All of us snap our heads up, gazes primed on Raphael, who rises from his leather chair, setting aside his punch. Our jaws nearly hit the floor because Raphael never gives gifts. Never. Not in our entire history, and he has made it clear he wants none. The veins in his forearms throb, bare from the rolled-up sleeves.
Briella lifts her head, scanning our responses before she turns to our alpha. When he crooks a finger, she uncurls herselffrom my lap, leans on the cane, and slowly limps toward him. I get up quickly, along with the others, because we are all interested.
Once she arrives before him, an inch from his chest, Raphael retrieves something from his vest pocket. He holds it in his palm, letting Briella take it in. Her breath thins. Tears roll down her cheeks. And then…she traces the delicate hairpin of pure gold with five linked chains…and the metallicarrowheadat its end.
“Is it…?” she trails off, but she doesn’t even need Raphael’s nod to confirm.
At first, he takes the hairpin and trains the arrow point along her pulse. A subtle warning of how easily he would end her life. She’s allowed to rattle our chains. Never escape them.
“I took the thing that almost broke you,” he tucks the hairpin into the thick braid curls at the nape of her neck, concealing the pin from view, “and now, it will hold you together.”
Eyes flashing with primal obsession, he touches her braid, fingers wandering along the length. “You ran from me, and I marked you, my Queen. Now you wear it. Not simply because I command it…but because it honors what you survived. And it will remind you of who kept youalive and real.”
Damn.
A gift as intense as Raphael himself. It couldn’t be more perfect.
Briella parts her lips. He glares as if daring her to challenge him or make some snarky remark. But she doesn’t.
“Thank you.”
So quiet, barely above a murmur. If we weren’t this close to them, we never would have heard it.
When he claims her jaw in a bruising grip, Briella jerks her chin away but touches his chest. “Wait. I um-I have something for you, too.”
The second she tries to step away, Raphael seizes her wrist, wrenching her back. “No gifts,” he says sternly, brows screwed low.
She heaves a sigh, rises on her good leg in a tiptoe, and stares him down with the feminine spirit she always has with him. “It’s small. And would it help if I said it’s forbothof us?”
When he leans closer, and she doesn’t blink, he slowly releases her wrist. She releases a relieved sigh before turning to Seth. “Hey, Timber, under the couch at the end, left-hand side. Could you?—”
Seth’s already on his way like a good golden retriever. The tension thickens in the room. But the intrigue overshadows it as Seth hands her the small brown paper package. Crude. Odd-shaped.
“If you want, I can open it for you,” she offers Raphael.
He nods, and Briella tears open the paper, revealing…
Fuck.
They are the best goddamn match made in hell, the kind not transcribed in the stars but in a supernova dying to form a black hole.
She lifts the newsboy cap, turning it over. This one is black, but subtle purple stitching confirms she knit her mark into it…tiny flowers circling the cap. Like a crown.
“The other was getting really worn, especially after how much I was wearing it.”
When Raphael doesn’t move a muscle, apart from the one ticking in his jaw, her cheeks pale with fear. “I thought you might—I thought it might be—you don’t have to—I can’t return it, but I?—”
Without another word, he takes the cap from her fingers, securing it on her head before lifting her into his arms. I smirk as my psycho partner, her perfect match, yanks her leggings downto her thighs, shoves her up against the bricks of the fireplace, and brings her down on his cock, spearing her.
We all grow hard and hungry, watching as he warns her not to drop her crown and fucks the hell out of his Queen. Our Queen.
62
Seth
“IT’S CALLED TRUTH OR TRUTH.”
Citizen Soldier Playlist
