Fallen Son: A Fallen Men Christmas Story (The Fallen Men) Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Giana Darling

  Published by Giana Darling

  Edited by Jenny Sims

  Cover Design by Najla Qamber

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Created with Vellum

  To my #FallenReaders.

  For loving these characters as fiercely and beautifully as I do.

  “There is so much stubborn faith in the human heart.”

  Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  4. Thanks Etc.

  5. About Giana Darling

  6. Other Books by Giana Darling

  ZEUS

  Shoulda known when I married ’er that no store-bought tree would do for my girl. She’d been pearls and lace, class and sophisti-fuckin’-cation ’fore I got ’round to claimin’ ’er and some’a that still found its way into our lives. Wasn’t goin’ to do it, not till Loulou Garro, love of my fuckin’ life so help me God, batted those long ass lashes at me over those bluer than the Pacific Ocean eyes and taunted, “Too old for the task, Daddy?”

  We were at the garage, Bat workin’ on a custom bike in the corner, King shootin’ the shit with Nova on a bench while they watched the new prospect, Ransom, fiddle with some shit he didn’t know what the fuck to do with, and still, I could barely bank the urge to take Lou over my lap as punishment for her endless lip.

  “Don’t make me come over there an’ show everyone just how much you like your Daddy, Lou,” I growled just to watch her chin tip in deviance and her eyes kindle with heat.

  My girl liked to fight me, but in the end, she loved the consequences of her rebellions just as much as she liked the occasional win.

  She was shit hot and near twenty years younger ’an me. Had to keep ’er on ’er toes.

  “If you come over here, Z, it better be to get in the truck and take me out to get the biggest tree on the fucking lot,” she countered, crossing her arms under her tits, plumpin’ them up in the low-cut cream sweater dress she wore.

  The fuckin’ tease.

  “You want a real tree, you don’t get it from a fuckin’ store, girl. You man up, grab an axe, and chop one down proper in the fuckin’ forest.”

  Her eyes sparkled even in the low light of the garage, high on our banter. “Old man thinks he can axe down a Canadian fir? Oh yeah, I’d like to see you try.”

  I dropped the wrench I’d been holdin’ and cracked my knuckles. “My girl wants a proper Christmas tree, I’ll get her a fuckin’ proper tree.”

  “I’d say I’m all in to chop down a huge ass tree, but I’m thinkin’ with the two’a you, it’ll be more bangin’ than choppin’,” Nova said through his dark chuckle.

  “Dad,” King called through the rest of the brothers’ laughter. “Seriously, been home from college a few months now, and I’m startin’ to think all you ever do is flirt with your woman.”

  I snorted as I rounded an old Corvette and stalked towards Lou, her lips pressed tight against the force of hidin’ her smile. “’S called multi-takin’, son, you stick ’round long enough, and you’ll learn my ways.”

  “Now he’s biker fuckin’ Yoda,” King muttered, but I was too busy swooping down to catch my wife’s lips with mine to talk back to my snot-nosed eldest kid.

  Unbeknownst to him, his two youngest siblings were tucked up safe in Lou’s belly. Couldn’t resist pressing my hand there, nearly the entire width of her slim waist, just to give ’em some love.

  “Z,” she hissed against my lips, but there was laughter in her eyes as she pulled back enough to scold me. “You’re about as subtle as a gun. We aren’t supposed to tell people for another month.”

  I cocked a brow at her and canted my hips against hers, sandwiching my hand between us, up tight against my unborn babies. “No fuckin’ way I can keep this quiet that long.”

  “The doctor said.”

  “Got two kids, girl, think I know the drill. Nothin’s gonna happen to these babies, I won’t fuckin’ let it, so don’t you worry ’bout tellin’ the club too soon. They’re gonna re-fuckin’-joice, babe, and then they’re all gonna lay down their lives if they’ve gotta to keep these two little Garros safe, you hear me? ’Sides, ‘tis the season for all that. Thinkin’ it’s the perfect time to tell ’em.”

  Somethin’ flashed so quick over her beautiful face, I almost missed it.

  Almost.

  But I knew my girl the way a biker knew his Harley, the way a man knew how to grill meat and catch a ball. No, more. I knew Loulou Garro the way one soul knew another. It was intangible and intractable, one of those ways’a the universe no one ever knows how to give words to.

  I knew ’er, so I knew that flash was fear.

  And I couldn’t have any’a that.

  Bent my knees to bring us closer to eye level, then pinched her chin to tip those skittish eyes to mine so I could pin the fear and kill it for her. “What’s goin’ on behind those blue eyes?”

  She bit into her plush lower lip, but her eyes were so nervous, I couldn’t even enjoy the gesture. “What if they’re like me?” she whispered in a voice like smoke, tenuous and dissipating. “What if they get sick?”

  Fuck me, but I didn’t want to have this conversation in a garage filled with my guys where I couldn’t tell her in all ways––with my body and my eyes and my fuckin’ words––that I would never let that happen. So I turned on my booted heel and tromped across the garage, tugging Lou behind me by the hand. Nova called out, but I ignored ’im.

