Chapter 24: Léonie - Crushing His Mountain Flower

I never knew how I decided which way to go. There were so many entrances and exits to the great house.

Where had they taken him

Some sixth primal sense sent me east.

Some primal sense kept me quiet as my feet raced, my mind pulsing with sheer animal panic.

There was only my need to find him. Protect him.

And then—shadowed in the easternmost door was Faustine.

And she had my baby.

In her hand was a car seat and she was hurrying down the path to where the gate stood wide open, with an SUV running in front of it.

And I realized then that more than one person knew exactly what Étienne felt for his family.

And more than one person’s hopes had been dashed at his reaction to my death.

Placidie’s reaction had been to fuck my brother and replace my husband as head of the Bastide family empire.

Faustine’s reaction was to take something she knew would shatter Étienne and I. . .

“Stop!” I cried, and I was moving fast, but it wasn’t fast enough.

She was leaving with my baby

Faustine was almost to the SUV now, the car seat swinging carelessly in her hands, barely missing the heavy, iron bars of the open gate.

But what was she going to do with Ciel?

On the other side, the big black SUV waited. Just a few feet away now. . .

“Faustine,” my husband called out, his voice steady, controlled, deep.

And where she had ignored my voice, at this Faustine turned back, her beautiful face twisted with bitterness.

“You should have chosen me,” she said, and now her hand was outstretched, the car seat swinging in a circle. “If I can’t have you, you can’t have anything.”

Blood rose in my eyes, sheer, total, panic, my hands outstretched, and I was still running, so fast my lungs were bursting but it wasn’t fast enough, I’d never be able to reach her in time. . .

“Now who says I care about them?” Étienne asked, his voice rolling out smooth and hypnotic. “Don’t you think you’re the one I really want?”

Time seemed to stop, crystallize in front of me.

And for one last fatal moment, Faustine hesitated, turning back and taking two steps toward us, her hope outrunning her sense, and he struck.

A tiny blade, fast, so fast it was only a blur, flying through the air and striking her dead and true in the throat.

“Fool!” my husband spat as he strode forward. “Fool to fall for such a thing! My heart is all for my family. No one else.”

Faustine was reaching for the blade, trying to pull it out with trembling hands, and my husband stalked forward, slashing a final blow across her throat.

But I only had eyes for the car seat, tumbling out of her hands and landing on the ground, the rest of my world narrowed down to that one point.

The SUV in the driveway tried to drive off, but Étienne Bastide had already sprung, reaching the massive vehicle with a taut, angry stride.

He tore the door off it and dragged the man inside it out, but I was already falling to my knees in front of the car seat.

Ciel’s eyes were wide and curious, blinking his dark lashes as he looked up at me.

Oh, ancestors, oh my gods. He was all right.

With trembling hands, I unsnapped my baby and drew him out. Safe and snug.

Somehow, not a hair harmed on his head, not a curl turned.

It looked like a few Bastide men had tried to turn on him, must have foolishly believed the lies Placidie had spouted—that my husband’s love for me had made him weak.

It had only made him more savage.

I turned as his loyal men began to swarm in from the forest beyond, but I couldn’t stop watching the bloody trail of my husband’s killings, my eyes drinking in every wave of his destruction.

With trembling fingers, I pulled out my breast to nurse Ciel, then tucked him securely in his wrap.

And I walked toward the gate.

Faustine was lying dead on the ground, her eyes frozen with shock.

I spat on her body and moved to the car.

Bodies lay everywhere, sprawled over the backseat, falling onto the ground. He had done enough with his bare hands and that tiny bloody knife to equal an army.

“I thought you were at work?” I asked, feeling on the edge of hysteria.

“Sweetheart, it’s going to be a long time before I go more than a few hundred feet away from you again without leaving an armed guard,” he said, and something about the response pulled me back from the brink, made me gasp on a laugh that was almost a sob.

“Let’s take Ciel inside,” Étienne said, his tight jaw relaxing a fraction as he saw the baby’s tiny fists pummeling the air happily.

“Is everyone all right?” he asked, his arm around my waist.

It was wet. There was something wet and sticky on his arm.

And thank all the ancestors everyone inside was all right. A few concussions, some bumps and bruises, but Mano would live, and it could have been worse.

Then Étienne strode over to me, took my cheeks in his hands and turned my face this way and that.

“You all right?”

“Yes,” I said, my knees trembling so hard I had to jam them together. “Yes.”

“And Ciel?”

There was blood on my face from his fingers, I could feel it sticky and wet on my chin.

“Yes. He was safe in the car seat. He barely even got jostled.”

There was a drop from his fingers that landed on the soft blue cloth of my carrier, rolling down the fabric to pool on my chest.

“They were going to take him,” I said, my voice sounding strangled.

“They didn’t,” he assured me. “They didn’t. They’re all dead now—everyone who would have hurt him.”

It was like my brain was shutting down, and then I felt a spoon with broth between my lips, and Étienne was feeding me, holding Ciel on his shoulder.

Tilly was there too, and I knew Étienne had sent for her, that she could stay as long as I wanted her to, and Hugo was reading to me, something funny, and Hugo and Étienne were taking turns rocking the baby as I slowly came back.

