Angry God by L.J. Shen
Two years later
It is the scent of cotton and lavender that gives her away.
I catch the faint waft of the feminine shampoo I’m so addicted to that I pathetically pack it with me in mini bottles whenever I have to leave her to travel for work. Which, granted, isn’t often. Either we join each other while traveling or we don’t travel at all. It’s still fucked up to think we spent years away from each other while we were young.
I look up from the desk in the studio I share with Len, in the shed of our garden, and stare at the door. Nothing.
You can’t fool me, Good Girl. You never could.
I put down the blue diamond I have in my hand and stand to walk outside. The air is humid and hot around me, even though the sun set hours ago. I check the time on my phone. One in the morning. Fuck. That’s why she checked on me.
Has she seen what I was doing?
Of course she has, jackass. That’s why she tried to slip away unnoticed—not to ruin your surprise.
I walk past our small garden and open the back door to our house. We live in a small villa in Corsica, France. We love that it’s on an island, that it’s within proximity to everything and everywhere we need to visit in Europe, and that our friends can visit us any time, because who the fuck doesn’t want to vacation in the South of France?
Padding barefoot down our dark hallway, I reach our bedroom door and pause. Our bedroom is the most glorious place in the house. Maybe the universe. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. Whoever designed this house was smart enough to put in floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the wonder that is sunset in Corsica. I push the door open and walk over to our bed. Len is lying there, curled into herself like a shrimp, pretending to sleep, her eyelids fluttering.
I brush my thumb against her cheek, watching as goosebumps rise on her skin. This is how it all started, I think. A balled-up girl in the dark, begging not to be noticed.
No can do, sweetheart.
I tried so hard to ignore her existence when I saw her again after I gave her that chocolate, because I knew how fucked I’d be if I let her in.
And she burst in anyway, tearing down my walls. I lower myself to her ear and breathe the words tauntingly:
“I know you’re not asleep. Your eyelids are moving.”
Her eyes pop open, and she rolls from her side to her back, staring at me defiantly.
“What if I am?” she whispers, challenging me. “What would you do?”
“That depends.” I sit on the edge of the bed, removing a lock of hair from her face. “How much did you see back there?”
“Enough to expect either a ring or a swift, yet very painful breakup, if you give that piece of jewelry to someone else.”
A simple nothing would have been sufficient. But of course, nothing is simple where my girlfriend is concerned. We’ve spent the last two years setting up a home in Corsica and traveling all around the world, following our inspiration. We spend six months at home, working and selling our art, and six months chasing memories and dreams and views most people only get to see in cheap, pastel paintings at their doctor’s office.
I said I wouldn’t go back to Todos Santos, and I’ve kept my word. We do travel there during the holidays, though. Sometimes Poppy and Edgar tag along. They’re a part of my family now. You know shit’s getting serious when you put up with a girl like Poppy Astalis. It practically feels like Len and I are married, but that’s not enough for me. Every single time I see some random motherfucker checking her out at the airport, in a pub or a club, or even the goddamn fucking supermarket, I get an unexplainable urge to bash his head against the floor until both crack.
Considering this fact, it would be best if I put both the world’s male population and myself out of misery by putting a ring on it, pissing on my territory, and making sure everyone knows Lenora Astalis is off limits.
Because that’s the essence of what I’ve been trying to do for years anyway, isn’t it? Put my mark on her. Make sure people know she is mine.
“A quick and painful breakup is not in your future,” I deadpan, expressionless.
She scoots up, leaning against the headboard and folding her arms. She is smiling now, that smile that disarms me of every negative feeling I have.
“What is it, then?” She raises an eyebrow.
“That depends on your answer,” I shoot back.
“That depends on your effort,” she retorts. “And right now you are cocking it up royally. Why don’t you try when the ring is finished and find out?”
Not a no, then. Plus, she is playing right into my hands, thinking I’m some kind of rookie.
“Wait until the ring is ready?” I repeat.
She nods slowly, watching me. All she saw was the diamond.
“Fine.” I go down on one knee in front of the bed, plucking the little box out of my back pocket.
Len perks up, cupping her mouth. “But I just saw you… I…” She blinks rapidly, but stops saying whatever it is she is saying, because now she’s the one fucking it up.
I put a hand on her knee, using my other hand to open the box. It was a bitch to make this ring. First of all, because I had to chase Edgar’s ass to open up his safe in Switzerland and give me her mother’s original engagement ring. Second, because I added to that ring every single rare diamond I could get my hands on, other than the blue one she just saw. No. That one is going to end up in a necklace the entire family is making for her. An engagement gift.
