King of the Underworld by RJ Kane

Sephle

Adrik and I were the last ones to breakfast the following morning. Everyone gave us knowing looks and I suddenly worried that I’d been too loud the night before. Adrik felt my sudden panic. He slid his arm around my waist, his lips next to my ear. “Nobody heard you. But if they did, they’re just jealous.” He was clearly amused at the possibility of them hearing me. It was an ego boost for him. It was insanely embarrassing for me.

“Good morning, princess,” Ivan said. I was fairly certain he felt my momentary panic as well. He was becoming quite good at feeling as much from me as I could feel from him. “We made bets as to whether you would wake up late today or not. You’re due for a late morning.”

“Sh ut up.”

“No, it’s true, gazelle. It’s been a few weeks since you’ve slept in. I think you’re past due, actually,” Misha said.

I couldn’t hide my amusement at them apparently knowing my schedules better than I did. “I had no idea I was so predictable,” I said, sitting in an empty chair beside Viktor. He put his giant arm around my shoulders, hugging me sweetly. He kissed the top of my head, saying, “you’re allowed to sleep in whenever you like. You waste a lot of energy taking care of all of us, sestrichka.”

“I would not call that a waste, Papa Bear.”

I was going to feel bad about letting you go full speed yesterday morning if you had,” Andrei

respond, Aleksei looked at me, half-confused, half amused. “Do they all call you different names?” I smiled at him, nodding my head. “I assume there’s a reason for such strange names?” he asked, wanting further explanation. Clearly,

Aleksei and Vitaliy looked at all of us curiously, wanting to hear why they called me by the names they

she got. She still does it. That’s why I call her spider monkey,” Andrei said as he smiled and winked at me. I knew he’d come to love carrying me around as much as I did. Half the time,

forced to go with her. She almost killed me that first time. She’s like a gazelle. I like to remind her that she almost killed me as often as I can,”

in your place yesterday, Alyosha, she put me in mine very quickly after first meeting her. I had called her princess to try

since.”

try to pi ss her

answer, I said, “Ivan has a very special set of skills that

“How so?”

as Ivan sees them. He just didn’t realize that I have many of the same demons he does and I’m very good friends with them, so it didn’t work on me.” I laughed, remembering that morning in my kitchen. “He’d been hurt and needed stitches. It was before I knew of his aversion to doctors. I was offering to clean him up and trying to talk him into going to the hospital but he was giving me shi t. I gave him shi t back so he let me clean his wound, but I told him he needed stitches. He said he wasn’t going to the doctor and then taunted me about stitching him up. He didn’t know that I really could stitch him up, so I told him I was going to enjoy the pain it would cause since I had nothing to numb the area. I also didn’t know that was not a thing that happens with him. I was just trying to pi

him and thanked him for not killing this princess when she was done,” Viktor