Ruthless Alpha, and his Curvy Saint

Chapter 109

Lord Merrick’s POV

The water was perfect.

That was the thing about taking the time to do something properly - the results justified the investment. The right temperature, the expensive scented oils, the wine, the book - propped at the precise angle that allowed reading without straining my neck.

Perfect.

I turned a page.

Took a sip.

The day had been long in the specific way that days at Black Wolf were long - too many people, too many problems, the constant low hum of a territory that never fully went quiet. I had done my part - based on the reason I was here. I had attended the morning councils, reviewed the border reports, and I had done all of this cheerfully and without complaint.

My reward was this bath.

I turned another page.

I felt my brother before I heard him.

I looked up from my book.

He was in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and his expression doing the thing it did when he was containing something.

He was looking at me.

I looked back.

The silence stretched.

And stretched.

I turned a page, mostly on principle.

"What?" I said.

He held eye contact for another moment. Then he exhaled - not quite a sigh, too controlled for a sigh, but in the direction of one.

"Sometimes," he said, "I genuinely wish I had your capacity for this."

"For what?"

He gestured at me. At the bath, the wine, the book, the general tableau of a man who was at peace.

"This." A pause. "All of it. Right now, Merrick. At a time like this." He looked at the ceiling briefly. "I wish I could walk into a room, lower myself into hot water, open a book, and drink wine."

I considered this.

"It’s a skill," I said. "Like any other. You develop it with practice."

"I have not practiced."

"No," I agreed. "You haven’t." I picked up my wine. "You practice brooding instead. Different discipline. Less relaxing, but you’ve clearly put in the hours."

The look he gave me was flat in a way that meant he was not finding me as amusing as I found myself, which had never once stopped me.

"Besides," I added, settling back against the edge of the tub, "this isn’t laziness. This is function. Someone in this partnership has to be well-rested." I gestured vaguely in his direction. "You handle the sword-at-the-wall portion. I handle the strategic recovery portion."

"Is that what you’re calling it."

"The second twin’s duties," I said. "Sacred and time-honored."

"You came out two minutes after me."

"Foundational minutes," I said. "I used them well. Clearly." I lifted my goblet slightly. "You, on the other hand, came out first and immediately began taking everything very seriously. You’ve never recovered."

Terrell pushed off the doorframe and came into the room - which meant this was not a passing comment, this was an actual visit, which meant something had happened. My brother did not come to my bathing chamber for casual conversation.

I kept my expression easy, but I was paying attention now.

"Do you have any idea," he said, "what just happened?"

"As long as it doesn’t involve our mate," I said, "it’s truly no concern of mine right now. I’ve had a very long day and this bath is exceptional and I intend to..."

"It involves her."

I stopped.

Set the wine down.

Sat up slightly in the bath.

"What is it?" I said.

Terrell was quiet for a moment, in the way he was quiet when he was deciding how to say something. My brother was not a man who fumbled for words often. When he paused like this, it was because the words were complicated.

"Her sister," he said. "The one who died in the raid." A pause that had real weight to it. "She just materialized."

I stared at him.

"Her ghost came to haunt you?" I said.

The look he gave me could have stripped paint.

"She’s alive," he said, with exaggerated patience. "Slave traders picked her up. She was brought here today to be sold. But then she started spitting fire and brimstone at me when Angel came running and they recognized each other."

I leaned back in the bath and looked at the ceiling, because sometimes the ceiling was a useful place to put your eyes when your brain needed a moment. "Right. Alright. Where is she now?"

"Angel’s room." He said. "I let Angel take her up."

I was already rising from the bath.

I reached for the towel and began drying off. "And the sister - what’s she like?"

"She cursed me to die a thousand consecutive deaths in my own corridor," Terrell said. "In considerable detail."

"So. Spirited."

"She called me Satan."

"Well." I reached for my robe. "You burned her village."

The silence that followed was the particular silence of my brother receiving an observation he did not disagree with but did not enjoy.

"She hates me," he said.

"Reasonably."

"She’s going to poison Angel against us."

I paused with one arm in the robe.

"Terrell..."

"Angel was coming around." His voice had changed. "She came here on her own. She was... it was slow, but she was starting to... and now this woman is up there, and that woman’s eyes, Merrick." He stopped. "The look in her eyes when she looked at me. That’s the look that turns people’s hearts."

I finished putting on the robe and turned to look at my brother properly.

He was standing in the center of the room with his jaw tight and his hands at his sides, and he looked exactly like what he was - a man who had spent his entire life knowing what to do with enemies on a battlefield and had absolutely no idea what to do with the particular enemy of someone he cared about potentially being made to care less.

I felt the dread settle into my stomach like something swallowed wrong.

He was right.

I didn’t want him to be right - would have preferred to dismiss it, to tell him he was overreacting, to retrieve my wine and go back to the perfect bath. But I had come to know Angel over these weeks, and I knew what she was still carrying. I knew how carefully she had been building something - not trust, not entirely, not yet, but the beginnings of something that might become trust given the right conditions and enough time.

The sister, arriving like this, with those eyes - carrying everything she had seen and survived - could undo months of careful progress in a single night.

I looked at my brother.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

"That’s why I’m here." He looked at me directly. "You need to handle it."

I blinked. "Me."

"You."

"Handle..." I stopped. "What does that mean, exactly? Handle what? The sister?"

"Calm her down. Make her trust us. Or at minimum, make her trust you, which will at least keep her from burning everything down."

I looked at my brother for a long moment.

"Terrell," I said carefully. "Are you asking me to... "

"You’re better at it." He said it with the straightforward bluntness of someone stating an established fact. "Angry women. Frightened women. Women who need to be brought around to something. You’ve always been better at it."

I raised an eyebrow very slowly.

"You want me to seduce Angel’s sister."

Something crossed his face. "I said calm her down..."

"That is what you meant."

"There are different methods of..."

"Terrell." I held up a hand. "She is our wife’s sister."

"I know who she is."

"Angel’s family. The only family Angel has, apparently, given the circumstances." I stared at him. "You want me to... what? Turn on the charm? Smile at the woman and make her feel at ease about being enslaved in the castle of the man who destroyed her life? Is that the assignment?"

"I want you to be useful," he said, with the simplicity of a man who had made up his mind. "For once."

"I am useful constantly..."

"In a crisis."

"My usefulness is not limited to..."

"Merrick." He had already turned toward the door. "Just handle it."

"I cannot seduce our wife’s sister!" I called after him.

"Different kinds of seduction." He said it without stopping, without turning, throwing the words back over his shoulder as he walked away. "Employ the best method."

I stood in the middle of my bathing chamber in my robe with my hair damp, and I looked at the empty doorway.

"The fuck."