by A. B. Marie
I give her a look. “Amelie?”
She nods. “Yeah, she called a few weeks ago, sobbing and apologizing, said she’s getting the help she needs. Tonight, she’s back to her entitled-sounding shit bag self, demanding I put the twins on the phone since she’s ready to come home and expects them to help. Ha.” She tosses her phone to her side and closes her eyes.
I nod my head. “Ah, okay. Do you think she’s even contacting the twins? This could be another one of her games.”
“Who the fuck knows with her, she’s all over the place. I’m just glad she doesn’t seem to remember anything about me being pregnant, so that’s a plus. Or she’s just too self-involved to really think about it.”
I hum. “Let’s go to bed. You’re about to fall asleep out here.”
We make our way upstairs and she shoves me up against the wall. “I want orgasms before bed, Mark.” She glares at me and pushes me into a random room and gets naked in record time.
“Have you been taking the birth control potion?”
She gives me a look. “Yes, Mark. I made a bunch and they’re stocked on a labeled shelf in the magic room. Don’t you spend a bit in there every day?”
“Mmm. I asked a yes or no question, I didn’t ask for attitude.” She shuts up, knows how to play my games. She stands and waits for my command and I walk closer to her and stop in front of her. “I never asked for you to strip, so you can wait.” I slowly get undressed and palm my cock until I’m close to release. She’s panting hard, not moving a muscle. “Do you deserve to get fucked?” She nods at me and I glare at her. “Give me your words.”
“Yes Mark. I deserve to get fucked.”
“Mmm. I don’t know.” I toss her onto her stomach and spank her several times on both cheeks. I spread her legs and lick up her come that is slowly tricking out of her pussy. I bite down on her clit as I shove two fingers in, and she comes immediately. “Good girl.” I position myself behind her and slam into her and pump in and out. I spank her a few more times and choke her as I come. I let go over her and carry her into the ensuite and bathe her, nice and slow, and she starts to fall asleep. “I love you, baby.”
A few weeks later and we are all placing our bags in the foyer to leave in the morning. Collins, Nolan, and Graham had their last day of classes today and look excited for the reprieve. Troy and Ross have been pouring over the feeds for the abandoned house and no one has gone back to it. Either we were caught snooping around, or they already left. Justin and Jerome are back in Seattle and nothing much is happening with them. From what the twins can work out, they’ve probably been in interrogations to see if they were connected to Nathan after he went rogue.
Brant started work on our new magic shop and so far, the foundation and the framing is in place. No one has heard from Amelie in a few weeks, but we seem to be holding our breath wondering what the little psycho will come up with next. Maya has been toying with us, sending us emails about how her presents to all of us will be ready soon. The little hellion dodges us every time we corner her about it, and luckily for us, we all responded to her prompts, so no one was her prisoner. I chuckle thinking back to her threats.
She tosses her suitcases down and levitates them to the foyer from where she’s standing at the top the stairs. “Done!” She claps and heads down to the living room and dumps her body onto the couch. “Fuck, packing for a baby is a pain in the ass.” I chuckle at her and hand Luna over to her to feed.
“If you let us help, we would have.”
She rolls her eyes at me and I see the staff placing their bags with ours. Interesting, they usually leave before us, I assumed we would be going somewhere without them.
I look over to her. “Still no hints?” She winks at me and turns on the TV.
It’s eight in the morning and we are all groggy as we pull up to a seaside town at a port.
Troy groans. “Come on, Maya, just tell us what’s going on!” She giggles at him and gets out of the back seat with Luna and makes her way down the docks. I grab a few bags and follow her and see her yacht all set up with a strange man on board.
“Ms. Strom! She’s all set for you. See you next week!” He waves and jumps on the dock to leave. She nods at him and climbs up and takes Luna down the steps towards the living quarters. Well, alright then, I take it we’re going somewhere at sea. We bring all of the bags and take them to the rooms, and we get settled. Maya comes back up and shows off Luna in her cute little life jacket and she nods over to Gerard.
“Let’s go!” We all get seated and Gerard pulls us off the dock and we slowly make our way out to sea.
Collins glares at her, “Are we able to know where we’re going now?”
She smiles at him, “To the island, of course!”
Chapter 19
Markus
_________
Pulling up to the island as the sun was setting was a welcome reprieve. We spent the day relaxing, taking a nap, and eating the packed meals Malek brought along while Gerard drove the yacht. As soon as we anchored and walked in the knee-high water to the shore, I felt like kissing the sand.
“Give me a hand?” I looked up to where Maya was looking longingly at the beach while holding a sleeping Luna. I smile at her and lift up my girls, and I walked them up to the house. I unlocked the doors and wards with the incantation Gerard set up and walked to the master bedroom.
“Relax in here for a bit, I’m going to go help unload.” I set her down on the couch in front of the unmade bed. She nods at me and started pulling out what she needed from the diaper bag to care for Luna. I meet everyone down on the shore and we bring everything in. Malek and Maggie started unloaded the coolers in the kitchen, while the rest of us went around making up the bedrooms and placing the bags in everyone’s rooms. I walked in and saw Troy and Ross finishing up in the master and Luna is finally wide awake. “Good evening, sweetness.” I picked her up and gave her a kiss. Collins just finished moving the outdoor furniture around, so I took a seat to watch the sun set and relax. Too bad we aren’t here for more than a week; I wouldn’t mind living here.
