Page 30 of They Will Burn

Everything’s different with her.

Kovu looks up at me, and I see that war in his own eyes. Up until she walked into our lives, he couldn’t stand to be touched, not even by us. And yet right now, he’s what’s holding her together. His skin, his touch, all of him. I wonder if she knows just how big a deal that is for him.

Camilla’s sobs finally begin to slow, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me breathe easier once her distress begins to settle.

Her stormy gray eyes finally open, and my stomach plummets when I see the dejection in them. She pushes against Kovu’s chest, trying to get free from his huge arms, but unsurprisingly, he doesn’t budge.

“Kovu,” she murmurs, her voice hoarse from her cries.

“Just stay where you are, Little Lamb. I’m not ready to let you go yet.”

“I think I just need a minute. Alone.”

“No,” Crew says, his voice leaving no room for arguments, but when I see her mouth open, I know she’s going to do it anyway.

“Crew—”

“No, Camilla.” He repositions so he can face her, and her eyes dart to mine immediately. Will I ever get enough of the woman who so easily stole our affections?

He raises a palm slowly, as if he’s afraid she’ll flinch away from her touch, and I fucking hate that Davenport has put these doubts in our minds. We have no idea what happened to her in the days she was away from us, and I can’t allow my mind to wander without wanting to burn the whole fucking city to the ground as penance. “No running. No hiding. You’re ours, and we take care of what belongs to us.”

I wait for the argument I’m sure is on her lips, but instead I hear a phone vibrating nearby.

Crew groans and reaches for the bedside table while Camilla turns to look at me. She’s still wrapped in nothing more than a towel, and I’m desperate to see her body, to make sure she’s not hurt anywhere I didn’t notice last night when we changed her. But Kovu clings to her just as tightly as she does to him, and I decide it’s better for us all if the most unhinged of us is settled.

Fuck knows where Kaos stormed off to, but one of us is going to have to check on him soon. His anger issues have only escalated over the last few years, and the last thing we need right now is another interior decorator traipsing through this place after he destroys an entire floor. Again.

“What?” Crew barks into the phone, and I take the opportunity to drop my face down against Camilla’s smooth shoulder. I missed her in a way I can’t describe, like it was harder to breathe with her gone, and now that she’s back, I can finally drag in a full breath again.

I’m so distracted by Camilla that I almost miss my father stand and start pacing before us, wearing nothing more than a pair of black boxer briefs, and I don’t miss the way the little deviant in Kovu’s arm surveys his body with hunger.

Kovu finally pulls his face from where it’s been buried against her neck and watches as Crew runs his hand down his face and looks at the three of us over his shoulder.

“Thanks for letting me know, Noah.”

He drops the phone from his ear and throws it into the middle of the bed. There’s tension in his shoulders, but no more than normal, and he reaches for Camilla.

“Can I take her for a minute?” he asks, sounding more vulnerable than I think I’ve ever heard him sound. Kovu must hear it too because he doesn’t hesitate to hand her over.

The thing about how we’ve shared in the past is that we may have played together. There were threesomes and the occasional time when all four of us were in on the act, but when it came to this shit, the caring for and consoling, it was never a group activity. It was always just one-on-one, and if I’m honest, we weren’t always great at giving them what they needed.

Crew lifts Camilla from Kovu’s lap, and she immediately wraps herself around him. If she’s worried about the fact she’s naked besides a towel that’s haphazardly wrapped around her shoulders, she doesn’t show it, instead choosing to bury her face in Crew’s neck.

Seeing them together does something to me, and I find myself rubbing my chest at the unfamiliar feeling.

Kovu catches the move and gives me a knowing look before he stands from the bed and rummages through a drawer he claimed as his own not long after we started staying in here with her.

“Did Noah have news?” I finally ask. The last thing I want to think about is work, but we don’t have a choice if we want to keep our positions as they are.

And now we have something to fight for, something we’ll never allow out of our arms again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CREW

Ihold Camilla against me like I’ll die if I let her go, and after spending several days with no plan to get her back thinking the worst, I can attest that actually may be the case.

I don’t want to think about what Noah just told me. I don’t want to consider the meeting I need to call with the five families. And I sure as hell don’t want to force Camilla to take her position as the head of her family so soon after we got her back.

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