I knew there was no threat, I knew there was no danger.

But that night when I laid Ciel in the crib in my room, my hands were shaking.

There were heavy steps and I could feel and smell him behind me. Mountain scent and something raw and deep, and that iron tang of blood.

“I’m so sorry, Léonie. We didn’t get any information out of your brother. I couldn’t let him take another breath after what he did."

“It’s not about that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t find out where they buried your Gran. At least you know she’s resting with the ancestors.”

“Yes,” I said on a sob.

“I was wrong to blindly trust my own blood, my own people,” he said, gripping my shoulders, his scarlet fingers reaching around, smearing all over my bare skin. “I have been a fool. It’s not about your blood after all.”

“What if you hadn’t been here?” I burst out, running into the attached bathroom so I could cry out my rage and fear without waking my sleeping baby. “I couldn’t have stopped them. Ciel would have been kidnapped and then what would they have done with him?”

“I was here,” Étienne said fiercely. “I will always be here to protect you and our baby.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

My heart was pounding as he pulled me flush against his body.

“You can! Please, Léonie, please give me a second chance with my family. To show you I will always put you and Ciel first.”

My face was upturned, tears running down my cheeks as I scanned the ferocity of his gaze.

I could not stop thinking about the what ifs. About what would have happened if Étienne hadn’t been here.

“It was all about me,” I sobbed, my legs giving way as I slid down the wall, but he was there, his arms around me, and we slid down together in a pile of limbs, my legs wrapped around him, our bodies sticky with sweat and blood.

“If only you hadn’t chosen me—if you hadn’t put léger on your forehead—all this could have been avoided⁠—”

“No,” he said fiercely. “Never think that way. There is no universe in which I do not choose you. Ever. I only wish I hadn’t tried so hard to keep you sheltered. I shouldn’t have kept so many things from you. If I had told you everything, working together, we could have seen what was happening sooner.”

“Next time I will do better.”

“Next time!” I cried, and I didn’t even want to look at him. “There can never be a next time! Too much has happened. We can never go back to what we were. It was broken beyond repair.”

“It was broken,” my husband said gently. Gentler than I had ever heard him talk before. Such a contrast with how bloody and raw his hands were. “It can be remade.”

“I don’t know—” I cried, but then his hands were on my face and he was carefully, gently, raising my lips to his.

“Let me try. Please.”

Suppressed desire and uncertainty boiled inside me as he captured my lips with his, his tongue eager, longing.

I grabbed angrily at his shirt, ripping a long, jagged gash in my fury.

“You had no right to do what you did! Feckless, selfish, arrogant bastard!”

“I was,” he growled, his hands cradling my face, his hands and body slick, sweaty, bloody, his hard cock pressing against the thin fabric of my skirt.

“But after this, believe me, sweetheart, I will never take your love for granted ever again.”

I could feel the full length of his arousal as the rough tips of his fingers scraped by my soft flesh.

My husband’s life was more violent, bloody, and dangerous than I had imagined. The choice to be gentle with me was deliberate.

I put my hands on his face, tried to span the width of his granite jaw.

“You’re desperate for this, aren’t you?” I asked, tightening my fingers.

There was a flicker deep in his eyes, something that made every inch of my skin heat, like it was too hot and tight to sit over my bones.

“Yes,” he rasped out. “I want this, I want you, more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life.”

His cock was pressing hard against the thin length of my panties, and I tipped my hips backwards, his dark eyes widening, that muscle throbbing in his jawline, and the panties tore with a rending rip, as I sunk straight down on his cock, all the way down that thick length, until my butt hit his thighs and he hissed with pleasure and kissed me.

Then we were moving against each other, our bodies jerky, urgent as I wrapped my legs tighter.

Étienne’s lips were on mine, his hands frantic for connection, pulling me tighter, closer as he ground my body down over his.

His kiss was almost a wound, his fingers gripping my hair, teeth and tongue and a hard, bruising length inside me.

He was chasing love and forgiveness, and I was chasing. . .what? What was I chasing?

The mere carnal pleasure my husband had always given me? The physical release? The feeling of a cock so big it stretched every inch of me, pressing me full to bursting?

Was that all I was chasing?

Or was it something more?

I could feel my skin tingling, belly tightening so hard it was almost painful, as I gripped his shoulders. His cock was going so deep, his fingers were so hard it was making my hips ache, and still I wanted more.

“I love you,” he groaned against my lips, his tongue in my mouth, and then his fingers hit where our bodies met, and I began to shake, my thighs trembling, my heavy breasts full to bursting as my release hit me, milk leaking down my breasts and rolling in rivulets down to my belly.

I cried out, gasping my pleasure as I felt that wet gush of his release in me, cock twitching as he pumped jet after jet into my trembling cunt.

My body felt wrung out and limp as he carefully lowered me to cradle in his arms, kissing my face all over.

Then Étienne dug around in his pocket. His face was streaked with blood but there was the strangest mix of hope and joy in his expression.

As I blinked away the last waves of my orgasm, he held out my wedding ring to me.

“I beg you, Léonie, love of my life, light of my heart. Please forgive me. Please come home.”