mouth cut straight to my heart, causing it to beat like a fucking drum.
Maddie broke away, and her eyes blinked, once, twice, three times. “Maddie,” I murmured, and a small smile hooked on her lips.
A cough sounded beside us, and I snapped my head up, crushing Maddie to my side. My eyes searched around to find that all the brothers had surrounded us, watching me with mouths hanging open, obviously in shock. Maddie ducked her head into my chest and I could feel the heat from her cheeks on the bare skin of my chest.
I bared my teeth, ready to tell them all to fuck off, when Styx and Ky walked forward with Mae and Lilah.
Mae had turned to Styx. “No! Please! Do not go after him. He did not plan this. And he let us go. I spoke to him. He seemed confused and lost… but he let us go.”
“Why the fuck did he just fucking let you go?” Ky exclaimed.
Mae, who was under Styx’s arm, shrugged. “It was his twin brother who organized for Sarai to pretend to have escaped. Everything she said was a lie, designed to work out a way to get us alone and away from the compound. Church was the perfect excuse. I think… it appeared as though Cain did not know of any of it. He was angry with his brother. He was livid with Sarai for bringing us here.”
“And Sarai killed Pastor James. She just shot her in the head, with no remorse,” Lilah added, her voice quiet and shaking with shock.
Ky held her to his chest. “So we’ve now got fucking child soldiers to contend with? Fucking perfect!”
Styx’s hands worked at Mae and I watched him ask, “I just don’t get why the fuck Rider let you go? He’s wanted you for months. Isn’t that why we’re getting fucking attacked at drop offs and shit? What’s his fucking deal?”
Lilah’s attention snapped to Mae. Mae stood back from Styx and pushed the hair from her face. Styx focused on his bitch. “Because I told him something that changed the prophecy of my becoming his wife. In fact, it has completely destroyed it.”
“And what the fuck was that?” Ky asked, frowning.
Mae took a deep breath, and reaching down for Styx’s hand, she pressed it flat to her stomach. “That I am with child.”
My eyes darted to Styx and his face had blanked. His eyes lowered to meet his hand over Mae’s stomach. He swallowed.
“Fuck, Styx,” Ky whispered. Styx then looked back at Mae’s face. His mouth spread into the biggest smile I’d ever seen, and he wrapped his arm around Mae’s neck and crushed her to his front. I could hear him whispering something into her ear and Mae began to sob.
I squeezed Maddie tighter, feeling every ounce of their emotion in my chest. Then my eyes closed as Maddie’s hand began stroking along my stomach, and I froze when her warm lips pressed a single kiss to my chest.
All the brothers embraced Styx, but I wouldn’t, and even if I could touch the Prez, I wasn’t fucking letting go of Maddie for shit. I wanted to get her home to our cabin, and I wanted to kiss her some more… I wanted to…. I wanted to…
“So we gotta just wait for them to attack again?” Ky asked Mae. She shook her head.
“I do not think Rider will return for us. I know him and I could see it in his eyes. I do not think that his life at New Zion is all it is supposed to be.” Mae took a deep breath, and looking up at Styx, who was still holding his hand against her stomach, his face fucking blank, said, “I think it could finally be over for us and The Order. I feel that Rider will not come for us again. I feel he may have seen the error of his ways.”
“The cunt still deserves to die,” Ky said darkly. I nodded my agreement, my back teeth grinding together just imagining stabbing that fucker in his face.
But Styx didn’t answer, instead he wrapped his arm around his bitch and hurried the fuck back to his bike.
Ky turned to the brothers. “Think that’s our cue to get the fuck on. Prez wants his knocked up bitch back home and in his fucking bed!”
I wasted no time. Lifting Maddie in my arms, I cut across the tall grass to my bike and placed her down beside it. Smiler and Bull were