Page 108 of Diary from an Inked Throne

I didn’t want his hands on me. Couldn’t imagine him lying in that bed where I’d woken up that morning, wrapped in the arms of Dax and Lynx and Luca.

But we didn’t get to choose our fates.

I turned to go back inside when something caught my eye.

Marks on a large tree opposite the balcony. Not in the Guerra yard, but beyond it, in a neighboring one.

Two red painted claw marks that were just like Lynx’s killer mark.

My heart skipped a beat.

I knew for a fact they hadn’t been there the night before. We’d had sex while I was standing right here in the doorway. I would have noticed. I was sure they hadn’t even been there earlier that afternoon when I’d been up here changing James’s diaper. I remembered looking out the door, wanting to check the grounds from the higher vantage point. But nothing had been out of the ordinary.

That hope MacGregor had all but snuffed out came rushing back.

Luca, Lynx, and Dax were on the property somewhere. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know where.

But they were here. And coming for me.

I clutched James tighter.

They were coming for us.

33

NYAH

Dear Diary,

MacGregor thought he had me cornered. He underestimated how desperate a mother can be.

Ididn’t dare put the baby down, even though he slept peacefully. I sat on the edge of the bed, waiting with bated breath for the bedroom door to open and Lynx or Dax or Luca to walk through it and tell me we were getting out of here.

When the door creaked, my heart leapt, and I pushed to my feet.

MacGregor grinned. “So eager. I like that.” His gaze flickered over me, then over James, still in my arms. “I made a request of ye, lass. You haven’t obeyed it.”

I knew what he was talking about. He’d told me to be naked and ready for him when he came upstairs, and I definitely wasn’t either of those things.

“The baby has only just gone to sleep,” I murmured in a hushed tone so as to not wake him.

MacGregor walked farther into the room, inspecting it, taking in the two king-size beds we’d moved in here when all four of us had stopped sleeping apart.

“This is Guerra’s bedroom?”

I didn’t see how it hurt to confirm that. “Luca Guerra, yes.”

He nodded. “Good. I like the idea of fucking ye right here in his sheets.”

I didn’t say anything.

MacGregor apparently didn’t need me to. “Put the baby down.”

I didn’t want to, but I already knew he wasn’t going to give me a choice. I was terrified if I didn’t, if I argued, that he might hurt James to force my obedience.

I put the baby down on a blanket in the center of the bed closest to the door. He didn’t make a sound.

MacGregor smiled. “Sleeps like the dead, that one. We won’t hear from him ’til the mornin’. Sleeps through thunderstorms and engines revving. Not gunshots, but it would be pretty difficult for anyone to sleep through one of those at close range.”