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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
TITLE: Lords of Mercy
GENRE: Dark Romance
AUTHOR: Angel Lawson & Samantha Rue
TROPE: College Bully Romance
TYPE: Series (Royals of Forsyth University Book 3)
POV: Multiple POV
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5
The final installment of Story and her Lords (Tristan, Killian and Dimitri/Rath) was a whirlwind. I did not feel as much angst as I did in the first two books, but it was full of twists and turns to keep me on my toes. The series has been spicy and dark throughout, with the touch of taboo with Killian being Story's step-brother. Each character grew into individual personalities over the series with their strengths and weaknesses to make up this blended "family". I enjoyed the Lord's part of the series overall, and I will be curious enough to continue with the next part of the series that revolves around the Dukes. I am rating this 4 / 5 Stars.
GENRE: Dark Romance
AUTHOR: Angel Lawson & Samantha Rue
TROPE: College Bully Romance
TYPE: Series (Royals of Forsyth University Book 3)
POV: Multiple POV
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5
The final installment of Story and her Lords (Tristan, Killian and Dimitri/Rath) was a whirlwind. I did not feel as much angst as I did in the first two books, but it was full of twists and turns to keep me on my toes. The series has been spicy and dark throughout, with the touch of taboo with Killian being Story's step-brother. Each character grew into individual personalities over the series with their strengths and weaknesses to make up this blended "family". I enjoyed the Lord's part of the series overall, and I will be curious enough to continue with the next part of the series that revolves around the Dukes. I am rating this 4 / 5 Stars.
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Third time reading.
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
medium-paced
honestly all I'm going to say is one of the main love interests gets a "spikey double s" tattoo for "south side". Either the author is somehow unaware that is natzi imagery or they do. Either way...yikes.
I seek out "depraved" books when asking for recommendations. With that being said, please read the trigger warnings! This book did not disappoint! SA, step-brother/step-sister, mutilation, degredation, suicidal thoughts, CNC.... it's all in this series. Loved every second of these books. 100% will re-read! A thigh pressing good time! Also I loved this ending!
Me ha gustado, pero no tanto como el segundo. En ese la pluma de las autoras era electrizante y hay momentos que incluso al releerlos me siguen poniendo los pelos de punta. Además, tengo la sensación de que este libro sí que pretende ser romántico, a diferencia de los otros dos, y aunque Killian, Dimitri y Tristian han cambiado de verdad, no puedo disfrutar de un romance que ha pasado por todo lo ocurrido en el primer libro.
He leído novelas en las que el chico sigue siendo un capullo y la protagonista aprende a amar eso, a aceptar que “él es así”. Yo sabía que el caso de estos tres no iba a ser ese (me spoileé y de no haberlo hecho no me habría acabado el primer libro), pero para mí no es suficiente. A Dimitri, aunque me cueste admitirlo, he llegado a perdonarle. Killian también se ha ganado mi cariño con algunas escenas (las suyas son las que más me han hecho sentir, lo admito) y con su evolución, que está muy, muy bien hecha, porque es asombrosa y a la vez, las autoras han conseguido que resulte creíble (no se ha vuelto un ángel, pero estoy súper orgullosa de, por ejemplo, la forma en la que actúa cuando piensa que Story puede acabar con su vida). Pero es que hay tantas cosas mal con él, tantas cosas mal con Tristian… Puede gustarme su evolución, pero les sigo guardando muchísimo rencor y la verdad es que me alivia saber que eso no ha cambiado y que no me he olvidado de todo lo que le han hecho a Story. Por lo menos las autoras lo han hecho bien en ese sentido. Nos siguen recordando lo que los tres le hicieron a Story desde el principio hasta el final del libro.
Aún así, me han faltado escenas en las que los tres mostraran arrepentimiento hasta el punto de retorcerse de dolor, y me han sobrado insinuaciones de que Killian no se convirtió en el monstruo que es su padre, porque sí lo hizo.
Tras la muerte de Daniel hay una escena que no me gusta nada:
“He wanted to break you so fucking bad.”
