Page 53 of Princes of Carnage

“Are you going to argue about it?” he asks, folding his arms and raising a brow.

“No,” I tell him. “It’s a nice bike.”

“Do you even know how to ride?” Atlas mutters under his breath.

I can hear the irritation in his voice, but I don’t even glance his way. Instead, I walk over to the bike and take up the helmet that’s been left on the seat, pulling it over my head. I throw one leg over the bike, getting settled before revving it up, letting the engine hum under me.

It’s exhilarating, and I just feel it for a while, letting my adrenaline climb. Then I hit the gas, peeling out of the small lot with Killian close on my tail.

18

KILLIAN

It’s easy, following behind Quinn.

I’m used to following in her wake like a shadow… only this time, she actually knows I’m here. I can’t decide if it’s better when she knows or doesn’t know, but at least now I don’t have to focus so much on staying out of her view. That lets me give her my full attention.

She handles the bike like someone who has definitely ridden before, so Atlas’s barbed question from earlier has a clear answer. Quinn weaves through traffic, moving with ease and grace, comfortable and confident.

I keep my gaze locked on her, barely paying attention to the traffic around me. I’m more focused on the lines and curves of her body, the way she moves with the bike. When she leans into a turn, the bike seems like it’s an extension of her, doing what she wants it to do with ease.

It’s like the way she fights, the way she looks when she’s not in her head and is letting her instincts take over.

Like how she looked last night when she was in Nico’s bed.

I let my mind wander to the night before, when I opened Nico’s door and saw Quinn with Nico’s head buried between her legs. Her mouth was open in pleasure, her gray eyes glazed with ecstasy, but there was still so much fire there. Defiant, even while she was overcome with need.

To be honest, I’m still sorting through my feelings about that. I expected jealousy to be the main thing, bubbling up inside me at the sight of my brother touching Quinn, the sight of him making her come undone, drawing all those beautiful sounds out of her.

But that wasn’t what I felt.

At least, it wasn’t all I felt.

There was something about watching her fall apart like that, under another man’s tongue, that made me hard.

If I thought that living under the same roof would diminish my fascination with her, I can already tell I was wrong. If anything, it’s stronger than ever now, knowing that she’s so close at all times. I can watch her so easily now, noting little things about her that I missed even during all those months of stalking her. I can slip into her room to watch her sleep, to count the lashes that fan over her cheeks and track the steady rhythm of her breaths. I can study her while she draws, listening to the soft scratch of her pencil against the paper as she traps her bottom lip between her teeth the way she does when she’s concentrating.

I won’t have to deny myself any of that, and knowing she’ll be so close makes whatever thing inside me is so obsessed with her purr with satisfaction.

Traffic thins out as we approach the site of the upcoming drop, and soon enough, Quinn is pulling up to a small side street and stopping the motorcycle. I pull up behind her and get off, watching as she dismounts with the same ease she used to get on the bike.

Neither of us speak, and I fall back, taking the rear, letting Quinn do her thing. She glances around the area, taking in our surroundings with a trained eye. It’s clear she’s used to scoping out danger, and I watch as she checks all the places I would, starting with scanning the tops of the buildings nearby and then moving to the shadows of the doorways and the alleys between buildings.

Nothing jumps out at her, and she relaxes a bit, but not completely. Her guard is still up. Good.

“We should start there,” she finally says, pointing to a building nearby. “Sweep through the place, find anywhere someone could hide or set up an ambush.”

I just nod, gesturing for her to lead the way.

If she’s surprised that I’m deferring to her, she doesn’t show it, and instead takes point, walking across the sidewalk to the building she wants to check out.

It’s old and run down, like everything else in this area. This part of Detroit has been written off for years now, a crumbling relic of the way things used to be that people tend to ignore or forget about in favor of putting their energy into building shiny new things.

There are abandoned factories and storefronts all up and down this section of the city, and the place we walk to now looks like it used to be a drugstore or something. Now it’s just a shell with windows that have been boarded up and broken into more than once.

Quinn tries the door, and when she finds it locked, she narrows her eyes. She rummages in her pocket for a second and then comes out with a piece of metal that she uses to jimmy the lock open. It goes quickly, as smooth and precise as if she was using a key.

The door doesn’t squeak when it opens, and I follow her inside, making my own investigations as I glance around. It’s more spacious than it looks from the outside, and we both scan the area, looking for vantage points.

---