Chapter 64 Parenting Hack

Chapter 64 Parenting Hack
Drazen POV

The blue light from the laptop screen casts harsh shadows across my face.

It is two in the morning and I have spent the last four days operating out of my penthouse, using encrypted corporate channels to silently liquidate Ashfall assets. I am buying off human port authorities and securing black-market weapons to arm the defectors Jonah is slowly smuggling out of the Undercourt.

But I haven't read a single line of the spreadsheet in front of me for ten minutes.

My attention is completely hijacked by the sound of bare feet padding softly down the hallway.

Sable walks into the kitchen in a pair of my sweatpants, the drawstring pulled tight around her waist, and a thin, white tank top. Her hair is damp from the shower. Over the last four days, I have watched her bathe, feed, and hold a traumatized, mute six-year-old child through agonising night terrors.

Watching the fierce, protective motherly instinct lock into place stirs a devastating possessiveness in my blood that makes it difficult to breathe. I have to admit, she's a natural at this stuff.

She walks past me, opening the refrigerator to pour a glass of cold water.

"Jonah messaged the secure line," she says quietly, keeping her back to me. "He has three commoners with severe respiratory failure willing to defect from Carvek’s lockdown. They’re hiding in the upper transit tunnel. We need to secure another safe house on the surface, and I need to raid the hospital’s supply closet tomorrow for meds."

"No," I say, my voice flat.

She stops, the glass pausing halfway to her mouth. She sets it on the counter and turns around. "No to the safe house, or no to the supplies?"

"You are not stepping foot inside City General." I close the laptop with a sharp click. "Vance sold the club footage to the hunters. They know what my face looks like. By now, they have mapped my known associates. They will be watching your hospital."

"I know how to evade a tail, Drazen. I did it to your men."

"My men were under orders not to touch you. The hunters will put a dart in your neck and drag you into an unmarked van before you cross the parking garage."

"I am not sitting in this glass cage while your people suffocate in the dark," she argues, stepping toward me. The exhaustion in her eyes is entirely overshadowed by her stubbornness. "I can help them."

"You are the only carrier left alive. If you are taken, the rebellion ends. You stay here! End of discussion. "

"I am not your prisoner!" she hisses, stepping directly into my space. "I survived the lab, Drazen. I pulled you out of there!"

"You barely survived!"

I push my stool back, the metal legs scraping harshly against the floor. I stand up, my body instantly swallowing her over her. The heavy, stifling tension that has been suffocating this apartment for four days instantly boils over.

"Do you have any idea what it did to me?" I demand, my voice dropping to a dangerous rasp. "Watching that woman point that bolt gun at you? Watching you bleed on those tiles? It took every ounce of discipline I possessed not to tear that building apart with my bare hands."

"Then let me fight with you," she fires back, refusing to back down. Her chin tilts up, her chest heaving. "Stop treating me like a fragile doll."

"I can't."

Without giving myself the chance to overthink, I grab her by the waist, gripping her hips through the sweatpants then lift her completely off the floor and set her down hard on the edge of the island.

She gasps, but she doesn't push me away, parting her knees, pulling me against the edge of the counter, trapping my hips between her thighs.

The contact is a violent shock to my nervous system. I slide my hand up the back of her neck, tangling my fingers deep into her damp hair, and crush my mouth against hers.

The kiss is far from gentle. It is desperate, punishing, and fueled by days of absolute terror and restraint. She meets the aggression perfectly as she opens for me, her tongue sliding against mine. Her hands grip my shoulders, her nails biting into my skin through
my shirt as she drags me closer.

My control shatters entirely.

I slide my hand down her spine, slipping beneath the hem of her tank top. Her bare skin is blazing hot, the Hearthblood rising to the surface to meet my touch. I drag my palm over her ribs, my thumb brushing the underside of her breast.

She lets out a soft, sharp moan against my mouth and the sound goes straight to my
groin. I am painfully, brutally hard, pressing against her center with a desperate friction that makes my vision blur.

I tear my mouth from hers, dragging my lips down the line of her jaw while pressing kisses to the sensitive skin of her throat, biting lightly at her pulse point.

"Drazen," she breathes, her head falling back, exposing her neck the more as her legs wrap
tightly around my waist, pulling my hips against hers in an agonizing demand.

"How about we finish what we started the other day," I groan against her skin, my hand sliding lower, gripping the drawstring of the sweatpants. I am seconds away from pulling them down, seconds away from clearing the blueprints off the marble counter and taking her right here in the dark.

When a tiny, weak tug pulls at my trousers and I freeze.

The blood roaring in my ears drops into dead silence.

Sable’s eyes snap open. Her breathing hitches, her hands instantly freezing on my shoulders.

I step back, my chest heaving as I look down at the floor.

Sera is standing by my leg.

Dragging a heavy plush blanket behind her with one hand. She just rubs her sleepy, red-rimmed eyes with her free fist, looking up at us in the dim light of the kitchen.

I clear my throat, adjusting my shirt with a shaking hand while Sable slides off the counter immediately, pulling her tank top down. Her
cheeks are rosy red, but it doesn't take a minute for her to effortlessly become a mother.

"Hey, sweetie," she whispers, dropping to her knees on the floor so she is eye-level with the little girl. "Did you have a bad dream?"

Sera doesn't nod, but her lower lip quivers slightly. She drops the blanket, steps forward, and wraps her small arms tightly around Sable’s neck, burying her face in Sable’s shoulder.

I watch the woman I was just about to ravage against a kitchen counter wrap her arms around the broken child of my court. Sable closes her eyes, pressing a kiss to the top of Sera’s head, rocking her gently.

I reach down and pick up the discarded plush blanket.

"Come on," I say quietly, my voice entirely stripped of the lust from before. I place my hand on the center of Sable’s back, guiding her up. "Let's get her back to bed."