“I’m pretty good.” She sounded a little surprised. “This one feels different.”
“Yeah, it does.”
I threaded my arm through hers, and we wandered over to the others while the guys helped Lucian out of the car.
“Hey, kitten.” Kyo stepped forward and gave me a hug. Not to be outdone, Marcus lifted me clean off the ground when he hugged me.
“How you doin’?” he asked as he set me back down.
“Wishing people would stop asking me that.” I raised my brows at him, and he flashed me a brilliant smile.
“It’s because we care.” Charlie nudged me, and I gave him and Ed hugs too.
“I know.” I smiled at the way they linked hands as soon as their hugs were delivered. Their happiness was contagious, made even sweeter by the bitterness of all the recent loss.
“Evelyn.” Olivia held me at arm’s length, her gentle hands on my shoulders. “You look beautiful, darling.” She pulled me into a hug and stroked my hair in a gesture that was so motherly I almost felt as if my mom were holding me.
“I love you, Auntie O,” I whispered into her neck.
“I love you too.” She pulled away and smoothed my hair before wiping her eyes discreetly.
Henry surprised me by going in for a hug too. He was a quiet man who traveled a lot for work, and out of everyone, I knew him the least.
The hug was brief but warm and not at all awkward. And if the hug was surprising, his words just about floored me.
“Your mother would be incredibly proud of you, Evelyn. I know I am.” He nodded and turned to lead the way up a small hill, leaving me standing there feeling as if my chest were about to burst. I had to take a second to breathe through the emotion.
Lucian appeared next to me. “Let’s do this.” He gave me a smile, and Olivia pushed his chair up the hill—even though that damn chair was the best money could buy and was fully electric. I think she just liked feeling useful.
We climbed the hill as a group. We could’ve taken the winding gravel path to where my mother’s memorial plaque was installed in a low wall surrounded by trees and flowers, but we took the most direct route, even if it wasn’t necessarily the easiest.
As we crested the hill, I had to pause again.
Lucian let his chair race down the hill, a joyful laugh escaping him as he overtook Henry, and Olivia chased after him, half chastising and half laughing. The others jogged down behind them, but my Bondmates stood at the top of the hill with me in a line, looking down at the scene below.
I couldn’t quite believe how many people had shown up.
A handful of chairs faced the plaque, and a simple lectern had been set up for speeches. The sea of people there to show their respects, to share memories of my mother, was overwhelming.
“She was loved.” Tyler echoed my thoughts.
“More than you know.” Alec nodded.
“So are you,” Josh added quietly.
While many people were there because they wanted to remember my mother, many others had never met her—like the Lighthunters and some of the students from the Institute. They were there for me, to show their respect and support for me.
“How could she not be? Look at her.” Ethan lightened the mood, and we all chuckled.
I adjusted my bag on my shoulder and headed down the hill to join my family and friends. Ethan, Josh, Tyler, and Alec were with me every step of the way.
Epilogue
I heard Alec thudding through the foyer and snapped my head up to check the time.
“Shit.” I cursed under my breath. “Alec!”
“Yeah?”
“You may wanna skip the workout. We should probably head to the hospital soon.” I leaned over my desk, rushing to finish the section of the research report I was working on.
Alec appeared in the doorway. “What do you mean? Now? It’s happening now?” His eyes were wide, his shoulders tense. He looked like a really sexy, tattooed deer in headlights.
Before I could answer, Uncle Luce wheeled himself out of his office. Mine was next to his on the ground floor. I’d had it set up just before I started my PhD. As I researched how Vivid Light could be used to treat terminal diseases, it was handy to have a space to work from at home.
“Yeah, you may want to get going,” Lucian said. “I’ll meet you all down there later.”
“Shit!” Alec ran his hands over his buzzed hair. “Should I change? Never mind. No time. Let’s go.” He waved his hands maniacally, trying to shoo me out of my chair.
I groaned and got up, reluctantly giving up on getting any more work done. “Alec, calm down. These things take time—sometimes days. We’re not in any kind of rush.”
“You don’t know that,” he argued. “Sometimes they happen fast. Really fucking fast. Like in the back of the car on the way to the hospital fast.”
I chuckled as I took my time walking down the hallway; Alec buzzed around me like a toddler on a sugar high.
Josh came down the stairs just as Alec and I reached the foyer. He had my bag and shoes in his hands.
“Heard Alec losing his shit.” He gave my Master of Pain a teasing grin. “Figured it was time to go.”
Alec flipped him off as he grabbed his wallet and keys and I slipped my feet into flats.
Josh drove, the leather pads on his elbows stretching every time he changed gears. When he’d started teaching Variant studies at Bradford Hills Institute, he’d taken to wearing tweed. He was pairing the traditional, preppy Ivy League uniform with his band T-shirts and jeans, combining his two signature styles into one delicious one. When he wasn’t at the front of a lecture theater, he was leading a program that provided Variant studies teaching in public, predominantly human, schools. All the girls had crushes on Professor Mason—human and Variant.
As we walked up to the maternity wing in the hospital, Tyler and Ethan got up from their seats in the waiting area.