Things are going to get real awkward real fast if she says no.
“You saw what I wanted you to see. I think I always had this idea that you should be my savior, but naturally, the stubborn ass that I am, I didn’t understand it. Now I do. I want you to save me today, and tomorrow, and in a month, and in a year, and in a decade. Save me. Give me your best and your worst and everything in between. I’ve always watched my dad loving my mom and thought he was stuck in a state of insanity. But he wasn’t. Turns out, love really can be that fucking intense.”
She has tears in her eyes. Happy ones, I hope. Although, there’s really no knowing in my case. I know a lot of people who’d be brought to sad tears at the prospect of spending the rest of their lives with me. Arabella, for instance. Last I heard, she was in rehab, seeking treatment for a mental breakdown.
“Save me,” I whisper, taking Lenora’s hand and waiting for her to give me the okay to slip the ring onto her finger.
“How did you know?” she rasps. “That I’d come out there now. It’s the middle of the night.”
“I didn’t.” I grab her wrist, kiss the inside of her palm. “I’ve kept the damn ring with me for months. You finally cracked and peeked.”
“You’ve been acting mysteriously.” She rubs my lower lip, back and forth.
“Not mysterious enough, as it turned out. We could’ve already been pregnant twice had it been up to me.”
“You can’t get pregnant twice at the same time. It’s a one-time thing.” She cracks up, covering her face. I think she’s blushing, but it’s damn hard to see in the dark.
“Is that a challenge?” I hiss, hooding my eyes. But my nonchalance expires a second later. “Am I going to kneel on one knee for all of fucking eternity? Not that I mind. Just asking for a friend.”
“A friend?”
“Well, friends. My joints.”
She full-blown giggles now. I try to bite down my smile, but I just want her to say yes and put me out of my goddamn misery.
“Fine.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ll marry you, Vaughn Spencer. But on one condition.”
I frown. “Yes?”
“No children.”
“You don’t want any children?”
“Nope.”
I don’t pause to think about it. “Fine. Whatever. Fuck it. They’re whiny and annoying and could grow up to be fucking serial killers. Who needs them?” I slip the ring onto her finger and stand up, jerking her with me, holding her by the ass and wrapping her legs around my waist. She moans into my mouth, her arms linked around my shoulders as I kiss her.
I slap one of her ass cheeks with a grin. “Lenora Spencer.”
“Lenora Astalis-Spencer,” she corrects. “And I would very much like you to become Vaughn Astalis-Spencer.”
This time I do think about it. There’s a pause. Then she starts laughing again, wildly, covering my entire face with kisses.
“You’re such a bloody eejit.”
“Your bloody eejit, baby.”
One year later
“What happened to ‘I don’t want kids’?”
Vaughn is standing by the sink in the OB-GYN clinic, picking up a chart showing the fetus’ growing stages and frowning at it with dry concentration.
He has the tendency to do everything gravely, and that makes me laugh.
Even the day he dragged the statue of us, the one he sculpted, into our bedroom—the last piece of decoration we’ve added to our home—he looked no more happy than he was when he chopped vegetables for a salad the evening before.
“I said that just to see what kind of husband you’d be if you don’t get your way. It was a test.” I’m dangling my feet in the air, sitting on the examining table in a gown, waiting for the doctor to tell us the sex of the baby. The truth is, the idea of children had grown on me, like leaves on a summer tree, the more time Vaughn and I spent together.
But everything I thought I wanted or needed changed after we eloped in London’s city hall three weeks after Vaughn’s proposal, in front of our close friends and family. Poppy arrived with her new boyfriend, Jayden, whom Vaughn got along with surprisingly well. Really, we couldn’t have done it any other way, when you think about it. Vaughn wasn’t one for fancy events.
Three weeks after the wedding, Baron and Emilia presented us with our wedding gift, a plush, six-bedroom beach house in Todos Santos. We thanked them politely, but weren’t going to do anything with it, of course. We loved our Corsica home. Then Emilia made the very good point that we could at least visit it and list it to be rented. We agreed.
The minute I set foot in that house, I knew I was born to live there.
The ocean called to me.
The sound of the waves crashing on the shore lulled me into drugging bliss.
Everything was open and beautiful and new. The air felt lighter and crisp. The four of us walked in—Emilia, me, Vaughn, and his father—and the second I stood in the center of the living room, I knew it was my new home.
I turned to Vaughn with a smile. “Let’s keep it.”