I tighten my arms around him, eyes falling closed. “Well, he didn’t.”
“But I did. Didn’t I?” His hand runs up my back and I feel the tremble in his fingertips. “Is that what I am? Just another fucked up Payne mowing people over?”
look up at him, my voice as strong as the grip I have wound around him. “No.” It’s true that they tried, but they also fought for me. Bled for me. Championed me. I was put through the gauntlet and came out stronger.
Dios y Story perdonan, pero yo no. Me da igual que lucharan y sangraran por ella, nada de eso exime lo otro. Y no la hicieron más fuerte, solo la obligaron a la fuerza a amoldarse a la situación de mierda que lleva a acompañándola desde que nació.
Y luego hay otra en la que Ms. Cane está contándole a Story cosas de cuando Killian era pequeño:
“It’s hard to make a mark on this world—you know that as well as I do. But those little shits were the hill I planned to die on. I swore to myself twelve years ago, crouched down on that grimy motel carpet, that I wouldn’t let him become another monster.” She jabs the tip of her forefinger into the counter. “Not this one. Not this boy. Not if I could help it.”
Pues no hiciste absolutamente nada, mi ciela. Se convirtió en un maltratador y en un violador. La única diferencia entre él y su padre es que el primero es un sociópata, mientras que el segundo es un psicópata.
Además, algo que me sigue molestando es pensar en lo que habría pasado si Story disfrutara de al atención de Daniel como Killian pensaba en el primer libro. ¿La habría seguido torturando? Para Killian es mejor pensar que abusaron de ella, solo así se permite querer a Story, y eso me parece vomitivo.
La Story del segundo libro también me gustó más que esta. Hay partes en este libro, como la que he puesto abajo, que me parecen poco realistas. Usar la sexualidad a tu favor en un mundo como el de esta historia es supervivencia, no empoderamiento, y el mensaje que transmite es una ilusión. Killian, Rath y Tristian sí que se arrodillarían ante ella, pero porque están enamorados. Para el resto de los hombres, sigue siendo un trozo de carne.
Truthfully, I used to hate them all. For seeing me that night in the basement. For acting like it was fun. For not doing a thing to stop it. For being a part of this whole twisted system and vying for their own places within it.
Now, I shamefully find their cheers putting steel into my spine, because these forty guys would kneel at my feet if I told them to.
One day, I just fucking might.
También me he cansado un poco de la relación de Story con el resto de mujeres que aparecen en la novela. Entiendo que no son unas santas, precisamente, pero es que no hay ni una buena, y los comebacks de Story me han decepcionado mucho. Creo que podría haberse vengado de una forma un poco más inteligente, en vez de haber recurrido a frases como esta:
“I should have let my Lords defile you the way you’d planned on letting Perez take me. You think he’s bad? It’s nothing like having the three of them on your bad side. You wouldn’t walk for a week.” I bring her hand up to her temple and force her head to the side. “But there’s no goddamn way I’d let them near your skanky, diseased-riddled pussy. So I’m going to have to finish this here.”
(Aquí sí ha estado bien: We should look at each other and see an ally. We should form something worth a damn, because no one else in this place could ever understand what it’s like. Not like we do. Instead, it’s just another game. God, I am so fucking sick of games).
A pesar de todo, estoy bastante contenta con cómo ha evolucionado la relación de los protagonistas, porque de verdad llegan a adorarla y a tratarla como una reina. ♡
FRASES Y MOMENTOS DESTACADOS
It’s that Dimitri put himself between me and the world, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
There was a moment when he was inside of me, protecting me, asking me sweetly to come for him, that I felt something click in my heart. But here, away from all that, I’m not sure if it was real or not.
“What would you have done?” I wonder, clutching my sides. “If he’d...given me to you. Like you wanted. Like you thought he would.”
There’s a shifting sound, two footsteps behind me, and then he speaks, voice quiet and dark. “I would have taken care of you.”
“You would have fucked me.”
There’s no shifting sounds now. Just utter stillness. “Yeah.”
“You would have owned me.”