“Glorious, isn’t it?” Collins asked while sitting down with a beer. I nodded at him and by the time dinner was ready, the sun was down, and we settled in the living room for the night.
We spent the first few days driving around on the jet skis, fishing in from the shore, and watching the twins try to surf. The water is calm here, so they mostly just swam out and laid down on their boards and used magic to fuck with each other. We set up a cabana for Luna to relax in, so she stayed cool and out of the sun, and Maya spent the days finally having fun on her new toys.
“So, I was going to wait until we got home, but I can’t hold it in anymore.” Maya stated as she bounced around on her chair after she finished dinner. She took a sip of wine and smiles at all of us. “For your gifts for just being fucking amazing… Mark… I bought the family yearly passes to all of the Disney resorts around the world, we can do whenever you want.” She looked over to Collins, “For you and your family, a vacation home on the coast in Australia where you have your favorite family memories when you used to vacation there, according to your email.”
She looks over to Nolan and Graham, “For my Riggs boys, both of you thought of your mom. I bought you and your family a vacation home in the Florida Keys, which is not far from here so we can all visit any time they want.” She smiles at the twins, “And for my favorite twins, you have a fishing boat that is being delivered here tomorrow that has sleeping quarters that’ll fit up to six people, fully stocked with anything you need, and you can leave it here, or we can bring it home to the UK.” We all just gape at her.
“What?” Troy asks while shaking his head. “You’re a ridiculous woman. But you’re fucking amazing, thank you.” We all take turns hugging and kissing her.
She claps her hands. “I think we should start our Disney excursions over winter break, how does that sound?” We all nod. I start looking up the different resorts from my phone and hand
it to her. “How about Paris first, since it’s the closest to home? You have an estate there.” She smiles at me.
“Sounds perfect! I’ll have Gerard set everything up.”
After packing everything up and heading home, I looked back to the island and captured it in my memory. Having Luna with us, this was the best vacation we’ve had yet. I can’t wait until she’s older so she can have fun playing in the water and the sand. We make it back to the port around dinner time and we stop by the Mexican restaurant on the way home so Malek doesn’t have to cook.
“Fuck yes, salsa!” I chuckle at her.
“You do know that Malek can make that salsa… and those chips…” She nods at me and sticks out her tongue.
“Thank you, Mark. I had no idea that our chef could make different foods.” She throws a chip at me from where she’s sitting in the passenger seat and I roll my eyes. We all have a slight sun-kissed tan and it makes Maya’s skin look like she’s glowing even more from the inside, out. Her hair is brightening further from all of the sun and it makes her light violet eyes pop against her beautiful skin.
“She likes the restaurant, that’s why I never make the Mexican cuisines.” Malek replies with a shoulder shrug. She smiles at him and continues eating her side of chips and salsa. We leave everything in the cars when we get back so we can eat dinner and get Luna situated in her bassinet.
“Fuck, I don’t want to be back.” Graham growls out as he dumps his body into a chair next to the coffee table in the living room.
“You only have two weeks left of classes before your month-long winter break, you’ll live.” Collins replies as he starts digging into his enchilada platter. Graham nods and eats his meal.
“I know, I just didn’t think I would ever get sick of my courses. I actually enjoy them, but now that we have Luna and the magic shop opening, I’m miserable while I’m on school grounds.”
Maya gives him a wink. “Why don’t you finish out this semester and stay home with us for the next term to see how you like it? You were only schooling from home for a few weeks. Were you bored, or did you feel like you weren’t doing much?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know, I think I was just confused. School has always been important to me, and I felt like staying home was cheating?”
“Well, the shop should be ready to open about a month or two into next term, just relax and don’t stress. Mark and I will force you to do your studies or we can throw knives at you until you do everything properly?” He laughs out loud and looks lighter from the conversation.
Nolan stands from his seat, “I actually have an announcement. I placed the paperwork in with Collins and to the rest of the administration already before fall break… I’m quitting teaching after the next term, that way Collins can hire a new Master Runes professor and not be put out.”
Luna smiles up at him. “What will you be doing? Do you have any plans to stay busy?”
“Besides drinking beer and fucking up your new magic shop?” He rubs his chin and looks up to the ceiling. “Not really. I’m just not happy teaching anymore. I want to be with family, help out running the magic shop, helping with Luna and not being away from her for five days a week. I want to invest into yours and Mark’s crazy ideas and spend some more time with my brother.” He looks over to Graham and smiles. “We used to be close growing up, and thanks to Maya we are closer again.” He sits back down and looks at everyone to give a response.
“Sounds perfect! Spend the time thinking about what you’re passionate about. Graham and Mark have the new shop, the twins have their clubs and their PI business, Collins seems to love being a control freak Headmaster, so he will just be all alone at the academy.” She pouts at him and he rolls his eyes.
