Page 82 of Serpent King's Revenge

"I want our child to have a family that would do anything to keep them safe. To have bonds that can't be broken by threats or violence. I believe we can give them that." My eyes met his, and I saw the conflict raging behind his black orbs.

"Okay," Nathan finally conceded, the corner of his mouth lifting in a resigned smile as he spoke to my belly. "Well, baby, as you can see, what mom wants, mom gets." His hand stayed on my stomach, warmth seeping through the thin fabric of my dress.

My heart swelled at the sight, but I was suddenly close to tears again. "But we'll make this right—for us, for the baby."

"Abby, I swear on everything I am, we'll bring Kenny down. We'll give our kid the chance at a life without fear." His assurance was spoken with the gravity only a man who had lived through darkness could muster.

"And then?" I asked, my hand covering his.

"Then we live," he said simply. "We live, Abby, free from fear. Free from Kenny Zhou.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Nathan

Iwanted her to know…no, I needed her to know–that the future was ours.

We didn’t belong to the Serpents. We didn’t belong to the Insurgents. We belonged to each other.

If we were the king and queen of my father’s mafia empire…then it was for us and our child.

Her fingers grazed over my knuckles, over the scars that had been left there by years of violence. Not just violence that I’d inflicted on others, but violence that had been inflicted on me; a lifetime of abuse from a father who wanted to shape me into something I never wanted to be.

He deserved to die.

I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to figure that out.

“So…it seems you’re going to be the Serpent Queen of San Francisco,” I murmured, bringing her hand to my mouth to kiss her palm. “How does it feel?”

“It feels very…” she paused, then she rolled her eyes slightly. “It feels very white savior-y, actually. I think I’d rather take a back seat to the heroics here.”

I laughed, shaking my head, and my cheeks ached at the feeling of an actual smile on my face. It felt like the first time in ages that I’d smiled like that–and it was always Abby that made me do it.

“Oh…so now you have a problem with being a white savior?” I asked.

She shoved my shoulder with a scoff. “Simmer down, serpent king–”

But she froze when I caught her wrist.

We’d always played with power; from the moment I’d taken her from her ordinary life, locked her up in that gilded cage. That night, I should have killed her–I still knew that, to this day–but I hadn’t…because she’d shown me something in myself that I’d kept locked away. I would never forget when she admitted to me that she liked being bound, cuffed, choked. I’d been tender with her for a long time now.

I missed the other side of her, too.

The darker side.

“It wasn’t really a question,” I said, voice low. I kept hold of her wrist with one hand, my other hand coming up to trail up her arm…over her shoulder…to her breast. I took one heavy breast in my hand and squeezed, dragging my thumb over the peaked nipple beneath her t-shirt. “You’re going to be my queen, Abby. You’re going to give me an heir…you’ll be the mother of the next leader of the Serpents.”

She nodded, lips parting, her stubbornness receding into delicious submission. “Yes…”

“So how does it feel?” I asked again.

She gasped when I pinched her through her t-shirt; arched her back.

“It feels good,” she breathed.

My hands roamed over her–not undressing her, just teasing, testing. I wanted her moaning and begging for me before I gave her anything at all, wanted to remember what it felt like when she was my toy. Because that was the thing–I still wanted to play with her. There was a part of me that was dark, a part she’d fallen in love with, and that part would always be there.

I took hold of her hair with one hand, pulled until her throat was bared to me.

“I’ve been wanting to do this,” I growled. “It’s just one of the ways I like to have you. Gentle sometimes, playful sometimes…but sometimes you need to be disciplined, don’t you?”

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