Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(137)

“I don’t …” She glanced at the hunk of wood he’d given her. “I don’t think you’re much of an artist.”

Axe started to laugh. “I know, right? What the hell is that? I tried to give my dad’s thing a shot and I sucked at it—”

“You’re sure it’s a bird—”

“I don’t know—”

As they talked over each other, midnight came and went, a new year beginning, a fresh start happening for both of them.

A fresh start … that was going to last two lifetimes.





FIFTY-FOUR


“Wait, this one’s for L.W.!”

As Mary sat back in the library with a cup of hot cocoa in her hand and a candy cane in her mouth, she smiled as Bitty rushed over to the First Family with a foil-wrapped present. The girl was dressed in a red taffeta gown that had a green sash, and she looked picture perfect. Except for one thing: She was also wearing, tragically, Lassiter’s baseball hat with the reindeer antlers. Which would almost have been okay.

Except it read “The Grinch Can Elf Off.”

At least, Mary decided, there wasn’t an actual “f-bomb” in there.

The entire household had crammed in around the Christmas tree—well, everyone except the angel, and God only knew where Lassiter was. For the last hour, presents had been passed out, the human holiday being celebrated on New Year’s Eve instead of the correct date because, hello, there had been a lot going on.

Rhage leaned in close. “So … can you and I play find-my-mistletoe today after the kid goes to sleep?”

Mary felt her body warm up. “Absolutely.”

Her hellren let out a purr. “And I know just where to put it.”

She elbowed him. “Shh, stop thinking like that. We still have a party to get through.”

“There’s always the bathroom. The pantry. The great outdoors—”

“It’s freezing!”

“I’ll warm you up, female.”

Mary threw her head back and laughed just as Wrath said, “What is it?”

“A Tonka truck!” Beth smiled at Bitty as she put the toy in her son’s lap. “Did you buy this with your own money?”

“I did.” The little girl was very proud. “You said you thought he’d like one.”

George, Wrath’s seeing-eye dog, sniffed the thing and gave it a lick.

“L.W.’s going to love—” Beth laughed. “Yup, right in his mouth.”

As the King’s firstborn started gumming the tires, Bitty danced back to the tree and hunted around. “The last present is for you, Uncle.”

Ruhn was two armchairs away, sitting in the self-contained way that Mary was coming to associate with him. He wasn’t aloof—on the contrary, he was always open and warm—he just seemed a little overwhelmed by all the people and the shouting and the laughter and the never-ending rotation of inside jokes between the Brothers.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

Everyone went silent as the large flat box was delivered into his lap.

“It’s from all of us!” Bitty exclaimed. “I put some of my money into it, too.”

“Y’all have been too generous already.” The male looked down at the pile of clothes next to his chair. “I don’t know how to thank you—”

V cut in. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just open it, will ya?”

“Vishous!” Jane hissed over in the corner. “Seriously—”

“What! Come on, I seriously spent, like, hours trying to help Rhage find the right one—”

Butch chimed in. “He totally did. I mean, it was intense, the two of them—”

Rhage shrugged. “But hey, you know, this is an important gift … you want to get the color right.”

“Is it another sweater?” Ruhn asked. “I have two now already?”

“You should open the box,” Rhage said. “G’head, son.”

It was funny, Ruhn had been taken under Rhage’s wing within a night of coming here, and the two were really sweet together. Ruhn took all his cues from Rhage, learned from him, spent a lot of time with him.

Turned out Ruhn had gone through his transition only fifteen years before.

And Rhage would probably not admit it, at least not anytime soon, but Ruhn was quickly becoming a son to him.

Yup, that was Rhage’s boy: Each time Ruhn mastered something else, like working out in the weight room with the Brothers, or signing up for an English-as-a-second-language course to learn to read, or watching another of Rhage and Bitty’s god-awful movies, there was pride on Rhage’s face.

The universe had given them a BOGO, in essence—

Ruhn opened the top of the box and rifled through the tissue paper. Then he frowned. “Wait, what is this?”

He held up a key fob.

Rhage jumped out of his seat. “Come on, son, you gotta meet her!”

Bitty squealed and started yanking on her uncle’s arm. “She’s out back—right here!”

“Here, hit the button on the fob—”

“Wait, what—”

As Rhage threw open a set of French doors, the whole household exploded out of their seats and jammed the exit.…