She did. Excuse me,” I say, jumping from the floor and leaving the kitchen as the sounds of their teasing voices follow me all the way to the bathroom.

I stand in front of the basin and groan when I take in the state of my neck. No wonder they couldn’t leave it alone.

When I got back yesterday, I showered to get the rest of that cunt’s blood off me, but I didn’t pay much attention to my appearance aside from that. And I was in too much of a rush this morning. Clearly a fucking mistake, because her bright red hickies and teeth marks mar my skin.

I run my fingertips over the angriest mark and my mouth waters to storm over there and give her a matching one—assuming she doesn’t already look like she’s been attacked by a starved bear, which is possible after the way I took her in Nico’s bathroom.

I have no idea how long I spend in the bathroom attempting to get my head together, but when I get back, I get curious looks from all three of them.

“You good now, or do you need a little more private time?” Zoe deadpans.

Sophia smothers a laugh.

“What? I wasn’t in there banging one out, if that’s what you think.”

“Oh my God,” Mum whines. “My sweet baby boy.”

“Sweet, my arse,” Zoe mutters. “No sweet boy ends up like that after a night with a girl.”

“Can we please stop? None of you need a play by play about this.” Or how I carved up her skin to ensure no one else gets to her.

“Sure. The buzzer just went off on your Yorkshires. You might wanna check them out.”

“Great. Let’s just focus on the food.”

“Oh, we can talk all day about what you’ve been eating.”

I grab the tea towel, and Zoe screams like a little bitch when I whip her with it.

“Because you’re so innocent, Zo. I happen to remember very vividly walking in on you with your li—” Her hand clamps down on my mouth, cutting off my words.

“Fine,” she hisses. “We’ll leave your sex life alone.”

“Dear God, will you two please stop?” Sophia begs.

* * *

We have a nice afternoon together. Too nice.

Okay, so Mum insists on getting the brandy out after we’ve all eaten, and by the time we leave, she’s already three sheets to the wind, but drunk is a hell of a lot better than some of the states I’ve found her in over the years, so I leave almost confident that we’re not going to find her dead in her own puke in the morning.

When I get back to Theo’s place, his cars are parked in the garage but he’s not upstairs. Glancing out of the living room window, I discover why when I find him sitting around with his own family as they pretend to be normal.

We all know the truth. All of us are far from fucking normal.