Page 80 of Nicolette

“Dice and Circus are working on the last one, but if you want to do the honors of dealing with that fucker it might help you feel better,” Nine suggested.

“Damn right it will. About time we gave him a taste of his own medicine,” Rambler agreed and stalked off to the smaller cage holding the feral monsters. Then hitting the release button, the door popped open, and the two creatures surged forward, setting upon the leprechaun. It took hardly any time at all for them to devour the bastard. The chupacabra paused and retched, spitting up two gold coins, the only thing left to prove it even happened.

“Where are the twins,” I asked.

“They’ll be right back,” Nine assured me. “I had them loading up our people to get them the hell out of here.”

Just as he said that, the pair raced back into the room and spotted me. Unlike Rambler, they pulled me out of Nine’s hold until the three of us were sitting on the floor with them, sobbing as they held me. Nine tried to step in, but I waved him off. They needed this as much as I did. The pain I was in now would be worth it just to be held by them, or any of them for that matter.

Pain was temporary, but it told me I was still alive, and this was all real. They’d come just like I trusted they would, proving to me once more that I wasn’t alone in life anymore. These men were my fated pairs, and our life together had just begun.

“What the fuck,” Marco blurted.

Opening my eyes from where my head rested on Polo’s shoulder, I saw Dice hauling a body while Circus had Morta’s head dangling from his mouth. Not saying a word, Dice dropped the body at my feet, and Circus put the head in my lap before shifting back.

“Neko, we present the body of thy enemy,” Circus proclaimed with a flourish of hand movements.

I looked down at the scared expression of the vampire in my hands, and while I couldn’t say it was the best gift I’d ever gotten, it was pretty fucking close. Smiling up at the two, I tossed the head over my shoulder. “You two have outdone yourselves. What more could a girl ever ask for in a mate?”

Circus kicked the body out of the way and squatted in front of me, tracing a finger down the bridge of my nose. “I long for a life together with snuggles, kisses, lazy days in bed, and lots and lots of mind-blowing sex.”

“Sounds pretty perfect to me,” I agreed. “Think we can blow this place up or at least set it on fire? I promised fang face we’d do one or the other when you came to rescue me.”

“Fire,” all my guys answered together.

“As my grandmother used to say, kill it with fire, it’s the only way to be sure,” Circus shared, scooping me up. “Let’s get you out of here first, then Marco can do what’s needed to set this place ablaze.”

While Marco and Polo did whatever they did, the rest of us were waiting in the SUV. Then I spotted two caracals leaping out of a window heading for the vehicle. Dice opened the back, and they hopped in. The second the door was closed, Rambler peeled out of the place just as it exploded, flames erupting out of every window there was. Seeing it had me finally believing that this was all over. The Broker was gone, Mortas was dead, and the Lucky Strike would never again hold people enslaved to a motherfucking contract.

There’s no telling what could happen now that The Broker was dead. The reputation of the Savage Pride would grow as would the pride itself, or so I hoped. If anyone asked for my opinion on the matter, I’d vote for taking over The Grid as a whole, preventing anyone else from coming in and causing trouble.

Either way things turned out, and I knew whatever happened, we’d do it together.

That was how things work with fated pairs.

It was forever.

Chapter 32

Epilogue

Nicolette

It took a full week for me to heal from the silver wounds, even with Nine and Rambler, both the strongest healers attending to my wounds. My body suffered a lot of trauma, and still being so new, it was the perfect shitstorm that I was so over.

The guys babied me, which I loved for the first two days, but I’d had enough when Circus decided I couldn’t walk anywhere. Rambler kept trying to feed me all the time, convinced I needed the calories because I was healing. Dice was my ever-present shadow in human or feline form, always keeping me in sight. I got it. He felt responsible for me being taken because he was around the corner when it happened.

The twins were the best out of them all, helping to keep me entertained when I couldn’t leave the bed for the first few days. They taught me lots of board games and card games, helped me catch up on movies I’d missed, and got me all the books I could possibly want to read. I even talked them into reading a few and now had plans to try out all the things we had read to see if it was really possible.

Week two, I was back on my feet, moving slowly but able to start working on my plans for the women of the pride. I met with many of the older women and married women, as well as getting feedback on how I might be able to support them as well. This was going to be a process, but the first thing I threw the fuck out was the food rules. They could eat whenever they wanted with a daily budget preventing them from going crazy as we figured things out. The more I dove into what life had been like for the sweetbutts, I came to understand why they were so ruthless.

Amaretto and Zealot created that environment, forcing them to compete to get anything they needed.

The women started to realize I wasn’t the enemy, and bridges were being built on both sides to find a middle ground. I wanted their input, but they also needed to realize I had the final choice in all things. Arguments would flare, but Holly had become an excellent mediator to have around. She was one I was trying really hard to convince to go back to college and finish her business degree. It was a skill the pride could use since Nine, and the Savage Pride officially took the whole Grid. It was stressful beyond belief, but one thing he hadn’t counted on was the support of those on that side of the river.

LC had been an oppressive fuck nugget who screwed over everyone and everything possible.

However, the downside to that was the guys were crazy busy, but we always made time for each other. It was something we promised when agreeing as a family we’d own this whole damn city. So imagine my surprise when the twins decided we were going on an overnight trip. Out of all of them, those two had a little more flexibility in their roles. Which was how I ended up with my arms wrapped around Polo’s waist, flying down the road to a secret location.