There were a lot of things that needed to be different.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It was a small but overly cheery establishment done up in deep greens, black, and white, that served cheap and greasy food. It’d been so long since I had to touch currency, I nearly forgot it was still a thing in the civilized places that hadn’t completely lost their minds. This being attached to the Inn had clearly provided someone’s mom-and-pop faction with a decent way of living.

  For this place to exist, though, there had to be someone backing it. The uncivil outweighed the civil by a huge margin.

  No way could an inn be thriving without some type of protection or outside bargain.

  I bounced my knee, searching for some sign of the restroom. I forgot to pee back in the room and my bladder was not having it.

  “What’s wrong?” Takara asked from the booth behind mine.

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  She tossed another batter-drenched fry in her mouth, and then started to slide out. “It’s down that hall. I’ll go with you.”

  “Be quick,” Samael said from across the table.

  Huh. I was a little surprised he was letting me out of his sight. If this were a test of some sort, he had nothing to worry about.

  He watched me stand up but didn’t say anything else, returning to his conversation with Poet and Brody.

  “How are you two?” Takara asked the second we were out of ear shot.

  “I’m not sure. We haven’t had an actual opportunity to talk anything out. Not even going to the Savages’ compound yet.”

  She followed me into the ladies’ room, catching the door so it didn’t swing shut on her. “How do you feel about going back?”

  “I haven’t sat down and thought about it.”

  Truthfully, I wasn’t ready to think about it now that it was almost a reality. I surveyed the stalls, judging their cleanliness. Three of four were open. I chose one on the end and went to handle my business. It wasn’t a space I wanted to examine too thoroughly. My vagina begged me not to.

  Whoever occupied another stall flushed and exited. I could hear the jingle of a buckle as they walked.

  Checking the toilet paper holder reminded me that I never got our bags back from the redneck assholes that had kidnapped us, which in turn made me think of Cherry. Had she made it off that roadway? Or had she died from the head wound that caused her to hesitate too long?

  Feeling the beginning of a headache, I shut my eyes and quietly sighed.

  “We’ll figure everything out,” Takara soothed.

  I smiled and wiped, rising from my toilet bowl squat, using my boot to flush. Upon exiting my stall, I went to the sink to wash my hands. At first glance at the girl beside me, I didn’t think much. She had shiny ash blonde hair that hung to her waist. That’s what initially caught my attention. But as I lathered my hands, I caught sight of her tattoos.

  Various ink ran up and down her arms, the devil’s mark standing out like a beacon. I lifted my gaze to her mirror and found she was already watching me, one tiny, inverted cross beneath her left eye.

  I froze for a split second, unsure what to do. There’s no way it wasn’t her, but just to be sure…

  “…Addy?”

  “Lilith?”

  She spun and assaulted me with a mixture of a tackle and a hug, nearly knocking me into the nearby wall Takara was leaning against. I was caught off guard by her excitement, more than a little shocked.

  She leaned back so that she could see my face, still not letting me go. “You’re so grown now! I didn’t think he’d really show up with you!”

  “Who?”

  “Samael. He didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” I replied exasperatedly. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re hitching a ride with you guys.”

  Could I have one day where I wasn’t confused or lost as shit? Why would the Savage princess need to hitch a ride? Better question:

  “Who is we?”

  She finally released me, a bright smile on her pretty face. “Wow. He doesn’t tell you much. Typical of the men we must put up with.” Her gaze bounced to Takara. “Who is this?”

  “That’s Takara, my friend. She’s been with me for a while now.”

  “Right. I’ve heard your name a few times,” Addy said, surprising her too. “Come on. Let’s not talk in a bathroom.”

  The three of us exited together and walked back to the main area of the diner. Samael met my gaze as we approached the booth but showed no outward reaction to me discovering Addy in a damn diner bathroom.

  There was an extra person at the table—a large guy that looked so much like Brody I automatically knew he was his twin, Ice.

  I glanced down at Samael’s half-eaten burger as I reclaimed my seat, making room for Addy beside me.

  What kind of meat was that? I wasn’t sure I genuinely wanted to know.

  Right now, before anything else, I wanted an actual explanation as to what the hell was going on.

  My brain was on going and on as if it were running track in a repetitive circle. Would knowing everything imprison me? Or would it make me feel freer somehow?

  The explanation for Addy being here wasn’t anything spectacular.

  She needed distance from the guy she was with, and he wouldn’t have allowed her to simply walk out the door. Without her spilling all the details, I could tell our situations were remarkably similar, the largest difference being how Addy and Zane wound up together.

  I’d never met him personally. I’d seen him a few times when he interacted with Creed, and there was a point in time his younger brother was essentially a hostage. I didn’t know him too well either. Samael made sure he and I stayed apart.

  “Are you mad?”

  I opened my eyes and tilted my head so that I could see some of his face. I thought he’d fallen asleep. We’d been back in the room hugged up for at least an hour after I took a shower, chilling in silence. I was wrapped up in a bundle with my throw from the Brabus, head on the unharmed side of his chest.