Tighter, he repeats. “Yeah.” “You would have—”
“Stop,” he interrupts, the word emerging with more weariness than I’m expecting. “Stop making it sound that way. I would have fucked you. Of course I would have fucked you. I was sixteen, and you were—” There’s a bitten off sigh, and then, “I would have wanted you to want it, Story. Jesus Christ. I would have wanted you to come to my bed. Stop making me sound like I’m—”
“You?” I ask, turning to glance at him over my shoulder.
His teeth gnash. “Him.”
This is how Killian kisses—as if he’s certain he’s not welcome, but he’s made a choice to claw his way inside, regardless.
“Is that what happened during dinner?” Rath asks, staring at the liquor for a long moment before placing it on the table. “Her terms?”
“That?” I swallow back the burning liquid. “That was therapy.”
Rath raises a skeptical eyebrow. “I don’t think people usually give therapy with their dicks.”
I can’t imagine myself playing music for her.
I can’t imagine watching her from across the room, or tucking her against me while we sleep, or pulling her into a bath and rubbing the tension from her shoulders as we smoke a blunt. I can’t imagine fucking her and being overtaken by the urge to look into her eyes as I do it, worried that it’ll be too exposed, but unable to give a shit. I can’t imagine her ever being mine, and I can’t imagine ever being hers.
Not like with Story.
I suspect this isn’t really about showing ‘appreciation’. I just wonder if she can do it. Can she fuck someone without it being repayment, or reward, or obligation, or the threat of something worse looming over her head?
“Sometimes you’re so real, it fucking hurts to look at you.”
Blinking, she asks, “Why?”
“Because you make me…” My voice trails off, partly because I can feel her clenching around my dick, but partly because I don’t think I can put it into words. “You make me wish I could be different. Do more. Be less. It’s hard to explain.” Laughing darkly, I add, “You called me empty once, but I have no fucking clue how. I feel so full of this shit that its gotta be bleeding from my ears.”
“Are you afraid he’ll be too rough?”
At her small, timid nod, Killian’s jaw clicks shut. “I’ll be rough?!” he exclaims, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Me? You’re the one who hit me!”
My balls ache with how badly I want to be him, but it’s almost good enough to just watch. To see the way he loses control in a different sense. The gentle way he looks at her between obscene, rough kisses. The swell of her slender throat as she struggles to control her cries. I don’t think I really understood them until right now, witnessing the turbulence of their affection for one another. It’s a fine-edged blade that’s too used to cutting.
I don’t hate them for it. In fact, I might just love them for it.
Such an odd notion.
Love. It wasn’t very long ago the idea of anyone loving these three—let alone me—would have been outright laughable. These men aren’t made to be loved. They’re made to be hard and cruel, and avoided at all costs.
He’s not physically imposing like Killian, or broody and dangerous like Dimitri, but he’s insanely confident, ridiculously rich, and absolutely in control, even when he’s holding a match in his fingertips, seconds from lighting a fire. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been under his heel before. That I’ve seen what he’s like when he crosses over the boundaries of sense. That I know what it feels like to be on my knees for him—because of him—forced by him. Tristian Mercer still seems almost too good to be true.
She’s the woman who shot a man to protect us. She’s the woman who took the brunt of my darkness at a time when I couldn’t find the light, and then she was the woman who forgave me for it.
“Oh, yes, he’s the sweetest,” Story says, but I see the dark flicker run through her eyes. It’s brief, but I know how to read it. I’ve been anything but sweet to this girl. I forced her to deep throat my cock. I defiled her in public. I held her down while Rath fucked her with a knife. I carved my initial in her chest. “I’m a lucky girl.”
“Take this ride with me, little sister. I’ll keep you safe.”
Her eyes flutter open, and she might be high right now, but I know some of that glassiness in her gaze is on account of me. “Promise?” The question is loaded—more about than just a simple sleigh ride. It’s about life and everything hurtling our way.
And it’s easy to answer.
“I promise.”
She deserves the care he’s taken just as much as she deserves the tender look in Killer’s eyes when he shifts her hips, getting her in position for me.
