Their Wife

Twenty-One

The air in the car felt cramped and stifled. Though, that may have just been me. It wasn't the easiest being in the same vehicle with the man whose lips were attacking your own a short while ago, the man who saved you from being assaulted not once, but twice, and the man who did assault you the previous night. Bouns points for the utopian hopes that man number two would saved you again.

"Why are you accompanying us?"

I kept my head directed towards the blurring trees beyond the window but darted my eyes towards Zev when he asked Jaxon why he was tagging along.

Jaxon grunted and adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. "I need to get fitted for a suit." His voice lowered. "And need a damn drink," he growled under his breath.

Zev scoffed. "It's not even midday."

"It is somewhere."

"Why not wait till tonight and drink at home? I prefer not to drag your inebriated carcass back to the car. "

Jaxon sighed heavily. "Because I want to get drunk now. Plus, I need the hard stuff and Cassius banned it from the manor after the previous incident."

Ezra burst out laughing beside me, making me jump. Zev chuckled.

"Can't blame the man," Zev said as he took another drag. "I would too if I had to be sealed in a room with Kale for hours just to talk him down from murdering you. He secretes the scent of a thousand rotting fish cooking in the blistering sun in a burning car. I can't begin to imagine how long it took Cassius to scrub that scent from his memory." He tapped his fingers on the door. "Just be warned, though I may drag your drunk ass home, I'm not stepping between you and ol' Lennon this time."

Jaxon grunted a chuckle. "Don't. It's about time he learnt his lesson."

His words sent a spread of ice through my veins. They were too similar to the ones he had spoken to me.

It's time you properly learn your place.

Hot and cold chills battled their way down my spine. My hands tightened.

"I'm just kidding man," Jaxon said, grinning at Zev- I just now noticed the scowl adorning his lips. "I won't mess with the old man. Goddess knows he's only a strong breeze away from a broken hip." He turned the car sharply, sending me flying into Ezra. "All I'd need to do is blow on him and he'd turn into the pile of dust he should have become a century ago."

I tightly gripped Ezra's arm.

"Are you okay?"

Warmth encased my trembling, stiff fingers. I looked down to find Ezra's long fingers holding mine.

I looked into his worried eyes and smiled before moving away and looking out the window at the passing trees.

Was I okay?

More than okay.

I was too okay.

I felt like an anomaly.

My eyes widened as I found myself being pulled by an arm around my waist. Ezra pulled me back until I was half sprawled against him.

He smiled down at me. "I didn't like the distance," he simply remarked before looking out the window like he had done nothing as his fingers played with the tips of my hair.

As the racing of my heart slowed, the silence in the car became loud.

As my sweating palm rested over Ezra's hard stomach and my cheek pressed into his chest, I could feel two sets of eyes lasering into me. I gulped as my eyes collided in the rearview mirror with hard, darkening, golden ones.