  “What would me being mad change?”

  He silently toyed with the ends of my hair.

  “This was all part of your plan, right? So was Travis.”

  “I didn’t know she was going to leave Zane, that Venom dude, and go back home. I ran into her on a run a few months ago. We’ve been in touch since.”

  “And she didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Addy knows not to reveal all the cards she holds.”

  I had a feeling he felt the same. Were all faction leaders like this? No. I don’t think things were that simple.

  “How much did you know?”

  “I knew everything, down to you meeting at the pens. That’s why I planted Travis.”

  I sighed softly. Our plan was a bust long before we implemented it.

  “Of course, I expected you to make it further than you did. He was going to take you to a rendezvous point.”

  Satanas. The more he revealed, the more embarrassing this got.

  “And then what?”

  “I was going to use Dawn as your stand-in and kill her off. Let rumors spread that you were dead before moving to our new place.”

  I moved back slightly, gaping up at him. “What kind of crazy plan is that? Why would you want everyone thinking I was dead?”

  “Isn’t that obvious? No one would ever try to take you away from me.”

  “Mal.” I rested my forehead on his chest. There was no reasoning with him. Inside the chaotic thing he called a mind, this was a perfectly logical thing to do.

  “I thought you and Dawn…”

  “Amo and your sister fucked Dawn. She was never anything to me but what a walking corpse. She believed she mattered.”

  Wow. That was harsh.

  “While on the subject of meaningless bitches, I’ve never fucked anyone other than you.”

  “What?” I pulled away from him, needing to see his whole face. “There’s no way. I heard…stuff. And the first time we…”

  “You heard a mix of lies and small truths. I have used myself to gain what I wanted, but a dick in someone’s mouth goes a long way.”

  I scowled at that. He kept talking, undeterred.

  “I get it. I fucked you so good you couldn’t fathom that it was my first time.”

  Now he sounded way too proud. I couldn’t be mad either. It was empowering to know that this gorgeous, crazy man was solely mine—and always had been. I leaned forward, careful not to put any pressure on his chest, and kissed him, cutting off what he had been saying. He didn’t show any kind of surprise.

  That’s all I intended to do.

  I started to pull away, but he tangled a hand in my hair to keep me from escaping and pressed my mouth back to his. His tongue pushed between my lips, deepening the kiss into something carnal. The bristles of his stubble rubbed against me.

  He tried to pull my body on top of his. I laughed and finally broke away.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “My dick isn’t.”

  I grinned, placing a quick kiss on his soft lips again. Moving to his chest, careful of the wound, I skimmed over his torso to his jeans, popping the button and unzipping them. He helped me slide them and his briefs down. I didn’t remove them completely, just pushed them low enough that I could easily get to his dick. He was hard and watching me closely.

  I ran my fingers along his inner thighs, gently teasing his balls, placing a kiss there too.

  Keeping eye contact, I gripped him in my hand and began to lower my mouth. His small inhalation would’ve been missed if I wasn’t paying close attention. I hid a smile and began sucking him slowly, running my lips along his length, toying with his double piercing, using the flat side of my tongue.

  I moaned appreciatively, encouraged by the tightening of his abs and thighs.

  To give my jaw a break, I occasionally stay at the head and used the tip of my tongue, swirling and licking around the corona. Tucking my lips, I moved my head back down, sucking at different angles and adding pressure. Bringing a hand up, I gently teased his balls, alternating with jacking him off and sucking deeper until I couldn’t take any more.

  He said my name with a groan, knotting a hand in my hair, guiding me faster, shoving his dick to the back of my throat. I breathed through my mouth and nose, slurping the excess saliva and using it to make him wetter.

  He didn’t warn me, but I knew it was going to happen from the way his abs tightened up. I angled his dick inside my mouth so his come went to the back of my throat, allowing his piercing to skim the roof of my mouth. I swallowed every bit of it down. He had a simple taste—a little bit salty, but overall, not too bad.

  I eased him out of my mouth, managing to swallow one more time before he pulled my hair and dragged me back up to meet his lips.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  We left at first light.

  It would take us about three hours to get to the Savages’ new location. I’d known where it was since getting the invitation a while back.

  I had Addy and Ice with me all the way back in the third row, while Lilith rode shotgun and Jin sat in the back. I left Amo as the keeper of the others until I gave him further notice.

  I wasn’t sure how the Savages would react to him or Aurora, and I wasn’t going to risk it. Takara and Poet came off less threatening, but at the end of the day they were still under my faction and protective of Lilith. That was enough to cause hostility.

  Jin was here because he was neutral. He wouldn’t react to anything or anyone unless I told him to, or my life was in absolute danger of perishing.

  No one said much, too busy with our own thoughts. Lilith had asked me how I felt about going back. Honestly, I didn’t feel much of anything. There weren’t a lot of joyous occasions to recall when I thought of what was once home. The sepia tinted nostalgia had Lilith in all my memories of happiness.

  I’d been away from the environment long enough to have completely moved on. I was doing this for Lilith, but the choice wasn’t entirely selfless.