“If I were your mother, I’d poison your breakfast to spare myself the embarrassment!”
Tristian smiles serenely. “If you were my mother, I’d eat it.”
“Rath fought for you! I put a fucking bullet in my father for you! We take care of our own.”
“And this girl? Lavinia?” My horrified gaze passes between them. “Who takes care of her?”
This isn’t just a move we’re making.
These are the moves that are going to make us.
“Killer here isn’t my type. Way too uptight.”
Killian drapes his arm over the back of my chair, face blank. “I’m everyone’s type. Now shut the fuck up.”
We can joke all we want, but the two of us together? Nothing good has ever come of it. Even when I try. Even when I go out of my way. No matter what I do, no matter how much we sugarcoat it, we’ll never be anything to one another but toxic.
“I don’t know how to do all the romance stuff Rath and Tris do. I can’t take you to balls, or write you a song, or bring you tea and tampons when you’re on your rag.” She raises her eyebrow and I glare back. “Christ, you know what I mean. I forced you on your knees. I took your virginity. I shoved a tracker in your neck. I marked my initial in your chest. I gave you a fucking gun for Christmas.” Put like that—yeah. I really am hopeless. I shake my head, muttering, “A gun. Jesus Christ.”
“I love you,” I repeat softly. It’s not a question, but whispered devotion. It gives me what I need to finish the letter, swooping the final stinging curve, because maybe she doesn’t need it, but I do. “Do you have any idea how much?” Blood spills faster that she can catch it and she grabs the hem of my shirt, pressing against the flesh with a hitched breath. I barely feel the sting. “So much that it’s paralyzing. Sometimes I watch you, and I can’t blink. Can’t swallow. Can’t breathe. I’m too busy wondering what it’d be like.”
Her eyes fly up to mine, wide and stunned. “What it’d be like?”
“If you loved me back.”
“You are so much more than that.” I feel the pain of loving her in the burning cuts on my chest, but that’s not what it is. It isn’t surface-level. It’s so deep that sometimes I think it’s etched into my bones. “So much fucking more.”
I don’t ask if I can stay, and she doesn’t tell me to leave—even though she knows I would.
She looks like an angel when I let myself take her in, and it’s almost exactly what I said before. Paralyzing. In no universe should I have dominion over something so painfully sweet.
When I finally bottom out, I curl over her, lifting our linked hands to her chest, nestled between us like a precious, secret thing. I don’t know what it means to make love to someone, but if this isn’t it, then I’ll never be capable of it, because it hurts. It hurts to keep it slow as I rock my hips into hers, but the thought of disturbing it all hurts even more.
“He wanted to break you so fucking bad.”
I tighten my arms around him, eyes falling closed. “Well, he didn’t.”
“But I did. Didn’t I?”
The kiss is short, but it takes my breath away. In all this time, I never would have thought I’d get Killian like this. Tender and slow and so sweet that it lingers into an ache.
My chest clenches and I swallow through the sudden assault of hot, possessive want swelling in my chest. She has no idea that I’d probably go out there and try to lasso the goddamn moon if she asked me to with those big eyes and plaintive voice.
I want to believe it was real. That Story couldn’t kiss me like that, touch me like that, look at me like that, and then turn around and be a part of our demise. I want to believe I know her better.
But I also know myself.
I know the shit I’ve done to her. I remember every cruel word and bruising touch. I remember the stroke of my pen as I bound her to us in this house. I remember her tears that night. I found her upstairs with a shard of glass pressed to her wrist. I remember breaking her.
“If she wants justice,” I offer in a bland tone, “then it’s hers to take. I won’t stop her.”
“If she wants me dead, then there’s no point in living, anyway.”
An image flashes in my head of the girl who tied me up and enacted her revenge. My memory is still fuzzy from the drugs that night, but I recall the tremor in her hand when she pressed the gun to my head. When she forced herself onto my cock. When she destroyed my secret, sacred things.
Not tonight.
