Blood and Bone: (Royal Blood #6) (19 page)

A job at MI6 or a lifetime of flying under the radar taking mercenary jobs. Neither was ideal for a baby. Shit, I didn’t even know if I was cooking a bun in my oven yet.

Looking at the timer on my phone, I threw it back down when it still had a full minute to go. Why the fuck was this stupid thing taking so long?

If I was… If I was… What would X say? Would he want this?

The buzzer went off on my phone, and I jammed my thumb against the screen to turn it off. Staring at the stick, I willed myself to pick it up and look. What if that line was there? The positive line?

Fuck, I could face-off against bad guys, but I couldn’t handle the thought of a spew and shit machine popping out of my vagina in nine months time?
Fuck me!

Snatching up the stupid plastic stick, I peered at the result.

Oh.
Oh…

I
t took
me six weeks to go visit Mei’s grave.

It was empty, but it was a place for her family to come and grieve. A memorial.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to feel, standing there in the middle of the cemetery staring at a headstone. The sun shone on my shoulders, birds sung in the trees, and the sound of traffic from the motorway across the rise filtered through the air. Just another day in paradise.

Mei was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. I had to believe she died trying to stop Moltke because otherwise, her death would have been pointless. Mei never took shit lying down.

Remembering the brief conversation we’d had the day before the explosion, I tried to smile, but it just didn’t happen. She’d been happy. She’d been seeing someone new—that someone I believed was Agent Folsom—and had finally begun moving on from the ghost that was Oliver Cassel. She was meant to be here. She was meant to be happy.

I supposed in a way she was.

Sensing movement beside me, I glanced up to find Mercy had arrived. She’d let me go ahead so I could have some time to myself, but I was glad she was here. She was all I had left in this world and was more precious to me than anything.

Mercy Reid was my lifeblood.

“Hey,” she murmured.

I grunted and glanced back down at Mei’s headstone.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “What does our future look like because I can’t see anything.”

“I can see it pretty clearly if you ask me,” she replied.

“You can? Then I think you should tell me which way to go.”

Her palms came to rest on her stomach, and she smiled. “I’m pregnant,” she said, her words taking the wind out of my lungs.

My knees buckled, and I fell in front of her, my hands on her stomach trying to imagine the life within her. A child? I’d never thought…

“When?” I asked as her fingers threaded through my hair.

“I have no idea, but I’m assuming it was the night you left me tied to that bed and got yourself shot…”

Resting my forehead against her stomach, I squeezed my eyes shut. How could I be a father when I was prepared to hurt the woman I loved like that? What would this child become? It was half monster, half…
Half Mercy Reid
. That had to count for something.
It had to
.

“You can do it, X,” Mercy said above me, sensing my hesitation. “You and I—together.”

I didn’t know what to say…

“That’s why we’re staying on at MI6,” she continued. “To make a better world for him or her.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to disappear?” I asked, clutching the hem of her dress. “There’s so much darkness out there… Too much… Too little hope. To bring a child up in that…”

I glanced at Mei’s final resting place and thought about the body count we’d left in our wake. All the souls I’d taken under orders from Greggor and Weiss. All the souls I’d taken in revenge. All the souls Moltke had destroyed in his blind obsession to avenge the murder of his wife, Vesper.

“There’s always hope, X,” Mercy murmured, kneeling on the grass with me.

“MI6…” I began, letting the notion settle into my mind. A baby in a world like ours needed protecting, and we could do that. She was right. Mercy was always right.

“You wanted to know what our future looked like,” she said. “This is what it looks like. You, me, MI6, and a family. We have Jackson and Amanda. They’ll help us with all the annoying baby questions, and we’ll have a purpose.”

“I…” I didn’t know what to say. All the words had dried up inside of me, and I felt my throat thicken with emotion.
I was going to be a father…

“I was thinking,” she said, her palms caressing my thighs. “If it’s a boy, we should name him Phillip after your brother.”

I hardly remembered him due to The Watchman’s conditioning, but the notion seemed fitting. Mei had told me Phillip looked up to me like the sun shone out of my ass. It was easy to dwell on the tragedy of his death, but there was one sliver of goodness I still had left of him. The memory Mei had given me was the piece that I would hold onto.

I nodded. It seemed fitting. “And if it’s a girl, perhaps she should be Mei.”

“You know,” Mercy declared. “Any normal woman would be pissed that her man suggested they name their child after his ex-girlfriend.”

“We’re not normal.”

“No, we’re not.” She laughed, leaning her head against my shoulder. After a moment, she sighed, her tone turning serious. “I think it’d be perfect.”

“She wasn’t the one, Mercy, but she sacrificed everything for her country.”

