The smirk on his face guaranteed retribution. I shifted, cocked the shotgun, and smiled sweetly at him, silently telling him to fuck off.

  “Well, this is certainly a new kind of foreplay,” Cam observed.

  “Nah, this is vanilla shit, man,” Maliki commented, amusement coloring his tone.

  This is what he considered vanilla?

  “Maybe you two should take a timeout,” Ace suggested.

  “Yeah, are you hungry? You should eat before we hit the road.” Trix jumped in, shuffling off to the kitchen.

  “Okay, come with me.” Nyx walked behind my chair, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me up.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To talk.”

  Nyx remained silent, intently listening to everything I had to say.

  “This means I have to kick your brother’s ass.” Were the first words out of her mouth after I finished.

  She didn’t laugh, so I couldn’t gauge how serious she was or not. It wasn’t an issue. I planned to fuck him up on sight. It had been a good while since we tussled. Sure getting into fights with men wasn’t real ladylike, not typical of a princess. That was pure bullshit around here.

  I was the daughter of, Romero Deville and Calista; those two were a whole different type of crazy, why would I be spared that insanity?

  I wasn’t born with a soul so the devil sold me his. This princess wasn’t soft, sugary or sweet. I was a self-contained hurricane of bloodshed, chaos, and beautiful macabre.

  Right now there was a typhoon making a mess of things inside my brain, and it was named Zane Belial. I sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out as if that would send him away. It didn’t. It was just another thing circulating, demanding my attention—like Annie, Bella, and now this alliance.

  “You two would have ended up together even without the deal,” Nyx added after an elongated silence.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I just know,” she quipped.

  “The way you two look at one another and knowing you as well as I do, you probably fell in love with the second he placed your own gun to your head. That’s like, destiny or somethin.”

  I almost smiled at her mother’s accent popping out, but the L word had me ready to declare my best friend a traitor.

  “L? Love? I can’t love him, Nyx. I just met him.”

  “Love isn’t a can or can’t. It’s an emotion,” she retorted. “And, you can love whoever the hell you want to. Only you can decide what you do or don’t do. When it comes to matters of the heart, time is irrelevant and so is everyone else’s opinion. Don’t let anything or anyone make decisions for you that you’ll be living with the rest of your life.”

  Wow. That was deep coming from her. I looked over and studied her face, the porch light showing her honey eyes were downcast.

  I wondered how much of that spiel were words she wished someone would have said to her.

  “Is that about, Braxton?” I asked softly.

  She laughed humorlessly. “No, Adds. I’m not pining over the man who didn’t love me like I loved him. I’m not numb from having to kill a woman we considered a best friend. I’m the same Nyx I’ve always been.”

  I looked away from her and stared down the barren street. “No, you’re not. You aren’t the same. After that, no one would be. Not even me.”

  My words were a bitter truth even to my own ears.

  I felt as if we’d been living in black and white, and now we were seeing the world in color. I hated that I had two lose twice to gain that knowledge.

  I lost Annie—but it taught me none of us were invincible.

  And I lost something to Zane—I had never been innocent, so the meaning mattered little, but it taught me to be more careful with my decisions.

  “For me its death,” Nyx solemnly began. “I heard it since I was twelve. death’s daughter. I didn’t fully understand then, but I do now. It feels like everything inside of me is dying, and all that’s left is this…fucking demon that feeds on anger and pain, and gets high off everything dead.”

  She stood up before I could respond to that, announcing she had to use the bathroom.

  It seemed today was the day to make my goddamn heartbreak. I watched her go, staring forlornly at the front door after it shut behind her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Septendecim

  I was still sitting on the porch, massaging my temples’ when I caught sight of him. He was perched on one of the telephone wires. Had he not flapped his wings I wouldn’t have noticed him.

  “Charon.”

  He shifted a bit as if he understood. The silver charm around his tiny foot let me know I wasn’t officially bat-shit and conversing with a random crow. I’d honestly forgotten about him.

  He cawed once as if to speak, and that’s when I heard the engine.

  I looked down the street, scanning the darkened streets of the neighborhood. It was growing louder, which meant it was coming closer.

  I scrambled to my feet, paying no mind to the soreness lingering between my legs.

  “Turn the lights off!” I demanded, slamming the door behind me as I entered the house.

  “What is it?” Zane questioned, looking up from the bag he’d been repacking.

  I refused to look at him head-on.

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Trix and Cam immediately did as I asked on the first level, Ace headed to the second.

  Going to one of the front windows, I pressed myself against the wall and discreetly peered through the curtains.

  Zane and Maliki did the same at a window a few feet down on the opposite side of the door.

  I opened the break-action and lowered the barrel away from the body of the shotgun to double-check the casings. Seeing it was ready to go, I brought the barrel back up until I heard it click.

  I preferred to use the Kambit. The kills meant more, were quieter, and I never had to worry about running out of bullets. But I’d forgotten to attach the holster around my waist.

  “What’s going on?” Nyx inquired, appearing behind me from wherever she’d just been.

  “Look,” I whispered, nodding my head to the truck that had just turned onto the cul-de-sac.

  “Their lights are on high,” Maliki noted.