  It was to benefit my faction’s future. I didn’t know how well things would go until we got there. The only slight concern I had was them trying to take my queen from me.

  They could try, of course.

  I would never let it happen.

  I’d tear that faction apart from the top to the bottom before I lost her to them. I’d just got her back—in more ways than one. I refused to lose her again. If death awaited me amid the chaos, she’d be coming with me to whatever hell came after this one.

  I glanced over for a brief second, wondering what she was thinking. How did she truly feel about going back? It was hard to hold onto my anger when it came to her leaving. I’d given her the tools and laid the path, after all, but I couldn’t help but be pissed she’d chosen to utilize them.

  “Whose graves are these?” she asked, pointing out the passenger window.

  It was a large stretch of plain covered in wooden crosses. You could see the fresh mounds of dirt that had been used to dig someone’s final resting place. There were a lot of these makeshift cemeteries popping up lately.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. There’s a faction that goes by the name Oasis. They’ve taken it upon themselves to ‘clean up’ the Badlands. They bury bodies and add those crosses to mark each plot.”

  “It’s a waste of time,” Addy stated. “This is all going to get worse in the coming months.”

  I kept an eye on the left side of the road, remembering what to look for as a guide: a DEAD END sign that had seen much better days.

  “Hang on.”

  I slowed and turned the Brabus towards the opposite plain, bouncing up and out of a ditch as we left the main road.

  Lilith grabbed the handle of the ceiling to keep herself steady. “What are you doing?”

  Instead of giving her a verbal reply, I let her figure it out as it happened. Romero had moved his main base further out. If you weren’t specifically told what to look for, it was near impossible to find.

  You had to purposely drive off-road, through underbrush, and around a lake that was slowly drying up to find the path which led to the main gates. It took about another eight minutes by car to reach those.

  On either side of the road were tiny black boxes sticking out of the ground—motion sensors that were triggered by any kind of movement in front of them. He hadn’t been fucking around when it came to safety and security.

  I’d taken a page from his book when designing our new place. Further up ahead, the fence that surrounded the compound began to take shape. It was tall enough that climbing would take more than a few seconds, and even if you reached the top, you’d have to get past the curled razor wire.

  Seeing the guard shacks ahead, I started to slow down.

  Two acolytes came from the one on the right while another watched from the left. They were donning the customary Savage get-up: a black hooded robe and a white mask with a centered inverted cross.

  I glanced over at Lilith.

  “You ready?”

  “Don’t have much of a choice now,” she muttered.

  I began to roll the window down and brake. One of the acolytes held their arm up and made a signal of some kind; in turn, the gates ahead began to slide open. He must not have seen me as a threat.

  Inside the actual compound, off to the right, was the fleet of Savage vehicles, the sigil of Baphomet branded proudly—largely—on the sides. I pulled the Brabus past the small group waiting to greet us and parked.

  In the rearview, I could see both mine and Lilith’s fathers, along with my uncle. Two acolytes stood a little way behind them.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “That’s what I should be asking you.” I could sense her nervousness, but I wasn’t going to comment on it. That wouldn’t help her any. “If you need me, just say so.”

  She smiled at me. “I know that, but thank you anyway.”

  “The two of you are adorably nauseating and everything, but can someone please let us out of the car?” Addy asked.

  Right. She and Ice couldn’t go anywhere until we did. I cut the engine and opened my door, stepping out into the heat. Jin followed my lead once Addy and Ice let him out.

  I met Lilith at the back bumper, both of us looking towards the three men we’d left behind years ago. They were watching us just the same.

  Third man in line—the one on the right. He looked like an aged version of myself. There were silver wisps in his beard, but everything else about him was the same. Good news for future me, I guess.

  Cobra hadn’t taken his eyes off Lilith since she stepped out of the car. I wondered what his face would be like if he knew she’d had my dick in her mouth a few hours ago.

  Thanks to Addy being beside me and dealing with her own ordeal, it saved us from any immediate awkward bullshit.

  Romero looked at her with a smirk on his face. “I heard how you managed to get away.”

  She shrugged and crossed her arms. “It was necessary.”

  “How long do you plan to hide out here?”

  “I’m not hiding.”

  “You know he’s going to come for you.”

  “You’re not going to let him take me,” she retorted matter-of-factly.

  “You sure about that?” he questioned.

  “It’s the least you could do. If you even think about it, I’m telling Mom,” she threatened with a glare. “Come on, Ice.”

  She began to walk away and then paused, glancing back at me and Lilith with a smile. “Thanks for the ride.”

  I watched her go towards the massive fucking building in the center of the compound. Not privy to the inner workings of their faction, I didn’t know what the fuck all that was about. I knew she’d left the Venom guy she fucked with, nothing more or why.

  “I should’ve had all boys,” Romero stated, focusing his attention on me and Lilith.

  I think I spoke for everyone when I said he didn’t mean that. Bella and Addy meant just as much to him as my cousin Luce did.

  “Now that she’s gone, why don’t you come with me?”