“What a legacy to live up to.”

I snorted as I tried to imagine holding a tiny little human in my arms without crushing it.

Mercy began to chuckle, and I frowned. “What?”

“I hope it’s a boy,” she declared, “because I’d hate to be the snotty teenager who breaks her heart with a father like you.”

For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt a genuine smile pulling at my lips. “A dad, huh?”

“I bet you’ll be a real good one, too.”

Threading my fingers through hers, I asked, “Where do we go from here, Mercy Reid?”

“The only way we can,” she replied. “Forward to infinity.”

Rising to my feet, I pulled Mercy up and into my arms, my palm resting on her stomach. I imagined I could feel the little life growing inside her, and for the first time in my entire existence, I believed some good could come out of the darkness.

“I love you, Mercy Reid,” I murmured, lowering my lips to hers. “Forever and always.”

As we kissed, the world waiting for us to conquer it, I didn’t feel it anymore. The monster was gone, and something else was left in its place—
love
—and I finally understood what Mercy had believed in all along.

There was always hope…even in the darkest of places.

I
hope
you enjoyed the Royal Blood finale, Blood and Bone!

When I first got the idea to write a story about a girl running from a dark past who meets the baddest guy of them all, I never expected it to turn out quite like this. Royal Blood was meant to be a six part serial about a biker gang, but as you now know it turned out to be something much longer, richer and action packed than I ever anticipated. I mean, spies and international espionage? Wow.

I’ll never forget the night I sat in my hotel room in London one summer (while I was meant to be on holidays!) and began writing down this crazy idea about a girl behind a bar who meets the biggest asshole (and hottie) on the planet.

I know authors write acknowledgements and thank a big list of people by name, but I’ve never been one to write one of these notes in every single one of my books. I tend to let the story speak for itself and leave it at that since I have a small group of people who see a book before it flies off to reviewers and readers all over the globe. By small, I mean myself and my editor, the superstar that is Colleen Snibson who puts up with my barrage of, “Are you finished yet? I’ve got another book ready to go! How about now? Are you finished yet? Can I squeeze another booking in? Do you have the edits? Can I have it now?” *twiddles thumbs* “How about now?”

I love what I do to the point of complete obsession!

The point is
I want to specifically thank you
,
each and every one of you,
(if you are a blogger, reader, reviewer, or my mum or sister-in-law)
for coming on this journey with me.

It was one hell of a ride.

x
x Amity Cross

P
S
: Royal Blood may be over, but there’s more dark and twisty tales of romance coming very soon!

Stalk me on my
website
,
Facebook page
,
Instagram
or
newsletter
to find out about what’s coming up.

A
mity Cross
isn’t
her real name. That’s no secret.

She is the author of wicked stories about rock stars looking for redemption, gritty romances featuring MMA fighters and dark tales of forbidden romance. She loves to write about screwed up relationships and kick ass female leads that don’t take s**t lying down.

Amity lives in a leafy country town near Melbourne, Australia and can be found chained to her desk, held at ransom by her characters.

Don’t send help. She likes it.

• @amitycross
  
• theamitycross
  

R
enee "Ren" Miller
was five when her Dad left to go to the shops and never came back.

Left to grow up with a cancer riddled mother, things have never been easy for a teenager who had to be wise beyond her years. Then one day they lose the battle and she’s all alone.

Now twenty-two, Ren reluctantly goes to find her estranged father. He owns the down and out boxing studio, Beat, and Ren finds herself drawn to the ring. She thrives on learning a new way of fighting a life that kept kicking her down…instead of struggling against the current, she kicks it right between the legs.

Then one day her Dad's star fighter comes back to town.

Ash Fuller is mysterious, handsome and 
dangerous
…

Everything Ren doesn't need.

But he's got other ideas…

…
and so does she.

P
eople say
I have a problem with anger.

You could say a lot of things about me and they wouldn’t all be nice. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of.

People looked at me and only saw what was on the surface.

Money. Power. Talent.

Cash was the driving factor. Mainly because I was winning it out from under everyone’s noses on a daily basis by just being good at punching the shit through people. It’s fucking great to ride high, but there’s always someone right at your heels, snapping like a rabid beast, waiting for the moment you stumble.

Yeah, that’s the thing about getting a little fame and money - it made everyone below you jealous and jealous people were willing to do whatever it took to bring you down. They all wanted the prize and not all of them were up for playing fair to get it. There were lines you
never
crossed and that line had been obliterated a long time ago.

You hurt the people I love to get to me and I will fucking kill you.

I would destroy myself to save them.

I’ve done it before and I will do it time and time again.

I will beat your ass until you beg for mercy.

Repent or die.