Page 83 of A Blackened Bond

CREED’S POV

Hours of my life wasted in a room with three idiots asking basic questions. They didn’t know the first thing about a proper interrogation. Their methods were as weak and pathetic as they were.

Tracers.Dogs of the corrupt council.

They’ve wasted precious time I needed for planning the Christmas party at the abattoir. There were only a handful of days left, and I still had too much to do.

On top of that, we had the issue of that tiny black pill making its way closer to our domain. And all the scum slithering from the shadows hopped up on that shit and thinking they could take a shot at us.

I barely had time to sleep these days, let alone waste it talking to the Council’s dogs about shit they’ll never find real answers for.

Annex pushes open the main door to the academy, with Ezra, Mallyn and I following as he grins, talking about catching up with Red.Again.

His thoughts always seemed to stray to Micai. He and Ezra were becoming more and more embroiled in her, spending every second they could with her and losing sight of our goals. We haveplans, and they need to remember the bigger picture of why we started all this.

The group coming to the party this time has connections that would be useful to our plans. We only need to show them a good time and play ‘nice’ for the night.

But everything has to go smoothly. Getting rid of this new little black pill before it entered our territory was our first priority, and after that making sure our guests were happy on the night of the party is our next. The boys could take their ‘playtime’ after all of that is said and done.

“Do you think she’d still be in bed?” asks Annex, glancing toward Ezra.

“It’s already been a couple of hours. She’s probably gone to get something to eat.” Ezra smirks, glancing in the direction of the cafeteria. “Micai loves her food.”

Annex chuckles, veering off and heading toward the direction of Ezra’s gaze. Ezra follows right behind him before I call to them.

“Be back before nightfall. We have another job to do tonight.”

They both turn back, their expressions darkening as they stalk over to me.

“We’re not working tonight, Creed. We’re taking the night off and spending it doing what we want.” Calls Ezra as Annex nods beside him.

“I’m pretty sure you did that last night, Ezra,” I add as he rolls his eyes.

“I already did my fucking part last night—” barks Annex, a frown pulling his brows together.

“And left me and Mallyn with the clean-up this morning.” I scowl at him, the ass simply shrugging.

“Still did my part.”

“You can plan your little sleepover for another night—”

“Hell no.”

I narrow my gaze at Annex as he cuts me off.

“We’re not working tonight, Creed.”

“We’ve been doing a lot lately. We need a break, Creed,” adds Ezra, brushing a hand through his hair, a tired look pulling at his features.

“Yeah, Christmas is coming up, and I wanna do something special with Red.”

“We don’t ‘celebrate’ Christmas Annex.” I sigh. None of us ever did more than go to a couple of parties over the winter holiday. We never celebrated it like other people in town or the academy students would.Familiesandtraditions…they disappeared from our worlds a long time ago.If they ever existed, to begin with.

“That wasbefore. Now we have Red, and she deserves the best. We missed her birthday, so this has to make up for that, and all the years we weren’t around,” Annex says as Ezra nods. “And maybe with Red, we’ll properly get into the Christmas spirit. I can already imagine us placing balls on some huge oversized pine tree. All of us snuggled up beside a fire and watching old holiday movies and drinking that eggnog shit. Or vodka. Whatever Red would prefer.” He shrugs. “All that good holiday stuff. I don’t even mind wearing matching pyjamas and shit. I’ll do it for her…as long as she lets me take ‘em off later. I’ll be her Santa, and she can be myho-ho-ho.” He chuckles, finding his own joke hilarious as Ezra rolls his eyes but grins anyway.

They were both going crazy. Orcrazierin Annex’s case.

“But in all seriousness,” Annex continues, a softer look taking over his features, “The thought of waking up on Christmas morning wrapped in those soft little arms and opening presents together before burying myself in her…Sounds like a proper slice of heaven to me.”

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