Page 48 of Mercy & Her Devils

Now, I take another shaky step across the cell in my routine morning exercises.

Lark has his arm loosely around my waist, allowing me to take as much weight as possible myself but making certain that I don’t fall.

I’m breathing hard. My muscles are aching.

“You’re doing well.” Lark presses his plush lips to mine. “Just a little bit more.”

I take another step. “Do you think Toni wiggles his ass like that at us on purpose?”

“I’m helping you with your physiotherapy.” Lark bends down, and his silky hair brushes my cheek. Then he nips my ear, and I yelp. “And you’re thinking about a guard’s ass…?”

“Not any guard,” I grouch. “Only our Beta’s.”

I can’t help glowing when I say our Beta’s.

“Our Beta’s, huh?” Lark replies. “I think Toni wiggles his ass, bends over, and swings his hips as he slinks down the corridor all to show off his tight little ass to us.”

“Is he courting us?” I whisper.

“Let me see,” Lark says quietly, in case the cameras are on, “he’s bringing us special food, taking punishments for us, and offering a flirting masterclass. I’d say so.”

“But he has an Alpha.”

“We don’t all get to choose whether we have an Alpha.” Lark’s lips thin. “Does it hurt for us to accept him into our pack, when we only have…?”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. It hurts too much.

We’re already breaking a ton of taboos by creating a Brok pack in the first place. Why not break another and pretend that Antonio is ours for this short time?

Antonio’s kind, funny, and gorgeous.

He’s like our sunlight.

He risked a lot to take Lark’s message to Millie.

When he returned and told Lark that Millie was fine and had told him that she loved her daddy and he was good too…

I can’t repay what Antonio did for Lark because those words meant the world to him.

They unbroke Lark.

Yet Antonio doesn’t want repaying.

He simply turns up like the sun has dipped into the basement to shine on us. I no longer miss the sky, when he’s with us. Despite the Institute’s darkness, he chases away the shadows.

Each day, Antonio slinks like he’s on an assassin’s mission down the corridor, then dramatically points at the stinking bucket at the back of the cell. “Time for me to take the piss!”

The joke hasn’t — yet — grown old.

On the third day, Lark accidentally spilled some of that piss over the sides of the bucket and onto Antonio’s hand, as he shoved it through the larger slot in the door with disdain (he truly has never done chores in his life).

Antonio only laughed, scrunching up his nose. “I’m kinky, but golden showers aren’t my thing. Not that I’d ever yuck your yum.”

Lark snorted in amusement.

Unfortunately, Miss Connall chose that moment to check on her new guard.

Her thin, pinched face flooded with rage at the sight of Lark next to the spill.

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