We were getting married next year, and I had the gorgeous diamond on my finger to prove it.
So happy was an understatement.
But a current of dark turmoil undercut it all.
Because my brother was dead.
King.
The man who had protected me as much as he could growing up with our poisonous she-bitch of a mother.
The man who had supported me, loved me, and helped rear me.
He’d given me hope even in the darkest times of my life because he was the only person in my life who had ever been steadfast, utterly constant.
And now he was gone.
I shivered lightly in Lion’s hold as my sweaty skin cooled and the icy draft of sorrow rolled through me.
It would have been his birthday today.
I’d woken up with the knowledge lodged in my throat, a wail exploding between my lips as I lurched up in bed, panting and instantly teary-eyed.
Lion, already awake, had rolled into me and asked if I wanted him to distract me.
Only he could, and I gladly took him up on the offer.
But he couldn’t play all day.
Or, we could, but I’d be too sore and tired to drag myself up to our family cabin that night if we resorted to that pleasantly base distraction technique.
I didn’t want to face it, but I’d learned the hard way that it was better to tackle these things head-on. If you didn’t, they had a way of rearing their ugly head when you were least prepared to deal with it.
I sighed gustily and readjusted in Lion’s arms so I was facing him. He groaned slightly as he slipped from my heat and couldn’t resist the impulse to cup my used, leaking sex in his big palm.
“You need it, I’ll spend all day filling you up and making you forget,” he reiterated.
I shivered again, this time with desire, but then I shook my head. “No, I’m a big girl. I’ve got to face the first birthday without him here like an adult.”
Lion’s gorgeous face, tanned even in the heart of winter and beautifully creased with laugh lines beside his eyes and mouth, settled into his charming smile. I leaned into his other hand as he palmed my cheek and declared, “Strongest woman I know.”
“Damn straight,” I agreed with haughty raised brows just to have the pleasure of hearing his smoky chuckle.
“How about this then, my Rebel Rose,” he murmured against my lip, then rasped his stubble against my cheek in a way that made me tremble. “I’ll make my girl breakfast and put on some music so we can have a dance party while I cook.”
God, I loved this man.
He was a gentleman cowboy and a renegade cop, a man who chopped his own wood and handled a gun like an extension of self, yet here he was offering to be a goof and dance with me even before he had his morning coffee.
“How’d I get so lucky?” I asked him, trying to make light of the burning sensation around my heart.
He was so perfect, so good and true. Sometimes, even after everything, I still heard my mother’s toxic voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough for someone like him.
But Lion, my Lion, knew me well enough to see the flicker of pain in my eyes, and he soothed me instantly.
“You didn’t get lucky,” he reminded me sternly, the soothing hand on my cheek moving to grip my chin firmly so I was forced to meet his verdant green eyes. “You bought this happiness. You earned me just like I earned you. We deserve each other, you get me, Rosie?”
I wasn’t the kinda girl who cried, but emotion moved through me like a ghost, setting my teeth to faint chattering. “Y-Yeah, okay.”
“Okay,” he agreed in a tone that brooked no argument. “It’s a hard enough day without Farah’s fucked-up voice in your head, yeah? Focus on King. Not that he’s gone, but all the amazing things he left us with. Let’s celebrate his courage, drink a toast to his wisdom, eat in honour of his love for us. Let’s be happy for him ’cause he can’t be any more for himself.”
“Wish he could walk me down the aisle to you with Dad,” I admitted, staring at the whorl of his ear because it was too tender an admittance to make with eye contact.
“I know,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to mine and gripping the back of my neck hard in a way that had always reassured me. “And we aren’t metaphysical people, but I swear to you, in whatever way he can be, King’ll be there watching you marry me.”
“Yeah,” I agreed because I knew not even death could keep my big brother from watching over me.
His hand slid around my neck, up my throat to grasp my chin firmly, pining his gorgeous green gaze on my own. “You gotta know, I’ll do anything in my power to make our wedding the best day of your life. If I could, I’d go into the damn afterlife myself and drag King back with me. I’d give up everything short of you to bring him back for you.”
“I know,” I choked out through the vise of emotion strangling me. “After all this time, I know you’d do anything for me.”
“Because you deserve everything,” he reminded me firmly in that delicious no-nonsense voice that sent a trill down my spine to my swollen, pleasantly aching sex. “Okay, up you get,” he ordered, delivering a sharp slap to my ass before negating his words entirely and lifting me to my feet himself.
I tried not to swoon at his display of easy strength and then again when his long, beautifully carved form moved away from me, shining faintly in the morning light, the dimple in his tight ass delectable.
“Rosie?” His voice was laden with humour as he called to me from the doorframe, completely at ease with his nakedness and delighted by my ogling. “You sure you don’t want more distracting?”
I cleared my throat and licked my lips, checking for drool, before I tossed my hair over my shoulder and headed to the bathroom without answering to his arrogance.
His rough chuckle followed me into the other room and haunted me as I turned on the shower and flicked on the sound system. Hozier’s croon billowed through the room like steam from the scalding water pounding down on me as I stepped under the spray. I tried to focus on the lyrics instead of the melancholy surging up from my soul, threatening to drown me internally.
I missed King.
I missed him, and it wasn’t getting any fucking better as time went on.
If anything, it had only grown deeper, roots digging through my guts and bones straight into my marrow so that it hurt to move at odd moments. It ached to breathe.
I found myself avoiding Dad’s house because there were too many memories there, the years we’d spent as us against the world. Against Dad in prison, our mum, the she-bitch. Against the bullies at school who thought we were biker trash.
It was King and me against the world, and there hadn’t been a single day of my life that I considered I might ever have to live without him.
My head was too heavy on my neck. I let it drop against the cold tile, nose stinging in a way that heralded tears.
But I wouldn’t cry.
I’d been through a lot in my life. I’d been beaten by my ex-boyfriend and ultimately taken his life in self-defence. My dad falsely imprisoned, my brother murdered, my best friend abducted. I’d stabbed the love of my life to keep him safe.
I was no shrinking violet.
I was a motherfucking rose riddled with thorns.
I could survive today.
I would.