This Story Austin keeps her chin up and her eyes hard. Confident. Unfaltering.
We made this girl—through tenderness and blood, ecstasy and tears—and when she lowers the barrel to my forehead, pressing the cool steel against my skin, I know I deserve it.
“And what am I going to tell her the first time she comes home crying because some jackass at school was a dick to her?” Quieter, I wonder, “What am I going to tell her when she asks why boys are so mean?”
“You tell her the truth,” she says, reaching out to cup my cheek. “That you’re all sentient manifestations of Satan’s ballsack.”
“She’s perfect.” He says this with a hint of shock, as if she’s been in this world for mere minutes and she’s already done something incredible. Quieter, he tells the baby, “You’re perfect,” and gently brushes his lips over her forehead.
“I’d definitely go commercial for you.”
He leído novelas en las que el chico sigue siendo un capullo y la protagonista aprende a amar eso, a aceptar que “él es así”. Yo sabía que el caso de estos tres no iba a ser ese (me spoileé y de no haberlo hecho no me habría acabado el primer libro), pero para mí no es suficiente. A Dimitri, aunque me cueste admitirlo, he llegado a perdonarle. Killian también se ha ganado mi cariño con algunas escenas (las suyas son las que más me han hecho sentir, lo admito) y con su evolución, que está muy, muy bien hecha, porque es asombrosa y a la vez, las autoras han conseguido que resulte creíble (no se ha vuelto un ángel, pero estoy súper orgullosa de, por ejemplo, la forma en la que actúa cuando piensa que Story puede acabar con su vida). Pero es que hay tantas cosas mal con él, tantas cosas mal con Tristian… Puede gustarme su evolución, pero les sigo guardando muchísimo rencor y la verdad es que me alivia saber que eso no ha cambiado y que no me he olvidado de todo lo que le han hecho a Story. Por lo menos las autoras lo han hecho bien en ese sentido. Nos siguen recordando lo que los tres le hicieron a Story desde el principio hasta el final del libro.
Aún así, me han faltado escenas en las que los tres mostraran arrepentimiento hasta el punto de retorcerse de dolor, y me han sobrado insinuaciones de que Killian no se convirtió en el monstruo que es su padre, porque sí lo hizo.
Tras la muerte de Daniel hay una escena que no me gusta nada:
“He wanted to break you so fucking bad.”
I tighten my arms around him, eyes falling closed. “Well, he didn’t.”
“But I did. Didn’t I?” His hand runs up my back and I feel the tremble in his fingertips. “Is that what I am? Just another fucked up Payne mowing people over?”
look up at him, my voice as strong as the grip I have wound around him. “No.” It’s true that they tried, but they also fought for me. Bled for me. Championed me. I was put through the gauntlet and came out stronger.
Dios y Story perdonan, pero yo no. Me da igual que lucharan y sangraran por ella, nada de eso exime lo otro. Y no la hicieron más fuerte, solo la obligaron a la fuerza a amoldarse a la situación de mierda que lleva a acompañándola desde que nació.
Y luego hay otra en la que Ms. Cane está contándole a Story cosas de cuando Killian era pequeño:
“It’s hard to make a mark on this world—you know that as well as I do. But those little shits were the hill I planned to die on. I swore to myself twelve years ago, crouched down on that grimy motel carpet, that I wouldn’t let him become another monster.” She jabs the tip of her forefinger into the counter. “Not this one. Not this boy. Not if I could help it.”
Pues no hiciste absolutamente nada, mi ciela. Se convirtió en un maltratador y en un violador. La única diferencia entre él y su padre es que el primero es un sociópata, mientras que el segundo es un psicópata.
Además, algo que me sigue molestando es pensar en lo que habría pasado si Story disfrutara de al atención de Daniel como Killian pensaba en el primer libro. ¿La habría seguido torturando? Para Killian es mejor pensar que abusaron de ella, solo así se permite querer a Story, y eso me parece vomitivo.