Ethan wrapped me up in a big, warm hug and gave me a soft kiss that I just about melted into. He was in a white T-shirt but still had his chef pants on. He was the head chef at a painfully trendy restaurant in Manhattan and chasing his first Michelin star. In the next year or two, he planned to open up his own restaurant.
“We don’t have time for this.” Alec tried to wedge an arm between us, and we pulled apart, chuckling.
Tyler pulled me away from both of them with a hand around my waist. “Would you calm down? You’d think it was Eve about to have a baby and not Dot, the way you’re carrying on.”
He gave me a kiss too, taking his sweet time—no doubt to irritate Alec. Tyler was the youngest headmaster Bradford Hills Institute had ever seen. One of the first things he’d done was create a new position—a human liaison who worked on building ties with human communities and broadening the Institute’s admissions guidelines. Tyler had just come from a meeting in the city. His tie was loose, his crisp shirt rolled up at the sleeves.
I smiled against his lips and pulled away, putting Alec out of his misery.
“OK, which room are they in?” I asked.
“This way.” Tyler took my hand and pulled me down the corridor.
Outside the door to Dot’s birthing suite, Olivia sat casually flipping through the latest edition of Variant Weekly while Henry slowly paced the corridor, a very serious frown on his face.
We shared hugs as Alec scowled at us all impatiently.
Everyone else stayed outside as Alec and I went in.
“Your pain management plan has arrived.” I grinned.
Dot looked up from her phone. “Thank fuck. The contractions are getting really close, and I’m more dilated than all the pupils of every rave attendee ever. I think it might be time soon.”
“I told you so.” Alec huffed, and I rolled my eyes.
“We’re here now. It’s all good.” I rubbed his arm in a half-apologetic gesture. We’d all been giving him shit.
“Hey, kitten.” Marcus gave me a kiss on the cheek, then gave Alec one of those thumping m
an-hugs.
I gave Kyo the same greeting, but he just stood in front of us looking kind of dazed.
“I’m going to be a father,” he stated in a monotone, then blinked once. Alec and I shared a look.
Lucian was still the managing director of Melior Group, but he was looking to retire soon, and he was grooming Kyo to replace him. Having that kind of responsibility didn’t seem to faze him, but the prospect of becoming a parent was proving a little intimidating.
“Yeah, man.” Alec slapped a hand on his shoulder. “That’s how this works.”
“So am I,” Marcus piped in from his spot next to Dot. “We’ll figure it out.”
Dot was having twins. After two years of trying to conceive naturally without success, they’d decided to try IVF. Dot immediately decided she wanted a baby from each one of her loves and insisted she be inseminated with both embryos. “Plus,” she declared at family dinner one night, “it’ll be good to get all my breeding out of the way at once.” Miraculously, it worked.
“Shit.” She cringed and leaned forward.
“Ace, you’re up.” Marcus took Dot’s hand and waved us over with the other.
Alec rushed to his cousin’s side and took her free hand. I held on to his arm and transferred the perfect amount of Light so he could take her pain away.
We’d perfected this process.
From time to time, after a really bad natural disaster or in a situation where it was difficult to get people to proper medical care, Alec and I volunteered our time to help manage pain—if it was safe, of course. Their protectiveness never really waned.
Alec had toyed with the idea of somehow making it his full-time work, but that would’ve required me to go with him everywhere he was needed, and I had my own scientific goals to kick. He’d also realized pretty quickly that he actually didn’t want to spend that much time surrounded by people in pain. Even if he wasn’t the one inflicting it, it still triggered bad memories. Yet he didn’t want to stay with Melior Group either.
After Alec spent a few months moping around the house and bemoaning how useless he was and how he could just be “the house husband,” Tyler slapped a pile of college brochures down in front of him and told him to get his shit together.
He was in his second year working as a specialized counselor at Bradford Hills Institute. He worked exclusively with kids with rare, dangerous, or isolating abilities. No one understood them like he did. He was kind of perfect for it.
Despite Dot’s colorful evaluation of what stage of labor she was in, she actually wasn’t ready to push for another few hours. We stayed with her the whole time, managing her pain through the contractions and then through the delivery.
Both babies were the picture of health, twenty little fingers and twenty little toes, wailing to announce their arrival into the world.
Alec and I stepped out to update the rest of the family while the nurses did their thing. Charlie and Ed had arrived too, and they all swarmed us for information.
“A boy and a girl.” I grinned. “Both healthy. Dot did amazingly.”
We all knew they were having one of each—Dot had left no aspect of this pregnancy a mystery—but it still felt as if I was announcing a surprise.
Henry started crying, which got Olivia going too. Charlie pulled a sniffling Ed into his side. Ethan got misty eyed, and Alec was somewhere between dazed and ecstatic after witnessing his first birth.
It was my first birth too, but I’d researched the fuck out of it. As soon as Dot announced she was pregnant, that became my side project. We even got together one night and watched a bunch of birthing videos together, a giant bowl of popcorn balanced on her giant belly.
Kyo and Marcus came out, kicking off another round of hugs, shouts of congratulations, and more tears.