  I watched as the driver of the truck put it in park, and left it idling before he or she could get out. Four other Stags followed suit. Their deer masks were belligerent in the night.

  I expected them to come right for us; instead, they began to approach the house off to the left, the one where I’d seen an older man peering out the window.

  “Are they looking for us?” Ace asked an obvious question.

  I wasn’t sure how they knew what street we’d wound up on, seemed trivial at this point. They kicked in the door of the old man’s house and three filed inside.

  Not five minutes later they emerged dragging a salt and pepper haired man wearing flannel pajamas out into the street by the back of his neck.

  He had a lame leg, which was evident in the way he dragged one behind him and nearly crumpled when forced to the asphalt.

  On his knees, they said something to him I couldn’t hear. He didn’t once point our way to give us up, though. Not liking whatever he had to say, one of the Stags stepped forward and placed a large, curved bow against the center of his forehead.

  A bow like the one that killed Annie.

  My spine stiffened, fingers squeezing the casing of the shotgun as anger rose with each passing second. Anger and something else too…something familiar that I’d been waiting for.

  There was a savage predator that dwelled inside me. Spawned by the devil—she was soulless, reckless, and wild.

  A grotesque deviant always ready to cause a little anarchy. And right now she was impatiently waiting to come out and play.

  I think it was time to set her free.

  Not giving anyone a chance to stop me, I moved away from the window and went to the door.

  “What are you doing?” Trix questioned.

  Ignoring her, I flung the door open and stepped onto the porch just as the Stag with the bow release an arrow right into the old man’s skull. The trucks high-beams made his blood look like glimmering crystals as it ran down his face.

  They noticed me a second too late. I jumped off the porch skipping all three steps and walked to the end of the walkway.

  “Hey, assholes!”

  Four deer heads turned in my direction; behind me, I could hear the other filing out of the house.

  I wanted to deal with the fucker with the bow more personally, so I lowered the barrel a bit, double checked my safety was off and pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the shot seemed to reverberate through the neighborhood. My shell founds its home, hitting the Stag in the side. It made a sound of distress and only then did I realize this was a woman. She stumbled back, tripping over the body of the old man now flat on the ground.

  My next shot was to the Stag rapidly approaching me with a long bat in his hand, there were nails smashed into the wood of it.

  I let him think I was out of ammo before slightly raising the barrel.

  I aimed for his head, putting a nice hole in his chest instead, shell shredding the flesh as it entered him.

  My ears were ringing, but I scarcely noticed. The two remaining Stags looked as if they were going to run. Maliki was on one and Nyx the other before they had the option.

  Ace darted around them to the truck and secured the keys, cutting the engine but leaving on the headlights.

  I could feel Zane and Cam behind me, neither saying a word. Stepping over the Stag with the chest wound, I made my way to the woman now writhing on the ground in agony.

  From my right there was a sputtering noise as Nyx removed the mask of the man she was dealing with and used it against him, slamming an antler right into his gut, twisting, so it went as far in as possible.

  Using the barrel of my gun, I lifted the mask from the woman I was standing over.

  The first thing that was brought to my attention was the inverted cross on her face. I experienced than the kind of rage that makes one remarkably calm.

  “Hi, princess,” she coughed, grinning up at me.

  I was over people using that as a fucking insult. It didn’t offend me. I owned that title proudly. A princess becomes a queen and bitches like this one would soon learn to respect that. She wouldn’t be smiling for much longer.

  I flipped the gun around and slammed it into her face, twice. Her head dropping down as I knocked her out cold the first time—a pop from purposely breaking her nose the second.

  “That your nark?” Zane’s voice came from my right.

  I’d heard him walk him up—or more or less sensed.

  “Yes,” I replied tersely.

  “Thats, Jesse,” Cam quietly stated.

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “Bring her in the house.”

  Not bothering with an explanation, I tucked Annie’s gun beneath my arm and grabbed the bow from the ground. After checking the truck for arrows, I took some of those too.

  I knew more would be coming, which meant I didn’t have much time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Duodeviginti

  She hadn’t said too many words to me since telling me she’d shoot if need be.

  Not gonna lie, that coupled with her sexy smile had sent a heady dose of blood rushing to my dick. Really that was to be expected since my dick was constantly on hard since I’d put a gun to her head.

  Fucking had been a thing to me like every other man, but if I could climb inside Addie’s pussy and live there, I would.

  It wasn’t just about fucking her though; I wanted to consume her entirely. I had to know if she felt as much as me in such a short period of time. I’d never met anyone like Addy before.

  She was a breath of fresh fucking air. Also reckless as shit, she had no business opening that door and walking outside like a fucking hero in an action movie ready to lay some motherfuckers out. Although that is what she kinda did, and I may have felt something similar to pride.

  Sitting in a recliner, I watched her, Cam, and Nyx work together.

  Addy was pulling the family’s pictures off the accent wall and carelessly tossing them to the side. Most of the frames broke when they hit the ground.

  Ace sat on the couch, twirling the truck keys around his finger.

  We’d loaded it up a few minutes ago, and as soon as my princess was done with whatever the fuck she was doing, we’d be borrowing it.