La Story del segundo libro también me gustó más que esta. Hay partes en este libro, como la que he puesto abajo, que me parecen poco realistas. Usar la sexualidad a tu favor en un mundo como el de esta historia es supervivencia, no empoderamiento, y el mensaje que transmite es una ilusión. Killian, Rath y Tristian sí que se arrodillarían ante ella, pero porque están enamorados. Para el resto de los hombres, sigue siendo un trozo de carne.
Truthfully, I used to hate them all. For seeing me that night in the basement. For acting like it was fun. For not doing a thing to stop it. For being a part of this whole twisted system and vying for their own places within it.
Now, I shamefully find their cheers putting steel into my spine, because these forty guys would kneel at my feet if I told them to.
One day, I just fucking might.
También me he cansado un poco de la relación de Story con el resto de mujeres que aparecen en la novela. Entiendo que no son unas santas, precisamente, pero es que no hay ni una buena, y los comebacks de Story me han decepcionado mucho. Creo que podría haberse vengado de una forma un poco más inteligente, en vez de haber recurrido a frases como esta:
“I should have let my Lords defile you the way you’d planned on letting Perez take me. You think he’s bad? It’s nothing like having the three of them on your bad side. You wouldn’t walk for a week.” I bring her hand up to her temple and force her head to the side. “But there’s no goddamn way I’d let them near your skanky, diseased-riddled pussy. So I’m going to have to finish this here.”
(Aquí sí ha estado bien: We should look at each other and see an ally. We should form something worth a damn, because no one else in this place could ever understand what it’s like. Not like we do. Instead, it’s just another game. God, I am so fucking sick of games).
A pesar de todo, estoy bastante contenta con cómo ha evolucionado la relación de los protagonistas, porque de verdad llegan a adorarla y a tratarla como una reina. ♡
FRASES Y MOMENTOS DESTACADOS
It’s that Dimitri put himself between me and the world, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
There was a moment when he was inside of me, protecting me, asking me sweetly to come for him, that I felt something click in my heart. But here, away from all that, I’m not sure if it was real or not.
“What would you have done?” I wonder, clutching my sides. “If he’d...given me to you. Like you wanted. Like you thought he would.”
There’s a shifting sound, two footsteps behind me, and then he speaks, voice quiet and dark. “I would have taken care of you.”
“You would have fucked me.”
There’s no shifting sounds now. Just utter stillness. “Yeah.”
“You would have owned me.”
Tighter, he repeats. “Yeah.” “You would have—”
“Stop,” he interrupts, the word emerging with more weariness than I’m expecting. “Stop making it sound that way. I would have fucked you. Of course I would have fucked you. I was sixteen, and you were—” There’s a bitten off sigh, and then, “I would have wanted you to want it, Story. Jesus Christ. I would have wanted you to come to my bed. Stop making me sound like I’m—”
“You?” I ask, turning to glance at him over my shoulder.
His teeth gnash. “Him.”
This is how Killian kisses—as if he’s certain he’s not welcome, but he’s made a choice to claw his way inside, regardless.
“Is that what happened during dinner?” Rath asks, staring at the liquor for a long moment before placing it on the table. “Her terms?”
“That?” I swallow back the burning liquid. “That was therapy.”
Rath raises a skeptical eyebrow. “I don’t think people usually give therapy with their dicks.”
I can’t imagine myself playing music for her.
I can’t imagine watching her from across the room, or tucking her against me while we sleep, or pulling her into a bath and rubbing the tension from her shoulders as we smoke a blunt. I can’t imagine fucking her and being overtaken by the urge to look into her eyes as I do it, worried that it’ll be too exposed, but unable to give a shit. I can’t imagine her ever being mine, and I can’t imagine ever being hers.
Not like with Story.
I suspect this isn’t really about showing ‘appreciation’. I just wonder if she can do it. Can she fuck someone without it being repayment, or reward, or obligation, or the threat of something worse looming over her head?
“Sometimes you’re so real, it fucking hurts to look at you.”
Blinking, she asks, “Why?”