We took turns going in to visit with Dot and holding little Jamie and Nina. I made sure I was sitting down when one of the fragile little bundles was handed to me, desperate for a cuddle but terrified I might hurt her.
Ethan was confident holding Jamie, the baby not even close to the length of his giant forearm. He cooed to him and even started singing a lullaby.
Josh wasn’t remotely fazed by it either, holding both of them with assurance, although I suspected he was using his ability to make sure both precious babies were safe at all times.
Alec was still a little dazed when Kyo deposited a baby into his arms. His eyes were a bit wide, his shoulders more tense than I’d seen them in years. He looked down into little Nina’s face and relaxed a bit, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips, but he passed the baby off to Tyler quickly and heaved a sigh of relief.
Ty was uncertain and looked around the room for help.
“Just make sure you support her head.” Marcus showed him. “And hold her like this. There you go.”
Eventually he eased into it, rocking the baby. After a few moments, he cocked his head to the side and stared off into space as the rest of us chatted quietly around him. Then he smiled to himself, and his knowing gray eyes met mine.
I didn’t know what truth had been revealed to him or if it was even related to having kids—I just liked looking into his eyes. He still gave me butterflies.
“Do you think you guys will have any?” Dot asked from her reclined position on the bed. I smiled at her and shrugged.
Maybe one day, but for now we had each other, and that was enough. We were happy.
Note from the Author
Thank you so much for reading Vivid Avowed! I really hope you enjoyed it and you’ll consider leaving a review. And if you didn’t like it, that’s OK too – I’m always open to feedback.
If you’ve found yourself suddenly sitting there, staring at the screen, dreading the book hangover, and wondering what you’re supposed to do now, I have just the thing for you! Turn the page for an exclusive sneak peek at another wonderful PNR, RH romance by CoraLee June and Raven Kennedy - Void.
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Copyright © 2019 by CoraLee June & Raven Kennedy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the authors, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
BLURB:
I was born of nothing.
I’m a Void, a rare supernatural capable of absorbing powers at the brush of my skin.
Feared. Hated. Untouchable.
Thibault Academy is full of supernaturals that want me dead, and the most powerful of them, the Paragons, will stop at nothing to ensure I go back to the hell I came from. They’re cruel, heartless, and have created an unlikely alliance to take me down.
If I want to learn how to control the nothingness, I’ll have to survive them.
I was born of the void, but I’ll die from the power.
This is a reverse harem bully romance.
books2read.com/CJRKVOID
CHAPTER ONE
It was such shit that I couldn’t get high.
No matter how many times I wrapped my candy red lips around the joint settled between my thumb and index finger, it did nothing. I was sitting in a cloud of skunky smoke, sucking it in like a bad blowjob, but that weightless buzz humans liked to brag about just refused to hit my brain. I could add it to the list of curses that my abilities gave me. I had my own foul smoke that polluted me from the inside out.
The room was dark despite the twinkling lights strung around the ceiling, blanketing us in a hazy glow as I watched my best friend. “I want to take my clothes off,” Reed said in a dreamy voice while leaning back in a rusted lawn chair. His red hair was curled at the tips of his ears, and his thin lips parted on an exhale of smoke, highlighting the dimple on his left cheek. “I should go streaking.”
I chuckled. He should definitely not go streaking. Reed had one too many strikes against him, and I wasn’t about to lose my only friend in this damn place. “It’s more comfor
table here. I don’t want to move,” I whined, trying to emulate that hazy tone while really wishing that I could go outside and hop the fence to escape for a joy ride on my motorcycle. Poor Betty hadn’t had a good thrill in a couple of weeks. The night guards at Mrs. Coxcomb’s School for Troubled Girls were cracking down on patrol thanks to my last little escape attempt. It wasn’t my fault the chem lab had caught fire. I just wanted a little distraction, not ten demerits.
“Do you ever wonder why people cover their dicks when they’re caught naked?” Reed asked while closing his eyes. “What they really should hide is their face.” His laughter filled the room, and I tried to get high on his joy. Reed was the only reason I bribed another student for a bag of grow. It did nothing for me, but I enjoyed watching his face light up and the stupid expectations that always weighed down his shoulders fade away. Shit had been obnoxiously bad lately. During the day, this prejudiced-as-fuck school liked to make him wear skirts and go by the name his parents gave him—Molly. But here? In our secret cove, an attic space above the cafeteria, he was himself. My best friend. My only friend. Reed.
Determining that he was sufficiently high, I lay back onto my makeshift pallet made of old blankets and pillows we’d found over the years and stared at the wooden beams covering the ceiling. Spiders ran across the shadows, and I lifted my hands up to imitate their movements with my fingers.
We had three weeks until graduation. Three weeks until Reed was finally free from his rich, controlling parents. He had plans to ditch this fucked up boarding school in Iceland and move to Los Angeles where his sister lived. I knew he’d be happier there. He’d finally take on his true identity and shed the girl his parents wanted him to be. We’d talked about it for years, both of us dreaming about getting out of here and living the dream. I convinced him that I’d be going with him despite knowing it wasn’t in the cards for me. I’d never be free.
Vivid Avowed (The Evelyn Maynard Trilogy Book 3) Page 40