  Only when we hit the second empty bay, separated by a partially raised automatic wall to the first where the brothers hung out, did I stop long enough to open the door to a Mustang I was hand restorin’ and push Lou inside ’fore followin’.

  “Z,” she protested on a giggle. “There’s no need to go alpha biker on me.”

  “There’s every fuckin’ need,” I said, cutting off her humour at the knees ’cause I needed her to get me. Get this. I turned into her on the back seat, sliding ’cross the leather to gather her up against me, one arm ’round her lower back and the other at her cheek, sinkin’ into the thick silk of the hair over her ear so she was forced to look into my face.

  A face, I knew, that was set like granite.

  Her breath stuttered, not in fear but anticipation.

  “You listen to me, and you listen good, wife. It’s our babies you got in you. Ours. Don’t even need to meet ’em to know that those kids are gonna be all the best fuckin’ parts’a you and me, because together? A love like ours? Straight up, we’re only capable’a makin’ pure fuckin’ beauty. So you gotta know, understandin’ that, there’s no way they’re gonna be sick. Even if you doubt that, do ya really think God is gonna saddle us with more drama after the drama we already fought and killed for? Now, you know I have no place for that religious bullshit in my life, but I know you got a relationship with Him, and I know my smart girl wouldn’t if she didn’t believe He was mighty and good. A being like that ain’t gonna fuck us over again, yeah?”

  Slowly, she blinked and then nodded, but I could see the wobble in that pink mouth so I for ged on.

  I was Zeus, god of thunder and slayer of Loulou Garro’s demons. Each and every fuckin’ one of ’em.

  I ground my forehead into hers so that my eyes were her entire universe and my words rolled just like thunder from my body into hers.

  “Even if they get sick, baby, even if life happens to ’em at some point, as life always fuckin’ does, these aren’t just normal kids. They’re Garros, and they’re you. The son and daughter of a warrior. You think they don’t got it in ’em to fight just as hard as you did, even fuckin’ harder if they’ve gotta?”

  The tears fell then, dropping like crystals with soft plinks to the leather seat beneath us. Leanin’ forward, I captured one with my tongue and took her sorrow into my body so that I might understand it better and kill it quicker. My entire hand palmed the side of her face, and when I spoke, it was in a whisper that came right up from the heart of me like spring water bursting through the crust’a the earth. “Lou, baby, they’re gonna be you, and God knows just as well as I do that there ain’t anythin’ stronger on this earth than you.”

  “Fuck.” The curse exploded on a soft breath as her tears kept streamin’ and her lip kept tremblin’. Only, her hands came up, one to frame mine on her cheek and the other to mimic my pose with it pressed to my face and her voice was iron when she declared, “Tell myself every day it’s just not possible for one person to love another as much as I love you, and then there you go, every fucking day, proving me wrong, because I just fall deeper.”

  “Good,” I rumbled, filled with the male satisfaction of possession and successfully soothing a lover of ’er fear. “’Cause I’m drownin’ in it every single fuckin’ day. Would hate to be in that alone.”

  “Never,” she swore fiercely, my little warrior comin’ back. “And these babies never will be either. We’ll fight for them, no matter what.”

  “That’s my girl,” I told her. “I got you, and we got them, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed on a smile before rewarding me with a tear salted kiss.

  Her mouth was hot and lush as I parted her lips with my tongue and swept inside to plunder all that sweet heat for myself. She moaned around my thrusting tongue and pushed her tits against my chest.

  A man only had so much strength, and when her small hand scraped over the denim covering my inner thigh before wrappin’ tight around my growin’ dick, I caved into temptation and took my girl in the back seat of an old Mustang sixteen feet from my club brethren.

  Don’t worry, I covered ’er mouth when I made ’er come.

  Twice.

  Despite my cozy plans for havin’ a sex-filled weekend up at the barely finished new cabin I’d built outside’a Whistler with my young wife while we hunted for the perfect tree, the whole thing became a family event.

  Harleigh Rose was even up from Vancouver. In the recent months, she hadn’t visited as often, claimin’ studies were fierce in the nursing school and she couldn’t afford the time. There was somethin’ off in that, but whenever I saw my girl, she was pure smiles and sass, just as she’d always been. My thorny rose happy at home with her people.

  I watched ’er as she laughed with Lou, both wrapped up in thick duffel coats, one black and the other bubble gum pink, the opposite colour in toques over their abundance’a hair. They were matchin’ and laughin’ ’bout it like old friends. I shook my head, thinkin’ about my brat givin’ Lou and me hell when we first got together ’cause now they were thick as fuckin’ thieves.

  Wouldn’t tell a soul, and probably didn’t need to because it was obvious as hell on my face, but my girls gettin’ along made my chest tight with the pressure’a all the love I harboured for ’em. I rubbed at it as my son came barrellin’ outta the house with his girl on his back, Cressida’s giggle punctuatin’ the muffled silence that comes with snowfall as she rode his back, hair streamin’ behind her like a pennant.

