Hearing Lucas call her by name last night cemented it for us both, and there’s no going back. Elena King is our baby.
“What do you think?” I ask Binx, and he tells me to order both as well. He’ll help me eat whatever is delivered. “Good choice,” I tell him and put in an order with Uber Eats to deliver both a Chicago-style hotdog with fries as well as a pizza, which should arrive shortly after we get to the Lincoln Park house.
“She’s doing somersaults.” I move Lucas’s hand from my thigh to my stomach.
“She must like the car,” Lucas says and revs the engine, speeding around a semi-truck. He took the McLaren today, saying it was a “special occasion” and we deserved to travel in style. I had to enchant the windows to keep the harmful rays of the sun out, and Lucas grumbled for a good twenty minutes nonstop about how his car smells “like sage and magic instead of leather.” Not even Eliza could roll her eyes hard enough at that.
“She doesn’t care about the car.” I look at Binx and roll my eyes. He doesn’t care about the car, either, and is only riding with me to oblige me. He can easily shadow his way from Thorne Hill to Chicago and go completely unnoticed, as he’s done more than once.
“She likes going fast, then.” He pulls up my shirt up and rubs my stomach. His hand are cold but will warm up quickly.
“We need to pick a middle name.” I rest my hand on top of his.
“Do we, though? I don’t have a middle name.”
“Were middle names a thing back when you were born?”
“The aristocratic Romans had three names. I did not. King wasn’t the surname I was born with. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“No, this is news to me, and I’m not sure if it’s going to put me into an existential crisis or not. You’re not Lucas King?”
“I am, legally. When I registered as a vampire, I had to put down a last name. King felt fitting.”
I look at Lucas, blinking. “You named yourself Lucas King because it felt fitting?”
“Yes.”
I blink a few more times and then laugh. “It is fitting. You are a king amongst vampires.”
“And every king needs his queen.” He looks at me, sexy smirk on his face. “And an heir.”
“I am the unofficial Queen of Hell.”
“That would be hot if it wasn’t so…so dangerous for you both.” He pulls my shirt back and puts both hands back on the steering wheel. “You would look good in a crown, which reminds me, I have one I’ll get for you.”
“You have a crown?”
“Yes, from seventeenth-century Spain. It was a gift from a queen.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “Hold the phone. What? You just have a crown lying around?”
“It’s preserved in storage.”
“Like a real crown?”
“Yes. I did a favor for the royal family and was given the tiara along with other jewels.”
“And I suddenly feel so boring,” I laugh as I run a hand over Binx’s sleek fur. “What kind of favor did you do? If it’s sexual, I don’t want to know. But I do. Yeah, I do.”
“I did fuck the princess a few times,” he says causally, and I find it amusing he fumes with jealousy if I mention having a slight, innocent crush on anyone. “And they had me take care of a rival family by holding them spellbound and making them commit treason.”
“Ohh, sneaky. I like it. How did they know you were a vampire?”
“The princess,” Lucas says with another smirk. “You would say she had a thing for bad boys.”
“And undead men. But you’re mine now, and being Queen of Hell is much cooler than being a Spanish princess, but I am a little curious about this tiara.”
“It was appraised at six million the last time I had it looked at, which was a while ago. I’m sure it’s worth closer to eight or ten now. It’s gold with hundreds of diamonds,” he tells me. “And will look perfect on you.”
“When I’m naked, right?”
“I think that’s the only way you should wear it.”
I let out a snort of laughter, though the thought of putting on a crown and making Lucas be my submitting servant does sound very fun. “How soon can you get me this tiara?”
“It’s in one of my storage units in Europe. I’ll call and have it shipped over.”
“When this is all over, we’re taking a week off just so I can go