Sire (Belles & Bratva Beasts #3)

SIRE

This moment.

This is how I wish I’d met Wren, not the dark and disturbing way we did.

She had been through enough. She deserved a meet-cute, as if this were the first time I set my eyes on her.

This moment is happy, ballsy, and so hilarious, it’s fucking beautiful.

“If you like bean enchiladas! And getting caught in the rain!”

Wren belts the famous 1970s song, smacking her chest like she’s Celine Dion on the bow of the Titanic …

when really … she’s the tipsy, future sister-in-law of the bride, with a voice that sounds a fuck-ton better screaming my name when she comes than entertaining me and her big family of in-laws at a wedding rehearsal dinner.

“Did she just…”

Axel, my brother, marvels, staring up at my stunning wife, who’s standing on the bar in front of us and singing into an empty tequila bottle.

She has a habit of massacring lyrics. It’s one of her many adorable flaws.

My flaws? They’re a lot darker and way more murderous.

Axel’s dumbfounded. “Does she really think those are the lyrics?”

“She sure does.” I grin like a love-struck puppy, gazing up at her.

Wren’s white minidress is giving a mouth-watering view of her pink lace panties, and she gives zero fucks.

Yeah, I’m hopelessly in love with this tiny woman who stole my heart and pinky.

“But it’s ‘The Pina Colada Song’.” Nash, my other brother, sits beside me, sounding equally amazed. “I mean, everyone knows it.”

“Actually…” I’ll always defend my wife. To the death. Done. Proven. Prefer not to do it again and get blood on my white Nike Killshots. “The song’s title is ‘Escape’ and that’s what I’ll need to find if I tell my beautiful wife she’s fucking songs up.”

“But she’s just kidding, right?” Jace, my most colossal brother, sits on the other side of Nash, defending her. “She does it for laughs. She’s gotta know those aren’t the lyrics.”

Hell, Jace is like all of us. He defends our queens, no matter what. Gazing up in awe at Wren, who’s shrieking about making love at midnight, he’s allowed to stare up her dress, too. All of my brothers can. It’s not like they haven’t seen her panties before.

They just can’t fucking touch her. Not anymore. After this wedding, it’s back to me, getting her pregnant.

“She’s not joking.” I can’t take my eyes off her. “When she screeches ‘Living On A Prayer,’ she thinks Bon Jovi is singing, ‘It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not.’”

Nash slaps the bar, rolling with laughter. He’s the silent, deadly one, but that has him wiping his eyes. “Naked or not? Goddamn, that’s so Wren.”

“It’s so Vale, too,” Jace chimes in about Nash’s wife. “She answers your front door topless. Naked is a constant state for her.”

Nash laughs, “That’s because it’s you, her second king, at our door, and she believes clothing optional was one of our marriage vows.”

Our wives are our queens, and we’re their kings, their husbands. We’ll die protecting them, and when we do, one of our brothers has taken a vow to be their second king, to protect our queen and family.

Together, we’ve initiated our queens. They belong to us. They’re bound to us.

It’s an intimate and powerful, albeit taboo tradition that saved our lives years ago, and now I’m praying it’ll save Wren’s life.

Because mine?

I’m about to risk it for my family.

“Hmm. Clothing optional?” Axel smirks. “I’ll be amending my wedding vows with Ruby tomorrow.”

Nash sips his whisky. “Like fuck you’d let Ruby answer the door topless.”

Jace huffs, “Like fuck he could stop her.”

I preach, “Because we’re all so goddamn in love.”

Our entire family is here in Mykonos for Axel and Ruby’s wedding, and this is how I wish I had met my wife: absolutely gobsmacked at how fucking amazing this brave woman is.

But that’s not the lethal life my brothers and I lead, and I can’t tell anymore if we were born into danger, or if we choose it.

Tough to say.

We just do it.

We escaped the Bratva as boys, only to make our own mafia of vigilante justice seekers as men, led by our badass mom, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

In two days, I may lose my family and life over what I did to save them, and I’d do it again.

The chorus returns. Wren bends down, kissing me before her smiling lips sing, “If you love bean enchiladas…”

And why am I smiling back? Why do I know all hell will break loose?

Because I know hell.

I’m the son of the devil.

But as a pastor now, I believe in heaven, too.

I smile because I have my Wren, my wife, my heaven on Earth. She’s my soul’s salvation because I met her, like this…