“Because you make me…” My voice trails off, partly because I can feel her clenching around my dick, but partly because I don’t think I can put it into words. “You make me wish I could be different. Do more. Be less. It’s hard to explain.” Laughing darkly, I add, “You called me empty once, but I have no fucking clue how. I feel so full of this shit that its gotta be bleeding from my ears.”
“Are you afraid he’ll be too rough?”
At her small, timid nod, Killian’s jaw clicks shut. “I’ll be rough?!” he exclaims, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Me? You’re the one who hit me!”
My balls ache with how badly I want to be him, but it’s almost good enough to just watch. To see the way he loses control in a different sense. The gentle way he looks at her between obscene, rough kisses. The swell of her slender throat as she struggles to control her cries. I don’t think I really understood them until right now, witnessing the turbulence of their affection for one another. It’s a fine-edged blade that’s too used to cutting.
I don’t hate them for it. In fact, I might just love them for it.
Such an odd notion.
Love. It wasn’t very long ago the idea of anyone loving these three—let alone me—would have been outright laughable. These men aren’t made to be loved. They’re made to be hard and cruel, and avoided at all costs.
He’s not physically imposing like Killian, or broody and dangerous like Dimitri, but he’s insanely confident, ridiculously rich, and absolutely in control, even when he’s holding a match in his fingertips, seconds from lighting a fire. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been under his heel before. That I’ve seen what he’s like when he crosses over the boundaries of sense. That I know what it feels like to be on my knees for him—because of him—forced by him. Tristian Mercer still seems almost too good to be true.
She’s the woman who shot a man to protect us. She’s the woman who took the brunt of my darkness at a time when I couldn’t find the light, and then she was the woman who forgave me for it.
“Oh, yes, he’s the sweetest,” Story says, but I see the dark flicker run through her eyes. It’s brief, but I know how to read it. I’ve been anything but sweet to this girl. I forced her to deep throat my cock. I defiled her in public. I held her down while Rath fucked her with a knife. I carved my initial in her chest. “I’m a lucky girl.”
“Take this ride with me, little sister. I’ll keep you safe.”
Her eyes flutter open, and she might be high right now, but I know some of that glassiness in her gaze is on account of me. “Promise?” The question is loaded—more about than just a simple sleigh ride. It’s about life and everything hurtling our way.
And it’s easy to answer.
“I promise.”
She deserves the care he’s taken just as much as she deserves the tender look in Killer’s eyes when he shifts her hips, getting her in position for me.
“If I were your mother, I’d poison your breakfast to spare myself the embarrassment!”
Tristian smiles serenely. “If you were my mother, I’d eat it.”
“Rath fought for you! I put a fucking bullet in my father for you! We take care of our own.”
“And this girl? Lavinia?” My horrified gaze passes between them. “Who takes care of her?”
This isn’t just a move we’re making.
These are the moves that are going to make us.
“Killer here isn’t my type. Way too uptight.”
Killian drapes his arm over the back of my chair, face blank. “I’m everyone’s type. Now shut the fuck up.”
We can joke all we want, but the two of us together? Nothing good has ever come of it. Even when I try. Even when I go out of my way. No matter what I do, no matter how much we sugarcoat it, we’ll never be anything to one another but toxic.
“I don’t know how to do all the romance stuff Rath and Tris do. I can’t take you to balls, or write you a song, or bring you tea and tampons when you’re on your rag.” She raises her eyebrow and I glare back. “Christ, you know what I mean. I forced you on your knees. I took your virginity. I shoved a tracker in your neck. I marked my initial in your chest. I gave you a fucking gun for Christmas.” Put like that—yeah. I really am hopeless. I shake my head, muttering, “A gun. Jesus Christ.”
“I love you,” I repeat softly. It’s not a question, but whispered devotion. It gives me what I need to finish the letter, swooping the final stinging curve, because maybe she doesn’t need it, but I do. “Do you have any idea how much?” Blood spills faster that she can catch it and she grabs the hem of my shirt, pressing against the flesh with a hitched breath. I barely feel the sting. “So much that it’s paralyzing. Sometimes I watch you, and I can’t blink. Can’t swallow. Can’t breathe. I’m too busy wondering what it’d be like.”
