Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,270

out of my seat, dropping down into it and placing me in his lap.

“What?” I asked, smearing some cake over his lips and he sucked my fingers, cleaning up the four rings which represented each of my husbands. Nash had bought me a silver ring with a sparkling blue sapphire and Blake had bought me beautiful platinum band engraved with the words our love, our life, our queen. I wore one on each of the fingers on my left hand and never took them off.

“A little baby girl.” Kyan patted my belly and my eyes narrowed.

“Ooh, I’m down,” Blake agreed.

“Hell no, if you want another one, one of you can give birth to it,” I growled, going full devil woman and they shrank away fast, clearly reminded of my four labours. I was not a princess when I gave birth and they knew it all too well. Nash still had crescent shaped scars on his arm since MJ.

“I’m just saying, it would even out the testosterone levels a bit,” Kyan went on.

“Do you wanna die today or something, bro?” Nash mocked, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of his lap.

He drew me back against his chest, wrapping his arms around my waist and I leaned on him with a sigh as I watched the others all wrestle over cake and Saint laughed like there were no demons living inside him anymore. At least not ones that couldn’t be tamed.

Everyone looked so damn happy and there was really nothing more I could ask for in the world than that. My tribe had grown and was so full of love that it could fill the entire ocean. I was the luckiest girl on earth, surrounded by a family of warriors who squeezed every drop out of life.

We’d built our own Temple where we worshipped all forms of chaos, and I was going to thrive in it for the rest of forever with my monsters at my side.

G etting the kids to bed was always a mixture of routine and carnage, but at least the party had thoroughly worn them out. Mila, Danny, Blake’s dad and Christina had left us to it while we were battling tiny people into pyjamas and the five of us had all gathered out on the deck to see out the last of my birthday.

There was something special about the silence that followed a day full of children’s screams and as much as I loved the chaos the boys created, I always savoured this moment of peace once they’d settled for the night.

"I have one request," I asked, stroking my fingers through Tatum's hair as she leaned back against me where we sat on the steps of the wooden deck, her toes in the sand, looking out over the beach as we all watched the sunset.

"Just the one?" she teased.

"Yeah, yeah, we get it, man," Nash said, knocking his shoulder against mine in an affectionately mocking kind of way. "You wanna boss us all around in your sex dungeon tonight."

I rolled my eyes, objecting to the word dungeon but it hardly seemed worth mentioning if he hadn’t stopped calling it that after all these years.

"I'll agree so long as you do that thing with all the ropes again," Kyan said, grinning at me as he slung his arm around my shoulders.

"Oh, you mean that Japanese thing?" Blake asked from his position laying in the sand before us, his hand sliding up Tatum's leg as he grinned at the memories of the last time we'd played with that.

"It's called shibari," I muttered, wondering why I bothered - I was fairly certain that they chose not to learn the proper name just to infuriate me.

"Is that a yes then, birthday boy?" Tatum teased and I smiled as I drew her blonde hair over her shoulder, giving me access to kiss her neck where her Night Bound tattoo sat on her skin.

"If you're certain you want to be bound at the mercy of monsters?" I replied and she moaned softly as I kept kissing her.

"It's a little late to go back on that decision now," she replied, wiggling the fingers on her left hand so that the rings she wore caught the light of the setting sun and Kyan chuckled darkly.

"So can we go now, or-" he began.

"The sun's still going down, asshole," Blake protested, thumping him in the thigh. "Tatum wants to watch it."

"Oh yeah, Tatum's the one who dragged us all out here like a puppy who wanted