Page 61 of Theirs to Rule

“Huh?”

Dante looked at me with interest. I squirmed in my chair, my body struggling to come down from the high it had been reaching for.

“You okay there?” he asked. “You’re looking a little flustered.”

“I’m fine,” I lied, embarrassed at being caught mid-fantasy. And what a hell of a fantasy it had been. “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

Ty placed another stack of pancakes on my plate. I hadn't even made a dent in what he'd already given me.

“Eat up,” Ty said. “We need to make sure you’re nice and satisfied for later. We're going to be at it for hours."

Both Dante and Kage raised their eyebrows, their eyes filled with an equal mix of curiosity, jealousy and concern while Ty slinked back to the kitchen counter, looking pleased with himself.

I rolled my eyes. "Our art class is doing nude drawings for our mid-term project."

“And you paired up with Ty?” Kage asked.

“By choice?” Dante added,

“Relax,” Ty said to Kage and Dante. “You guys have nothing to worry about. I’m very professional when it comes to my art.”

“So amI,” I said. “We’re just going to get the project done so we can forget about it.”

“If you say so,” Kage said, implying there was more to it than I was letting on.

We ate the rest of our breakfast in silence. Every now and then I felt Dante’s and Kage's eyes on me. I knew they were worried about me spending time alone with Ty—especially considering I’d be naked—after what happened last night.

“I should get going,” Dante said. He stood up, carrying his plate over to the sink, where Ty was now packing the dishwasher.

“Sit back down for a sec,” Kage told Dante. “I need to say something.”

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Ty muttered.

“Actually, stay. You need to hear this, too. It's about Silas's brother, Troy, and what he told me before he died last night."

Chapter 28

Camille

As Kage spoke about what had happened with Silas’s brother, it threw me how casually he spoke about torture. For all I knew, maybe it was something he did all the time. He’d told me that side of his life was violent and while I’d seen it for myself when he'd slit Silas's throat, I’d been in denial about just how much of his life was based on pain.

I couldn't deny, however, that Kage’s darkness excited a dark part of me, too. I loved how protective and ruthless he was, which made me wonder whatIwas capable of. Kage brought out the darkness in me whereas Dante harnessed it and Ty…well, I had a feeling that despite the fact he wasn't involved in the mafia the way Kage was, and even if the only person Ty had ever killed was the innocent person he'd killed in the car crash, Ty's darkness was a deeper hue than even Kage was capable of.

“Through it all, the bastard wouldn't talk. His single refrain was ‘We will endure’.”

Ty shifted in his seat, his expression hardening. I frowned. Something was wrong.

“What is it?” I asked Ty. “Why did you just react like that?”

Ty hesitated then said, “It was something my dad used to say. That we’d endure."

“Endure what?” Kage asked.

“Anything. Everything. It meant our family was strong. Unstoppable. Obviously, he was wrong."

At his vague reference to his family's murder, I reached out and placed my hand on Ty's arm. To my surprise, he didn't shake away my touch.

I thought back to Silas's oak tree tattoo, the same one his brother had. “Silas and his brother had oak tree tattoos. The oak tree represents endurance,” I murmured. Those roots, deep in the ground, the acorns propagating themselves – it was ancient, ongoing, near-impossible to cut down. "And Ava, she had the acorn tattoo. Maybe she really did get it for Silas, before things went bad. It must be a family symbol or something. Maybe it goes beyond Silas and his brother. Maybe his parents are involved in whatever is going on."

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