Her eyes fly up to mine, wide and stunned. “What it’d be like?”
“If you loved me back.”
“You are so much more than that.” I feel the pain of loving her in the burning cuts on my chest, but that’s not what it is. It isn’t surface-level. It’s so deep that sometimes I think it’s etched into my bones. “So much fucking more.”
I don’t ask if I can stay, and she doesn’t tell me to leave—even though she knows I would.
She looks like an angel when I let myself take her in, and it’s almost exactly what I said before. Paralyzing. In no universe should I have dominion over something so painfully sweet.
When I finally bottom out, I curl over her, lifting our linked hands to her chest, nestled between us like a precious, secret thing. I don’t know what it means to make love to someone, but if this isn’t it, then I’ll never be capable of it, because it hurts. It hurts to keep it slow as I rock my hips into hers, but the thought of disturbing it all hurts even more.
“He wanted to break you so fucking bad.”
I tighten my arms around him, eyes falling closed. “Well, he didn’t.”
“But I did. Didn’t I?”
The kiss is short, but it takes my breath away. In all this time, I never would have thought I’d get Killian like this. Tender and slow and so sweet that it lingers into an ache.
My chest clenches and I swallow through the sudden assault of hot, possessive want swelling in my chest. She has no idea that I’d probably go out there and try to lasso the goddamn moon if she asked me to with those big eyes and plaintive voice.
I want to believe it was real. That Story couldn’t kiss me like that, touch me like that, look at me like that, and then turn around and be a part of our demise. I want to believe I know her better.
But I also know myself.
I know the shit I’ve done to her. I remember every cruel word and bruising touch. I remember the stroke of my pen as I bound her to us in this house. I remember her tears that night. I found her upstairs with a shard of glass pressed to her wrist. I remember breaking her.
“If she wants justice,” I offer in a bland tone, “then it’s hers to take. I won’t stop her.”
“If she wants me dead, then there’s no point in living, anyway.”
An image flashes in my head of the girl who tied me up and enacted her revenge. My memory is still fuzzy from the drugs that night, but I recall the tremor in her hand when she pressed the gun to my head. When she forced herself onto my cock. When she destroyed my secret, sacred things.
Not tonight.
This Story Austin keeps her chin up and her eyes hard. Confident. Unfaltering.
We made this girl—through tenderness and blood, ecstasy and tears—and when she lowers the barrel to my forehead, pressing the cool steel against my skin, I know I deserve it.
“And what am I going to tell her the first time she comes home crying because some jackass at school was a dick to her?” Quieter, I wonder, “What am I going to tell her when she asks why boys are so mean?”
“You tell her the truth,” she says, reaching out to cup my cheek. “That you’re all sentient manifestations of Satan’s ballsack.”
“She’s perfect.” He says this with a hint of shock, as if she’s been in this world for mere minutes and she’s already done something incredible. Quieter, he tells the baby, “You’re perfect,” and gently brushes his lips over her forehead.
“I’d definitely go commercial for you.”
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Best of the series! I couldn't believe how good it was. The other books were good but this finale was a masterpiece.
These characters just grabbed me by the heart. The bond they have, the fact that they always have each other's back, their acceptance of each other however fucked up they are, the humor they share. Perfection. And the spice... it just got better and better with every chapter and these were some of the best scenes I've ever read.
These authors just blew me away. This was excellent.
Obviously, check trigger warnings.
These characters just grabbed me by the heart. The bond they have, the fact that they always have each other's back, their acceptance of each other however fucked up they are, the humor they share. Perfection. And the spice... it just got better and better with every chapter and these were some of the best scenes I've ever read.
These authors just blew me away. This was excellent.
Obviously, check trigger warnings.
So so good! The perfect way to wrap it all up. So much happens in this it’s crazy. Ted is definitely the last person I thought it would be and Daniel thankfully is no longer a problem. They are a happy family by the end and it’s so sweet it completely melts your heart seeing these 3 big strong men fall completely in love. Loved this one so much!