Locke blinked, awareness fighting exhaustion, before instincts older than our friendship kicked in and he snapped to life. “What’s wrong?”
I helped him sit up, already missing the weight of his sleep-heavy palm from the top of my head. “Cam called us in.”
“Where’s Orla?”
That he somehow knew she wasn’t right here with us scared and reassured me in equal measure. “She’s already with Cam. Willow’s at Rubi’s place with the other kids. Bread day, remember? He’s going to bring them all in Cam’s motor, Mats and Saint guarding.”
Locke absorbed the influx of information and reached for his phone, squinting at the messages he already had from Willow, confirming her movements at the arse crack of dawn on a Sunday morning. “Bread day.” He nodded. “Right.”
“Can you stand?”
He shot me a look. “You fucked my brains out and now you’re asking me that?”
“Just checking you’re really awake.” I forced humour into the words, but the truth was he’d knocked out so hard since last night that he’d had me worried. So worried, I’d let him sleep when I should’ve woken him hours ago when I’d opened my eyes from a catnap to find Orla gone.
But I hadn’t moved. I’d stayed beside him, following my queen’s orders,trustingher while I’d combed my fingers through his hair and listen to him breathe. Forcing myself to stay in the moment. To focus on the fact that he’d been too exhausted last night to get up to snuff the candles out, rather than whatever mischief our woman was up to that had required her to sneak out in the dark.
I gave Locke a minute to put himself together. Then changed my mind and went back to the bedroom. He had jeans on, hanging low on his hips, his marked skin in full view, new scars framing the old.
Choked, I kissed an uninjured patch of skin between his shoulder blades.
Then it was time to go.
We rode out, Locke in front, me keeping watch on him and the road from behind, keeping my attention on his strong thighs, which, despite my inclination to fret over our woman, wasn’t that hard. He was in pain, I knew that, and his head was a fucking mess, but he was still so beautiful to me that even staring at the back of his helmet made my heart skip.
I fucked him last night.Yeah. That too, and there wasn’t enough road on the planet for me to ever come to terms with it.
Rubi beat us to the compound, Cam’s car already empty of the gaggle of girls he’d brought with him, Willow’s Fiat parked at a jaunty angle beside it.
Locke rolled off his bike and tilted his head. “That parking or falling out of the sky?”
“Looks all right to me.” I hung my helmet and dismounted, abandoning my second go at counting the offspring scattered around the yard in favour of searching out a face I’d missed almost as much as Locke’s.
“Nashie!” Willow darted across the yard and jumped on me, swamping me with skinny arms and blonde hair. “Where’ve you been? I missed you.”
“Missed you too, squirt.” I squeezed her tight, dodging the question, before I set her back on her feet and chanced a crafty whisper in her ear. “Give your dad one of those hugs. You know he loves them.”
This kid didn’t need telling twice to shower her dad with affection. I gave them some space and went back to taking stock of who was here. Liliana was studying the wall she’d painted over the summer, Mateo at her side, probably trying to talk her out of whitewashing it and starting again. Hope was with Decoy, which left Ivy...
I turned my head, looking for Folk. Found Alexei instead and a frown creased my face. Somehow I’d convinced myself he was with Orla and Cam, or at least on the road hunting Priest, and yet here he was, crouched low in his immaculate clothes, helping Ivy make the world’s smallest snowball with the frost she’d scraped from the fence.
“What’s wrong?” Locke was close enough that I smelt the lemon Fanta Willow had pressed into his hand.
I turned my head and the sea-green gaze I’d missed so much wrapped around me like a heated blanket. “Nothing, I just didn’t expect Alexei to be here without Cam.”
“They aren’t speaking.”
“Who told you that?”
Locke shrugged. “No one. I saw it.”
Damn. If Locke had picked up on the discord between Cam and Alexei, it was only a matter of time before everyone did.
“Now then, now then.” Rubi bustled into our orbit, flour-dusted hair tangled in a messy knot at the nape of his neck. “What’s occurring, Nashie? Why are we all here on this sacred day?”
“How do you already look like Fanny Craddock’s corpse?”
“Can’t fucking imagine,” Rubi deadpanned. “It’s almost like someone told the Halliwell hellion to dump asackof flour on my head.”