ALEXEI
The wedding celebrations were long, but I did not mind. It gave me time to be amused by the unspoken determination everyone seemed to have not to give Saint a moment to himself.
I felt his pain, but I dulled it drinking the homemade wine Iggy Whitlock passed around and watching Cam give the speech he’d been working on his entire adult life.
For River.
For Rubi—Cam’s impressions of him were uncanny. Or maybe it was the wine. Thick and fruity, a term the nomad often used to describe the prospects loitering outside the clubhouse bar, it was stronger than vodka, sweeter too, and perhaps to blame for my good mood by the time people began to leave or turn in for the night.
Rubi and River had already left for a destination I was not privy to, beyond the trackers installed on their bikes. For tonight, I had entrusted their safety to Jakov in return for a whole summer of not murdering him on sight.
Ranger and Viktor were escorting Locke and Nash home with Orla and their children.
Everyone else would remain.
Even us, but not here.
Eventually, anyway.
Cam was with Juana, helping her take her children inside to sleep. I found Saint with Joe Carter, and it was Joe’s gaze I met across the garden, one of only two souls Saint and I had told of our plans.
Another hour passed.
Two.
It was close to midnight when the time came to slip away.
Cam was half asleep in a lawn chair. I took his hands and pulled him to his feet. “Come with us.”
With me.
With Saint.
With Joe who, led by the earth, had already disappeared into the depths of a farm that was not his.
Cam scrubbed a hand down his face. “I can’t ride yet. That fucking wine. I drank it hours ago and I still feel pissed.”
“We are not leaving.”
Confusion darkened Cam’s features, but he trusted me, as he had that first night when he’d followed me home to my penthouse lair, and his instincts were as true now as they had been then.
I walked him into the shadows, as he had walked me into the light.
Saint fell into step at his other side, and Cam’s bewilderment deepened as we approached the farthest orchard from the house, where Joe and his friend Jevon waited for us. WhereJekkawaited for us—the matriarch Saint and I had never had.
Cam’s footsteps slowed. Expecting it, I slipped in front of him while Saint dropped back to flank him behind.
Over Cam’s shoulder, I met the complex gaze of the soul who’d healed me more than he’d ever know.
Saint nodded, smiling.Do it.
I took Cam’s hands and let him see all he’d taught me to be. “They say souls are born in pairs, but I never believed one existed for me until I met you. You are the greatest gift to me, Cam. And Saint is my whole heart.” I took a breath, my voice thick with emotion. “The man I was then is the man I must always be, and the world cannot ever see the three of us, but we would like to marry you anyway, if you will have us.”
Shock flared in Cam’s molten gaze, eclipsing the bewilderment there. He leaned back into Saint, a subconscious movement, as if to check he was real. ThatIwas real and my words were not a figment of something he’d never even thought to desire.
Saint nuzzled his neck, primal and claiming. “It won’t be legal, but that shit doesn’t mean anything to me. I wantyou, I want Alexei, and I want it forever.”
Cam’s slow blink seemed to take as long as Saint’s dreams of forever. He dropped one of my hands and reached blindly for him. “Am I fucking awake right now?”