Without a thought, he turned straight to his parents and narrowed his eyes at them. “Is it too late to rebel against your asses? Because you fucked me over real nice and good this time.”
His father patted his shoulder with a patronizing smirk. “Watch and learn, son.”
“Not sure I’d be dedicating my life to screwing over my imaginary kids, if we wanted to have them,” Vaughn countered.
He still thought I wasn’t into the idea of kids. My silly, silly hubby.
“You’d be singing a different tune if and when they decided to live on the other side of the universe.” His mother smiled sweetly, but there was no venom in her voice. She meant it. She missed us.
For the next few months, we lived at the Spencers’, in hotels around Todos Santos, in San Diego, and with Knight and Luna Cole. We had to stay close while we worked on designing the house. And that left a lot of room for morning sex.
And evening sex.
And middle-of-the-night sex.
And, frankly, all-day sex.
I took the pill religiously and didn’t take antibiotics or do anything to hinder their success. It was a fluke, but one I wasn’t even a tiny bit annoyed with.
“Not sure I’m comfortable with something like this living inside my wife’s body.” Vaughn turns around to me now with the chart in his hand, tapping a pink blob the shape of a comma.
“Not sure you have much choice.” I grin, sitting back on the bed. “Besides, if you think that’s odd, it’s about to get a hell of a lot weirder.”
He pushes his lower lip out, coming to sit next to me. “Question.”
“Yes?”
“What if I suck as a dad? I mean, I know you’re one-hundred percent going to save the situation, but what if I won’t be enough?”
“Do you love me?” I ask him.
“To death,” he says. “And that’s not just a figure of speech, although I’d appreciate it greatly if you don’t test me on the matter.”
I already did, I want to tell him. And you chose not to kill someone, because of me.
But that’s not a conversation we have too often.
“Then you’re going to love this baby twice, if not thrice as much. You’re an amazing husband. Why wouldn’t you make a fantastic father?”
We smile at each other, and the doctor walks in—the same one who delivered Vaughn, actually. I lie back and allow her to squirt ice-cold gel onto my stomach. My stomach is poking out a little more than usual for how far along I am, but Emilia says it’s because I’m tiny, so everything shows. Emilia is a bit like the mother figure Poppy and I needed after Mum died, and I would let that frighten me if it wasn’t for the fact that my happiness is too raw, too real to let the past upset me.
The doctor watches the monitor and moves the transducer around my belly. We all stare at the screen expectantly. Vaughn is holding my hand.
“How old are you again?” she asks, as a way of making small talk.
“Twenty-one-ish,” Vaughn answers on my behalf when he realizes I’m too stunned with joy and pride.
I can feel his foot tapping on the floor. He is nervous, but happy.
“Why?” he asks suspiciously.
“How well do you deal with lack of sleep?”
Vaughn and I exchange amused looks.
“Quite well. We’re not heavy sleepers. Besides, Vaughn’s mother is going to help us a lot, and I’m taking a year off after the baby is born,” I answer cheerfully, recovering from the initial shock. I can’t understand anything I’m seeing on the screen, anyway.
“Babies.” The OB-GYN turns around and grins at me.
I blink at her. “Pardon?”
“When the babies arrive. Mrs. Astalis-Spencer, you’re having twins. I’ll take your mother-in-law’s help and up you two part-time nannies.”
I open my mouth to say something—although I really don’t know what there is to say; we don’t have a history of twins in my family, and neither does Vaughn—when my husband scoops me up in the air and kisses me in front of the doctor.
I laugh breathlessly as he puts me down, showering me with little kisses. He looks elated. Fantastically happy. The happiest I’ve seen him.
“Scared yet?” I smirk at him.
“With you by my side?” He grins. “Never.”
THE END
Enjoyed Angry God? Did you know it is a spin-off of my series, Sinner of Saint? Make sure you read these interconnected standalones and find more about Vicious and Emilia’s romance in Vicious:
Vicious(Sinners of Saint #1)
Defy(Sinners of Saint #0.5 – Novella)
Ruckus(Sinners of Saint #2)
Scandalous(Sinners of Saint #3)
Bane(Sinners of Saint #4)
Or jump straight to the rest of the books in All Saints High, all of them standalones:
Pretty Reckless(All Saints High #1)
Broken Knight(All Saints High #2)
Standalones available:
Tyed
Sparrow
Blood to Dust
Midnight Blue
Dirty Headlines
The End Zone
The Kiss Thief
In the Unlikely Event