  “Get er up,” Addy said to Cam.

  “What are you going to do?” Maliki was the first to ask, propping his elbows on the back of the couch. He was still doing his damnedest not to look in Nyx direction, and vice versa.

  I wasn’t sure what the fuck that was about. He must have heard something eavesdropping when she was outside. Malik had a shitload of issues under his exterior. We all did, that was the way things were, but he had some extra.

  Sure, Gwen destroying his last bit of a heart had done wonders for his psyche.

  “I’m going to hang her up,” Addy softly replied, an innocent smile gracing her lips.

  All three of mine of looked at me as if to validate she was fucking crazy. I already knew that, it made her more attractive.

  Cam easily lifted this Jesse bitch by the throat. “Where?” he asked as if it mattered.

  “I want her centered, I don’t want to throw off the rest of the room’s décor,” Addy replied.

  Cam obliged without any further explanation. I wondered how many times he’d been doing shit like this for her, which had, “Let me do it,” leaving my mouth before I could think about it.

  Everyone stared, I didn’t give a fuck. I pushed myself out of the recliner and walked over to the wall.

  Cam shrugged and let me take his place, stepping back to watch from a foot away.

  Jesse didn’t look that old. I’d say maybe nineteen. Age wasn’t shit, though. She knew right from wrong and had chosen to betray my girl. I gripped her slender throat and pinned her where Addy had instructed.

  Her smokey eyes flickered to mine, and she nodded to herself. She seemed different, like she’d switched into a whole other mode.

  Moving to the end table where she had sat a dishcloth and rubbing alcohol, she lifted the rag and proceeded to drench it in the strong solution, nearly emptying the clear container.

  She carried it back to where I stood and forced the cloth into Jesse’s mouth just as she started to regain consciousness.

  “Hold her right hand out, Nyx,” she instructed, going for the bow next.

  I had a good idea where this was going; still, I watched her work, damn near fascinated.

  Nyx took Jesse’s arm and extended it outward as far as it would go.

  “Wait,” Addy said to herself. “She needs to be all the way awake.”

  She sat the bow down and reached behind her, pulling out the Kambit she’d retrieved as soon as we came in the house.

  Stepping up beside me, she gently nudged my midsection to scoot me out of her way. Then she removed Jesse’s clothing. Not just the maroon robe, everything.

  Dragging her blade over all the fabric, she cut off the bra, her underwear, leaving milky flesh nude and exposed.

  The shotgun wound still leaked blood, running down Jesse’s leg to drip onto the floor.

  “Wake up,” Addy chirped, shoving two fingers straight into the hole the casing had made, twisting them as Jesse came to screaming, and then coughing around the rag in her mouth.

  “Damn,” Trix muttered as Addy dug her fingers in deeper.

  Jesse squealed, kicking her legs and trying to get away, I easily kept her pinned in place.

  “I think she’s awake, princess,” I implored.

  Addy humphed, but removed her bloody digits, promptly wiping them off on the side of Jesse’s face.

  “Let’s see if you smile about this,” she whispered to her.

  Once again she grabbed the bow, but this time she placed an arrow in it.

  “Got er?” she asked Nyx, placing the tip of the bow against Jesse’s wrist, drawing the arrow back.

  “Do it,” Nyx encouraged.

  Addy let the arrow go, sending it clean through Jesse’s flesh and into the wall. The chick squealed like a pig, legs still trying to kick out.

  “Why the wrist?” Ace asked as the girls moved to the other arm.

  “So her body won’t come loose. The median nerve should sever and paralyze her hands,” Cam explained.

  “Oh,” Ace replied knowing damn well he didn’t know what the fuck a median nerve was.

  Addy did the same to the other wrist, nailing it into the wall.

  “Zane?” she questioned softly.

  I let Jesse’s throat go and looked over at her. “What is it?”

  “Will you please break her legs?”

  Damn, she asked so sweetly how could I say no? She even said please.

  “Addy you know—.”

  “I know this isn’t going to bring Annie back or get me any closer to Bella.”

  I raised my brows. I think that was the first time I’d heard her speak her baby sister’s name.

  “I was going to say you know all you need to do is ask. It doesn’t have to bring them back, princess,” I stated, grabbing the right ankle Jesse continued trying to kick at me. “It just has to make you feel better.” With that I gripped the bitch’s calf and kept one hand on her ankle, jerking hard to the right, snapping the bone out of place beneath her skin.

  She screamed to high hell and back that time, making a gagging sound, when she was unable to expel the vomit from the pain, being forced to swallow it all backdown.

  Addy stepped forward and ran a hand over the flesh. She traced back and forth across the broken bone as I did the other side.

  “I’m not going to kill you, Jesse,” she stated after a minute. “I’m going to leave you hanging on this wall for your new friends to come and find. Hopefully, you’re still alive when they arrive. If not,” she lifted one shoulder in a slow shrug. “It won’t be the end of the world.”

  She tossed the bow to the side and reached for her Kambit, spending a mere four minutes cutting the inverted cross-brand from beneath Jesse’s eye, flicking the flap of flesh off her blade before carving a larger version into Jesse’s naked chest.