“I’m under contract for another five years.” Collins says with a small smile. “Technically I only have to be in the office three days a week and for meetings if I make myself available through my phone and email. I can place another administrator in charge that I trust for the days I won’t be there.”
Maya glares at him, “So, you could have been home more all of these months?”
He narrows his eyes at her, “Technically, yes. But I have been preparing for this, beautiful. I had to make sure that the other administration could handle the academy in my absence.” She nods at him and yawns.
“Fine. I’m heading to bed.” She picks up Luna from her swing and heads to the stairs. I look around the table and smile, Maya deserves this.
Two weeks before we head to Paris, Maya comes stalking in through the front door laden with several bags from her shopping trip. “Mark! Come look at the little outfits I got for Luna!” I look down at my little girl and smile.
“Your mom had a little too much fun today, hasn’t she?” I wait for her to make her way into the living room to show me what she bought. She pulls out several outfits that have Disney characters on all of the fronts and several caps with mouse ears.
“I also got all of the adults matching shirts!” She pulls them out and shows me two bags filled with shirts for each of us, all personalized with our last names across the backs and the front says, “Crazies at Disney!” with mouse ears printed above it. I chuckle at her.
“I wonder what you’ll have to bribe Ross and Collins with to wear those.” She rolls her eyes at me and kisses Luna on the head.
“I’ve got my ways.” She runs upstairs with her haul and I set Luna on her play mat on the ground on her belly.
“Your mama is something else.” I pull out my phone and check my emails and see that Brant forwarded us all progress photos of the shop. It’s really coming along. I scroll through the spam while deleting them and see an email from an “A.Strom” and roll my eyes. What does that little cunt want now?
“Mark, I’m finally allowed visitors. I haven’t told my brothers or talked to Maya in weeks, and wanted to know if you’ll come one day soon for lunch? We should catch up. I should be getting out soon and maybe you can help me out? My brothers have cut me off, and I think after everything I have been through, I should get some help from all of the work I did to help my brothers with their first club. It’s only fair. They won’t speak to me and I know how good of a man you are. Love, Amelie.”
I snort and forward the email to Ross and Troy. If Maya sees this, she might just drag her out by her hair from the treatment center and slit her throat. Chuckling to myself over those images, I see that Luna fell asleep and take her upstairs so we can take a nap.
Chapter 20
Maya
_______
We leave for Paris in a few days and we have been living off of take out since the staff left us a few days early. I looked up the Paris estate, and it’s a gorgeous one-story villa that overlooks the Eiffel Tower. Having never traveled anywhere before, I’m ecstatic to finally be able to see the world. I’m sitting in the front of the house on the lawn under a tree with Luna. The rain has stopped, for now, and we’re laying down in some warm clothes, soaking up the fresh scents of the grass, flowers, and that after-rain smell.
As I’m standing up to take Luna inside, the ground starts shaking and I cuddle Luna up to me while I lean my back against the tree, so I don’t trip while she’s in my arms. Where the fuck is that coming from? Looking around I see the backside of a large man standing about twenty feet in front of me. He’s breathing hard and running his hands through his dark brown hair. I’m about blast him, when he turns, and I see his face. I almost collapse to the ground.
“Richard? What the fuck are you doing here? Your son deserves answers. But holy fuck it’s so good to see you.”
He grimaces at me and I take him in. He looks so much taller than he did a few years ago. His dark hair and emerald green eyes match Mark’s, but he’s at least five or six inches taller than him. Did he fix his height when he was with Mark’s mom to seem more normal? “Yes, but we don’t have the time. Lucifer, the King of Hell, knows where you are and he’s coming. I need to get you and Luna to safety.”
&n
bsp; “We aren’t safe here in the wards?”
He shakes his head and walks closer. “No, you saw how easy it was for me to get in, and it doesn’t matter if he has ill intent or not. He’s the King of Hell.”
I narrow my eyes. “Luna is almost two months old, why wait until now?”
“Because he was busy trying to take over the Heavenly realm. I’m sure his demons told him about the power surge here on the mortal plane, but he didn’t care until now. We don’t know what happened, one moment we were pushing the demons back through portals, and the next they all disappeared, and we heard Lucifer himself, laughing about finally having a goddess he can play with on the mortal plane.”
“Fuck. Where can we even go? No one else can come to the Heavenly plane unless we’re soul bonded, right?”
He gives me a sad look. “Oh, Maya, I wish we had the time to talk so I could tell you everything. We need to get everyone out here so I can take you all before he gets here.” We rush inside and find all of the men racing out to see what’s going on.
“Dad?” Mark does a double take and stops running by the front door when he sees us.
“We don’t have time. Everyone holds hands and close your eyes.” As soon as I place my hand in Collins’, the front gate blasts open and a sinister magic rolls through me.
“Do not fucking move. I’ll just follow you to where you’re taking them, God of Thunder.” The deep, gravelly voice spits out from behind me. I slowly turn around and see the dark, black eyes of a man that looks like he’s the poster child of vampires. He’s so pale, has jet black hair, and his eyes look like you can see the galaxies within them, if you look long enough. He’s around the same height as Richard and is lithe, but still has a decent amount of muscles from what I can see. I look behind him and there’s a shorter man hiding behind him, shaking.