  “Put me down, you heathen,” she demanded through her laughter, but King only swung her from his back to his front, hands under her ass, to silence her with a thorough kiss.

  I looked away, but not ’fore I smiled at the sight. My boy’d always been a romantic soul, a bit lost to the poetry of his mind as a boy, lookin’ for the weight of somethin’ mighty to hold ’im still and steady ’nough to thrive. He’d found that in Cressida Irons, and like his dad, he wasn’t one to ever take such a treasure for granted.

  Glad for my boy, but even gladder that the renovation of their cabin on the water at Back Bay Road was fuckin’ finished ’cause no father, no matter how fuckin’ chill, liked to hear his son fuckin’ his woman under his own roof.

  A slender arm around my middle and the scent of cherries filled my nose as Lou pressed herself into my side. I dipped down to smell her silky hair and squeezed her tight.

  “How’re my babies this mornin’?”

  She snorted. “Your babies are fine. Your woman, on the other hand…It’ll be a miracle if I make it up the Sea to Sky Highway without losing my breakfast.”

  I made a noise in my throat, hatin’ how sick she was with the pregnancy and hatin’ even more that I couldn’t shoulder that for ’er. Made do with sliding a hand down her back and nuzzlin’ into the hair over her ear before whisperin’, “Think my girl deserves a treat for carryin’ my babies so good.”

  “Mmm, I think so too,” she agreed, eyes flashing as her little tongue swiped against my lips and then her teeth nibbled over my stubble roughened chin. “What kinda treat are we talkin’ about?”

  “’S been a while…” I said as I dipped a thumb inside the opening of her coat and swiped the rough pad between her collarbones, “since I gave ya a pearl necklace.”

  “Zeus!” she said laughingly, pushin’ at me and then pullin’ me back in the next instant. “That’s a treat for you.”

  I shrugged a heavy shoulder. “Yeah, but what pleases me pleases you, so I’d say it’s a win-win.”

  She rolled her eyes, but the streaks of high colour on her cheekbones belied just how much the idea turned her crank. My wife liked to be marked with my cum.

  “Is there enough room for me?” Lila asked, appearing at the gate with Nova close behind. She was bundled up in a yellow, purple, and blue duffel coat that made her look like a supermodel from the eighties. I wondered if she knew she was a good-lookin’ thing now when she’d been teased so mercilessly as a kid for bein’ boyish and plump.

  Nova stepped up to help ’er step over a patch’a black ice, and a blush lit up her slanted cheeks like a highlighter pen. The girl had been in love with ’im since she was twelve, and Nova had no fuckin’ clue ’cause he was good with strangers, especially the female variety, but he was a dumbass when it came to those he loved.

  So I figured she didn’t know how fuckin’ lovely she was ’cause the only person she needed to hear it from wouldn’t ever be the one to tell ’er.

  I crossed the walk to take Lila under my arm and curl ’er into my chest so I could plant a kiss on that pretty head. “Always got room for the flower child.”

  She tipped her face up into mine and fuckin’ beamed like a flower used to too little sunlight. “Thanks, Zeus.”

  H.R. bound up to wrap her friend in a tight hug, and I stepped back to shoot Nova a look even as we clasped hands and embraced.

  “What?” he questioned as we pulled apart.

  “Nothin’.” I shook my head. “You’re just dumb as dirt sometimes.”

  “Doesn’t seem to bother women much,” he countered with his pretty boy grin.

  I snorted and turned my back on him, snagging Cressida from out under my son’s arm so they’d stop fuckin’ kissing for two seconds.

  “I’m leavin’ in ten seconds. If any of you hooligans want a ride, you better be in the car ’fore then, or I’m happy to leave you behind,” I hollered.

  Unfortunately, everyone found a seat in one of the two cars in five.

  Loulou

  My head ached, my breasts were swollen so big they throbbed to a painful beat, and I was so nauseated, it was an effort not to throw up with nearly every breath.

  Yet I loved it.

  Being pregnant.

  Knowing I was harbouring two little souls that were a part of Z and a part of me. It was like living with a miracle inside me. It made me understand religion in a way I never had before even after years of attending service at my grandfather’s church. It felt like something more than biology to have life forming––a manifestation of our love forming––inside me.

  But of course, in typical Garro fashion, they made me emotional as hell.

  “Are you cryin’?” my husband asked as we finally took the turn off the snow-glazed highway onto the road that would lead us deeper into the mountains near Whistler.

  I blinked hard and tried to sniff silently as I resolutely stared out the window at the glistening powder on the trees. “No.”

  A hard pinch to my shoulder had me whipping around to glare at the three people in the back seat.

  Harleigh Rose grinned wickedly, and announced, “She totally is.”

  “Am not,” I retorted, suddenly reverting to the teenage attitude I’d left behind years ago. H.R. did that to me.

  “What’s this then?” she demanded, leaning forward to swipe her thumb under my left eye. It came away wet.

  I glowered at her, then turned back in my seat.

  “You wanna apologize for bein’ a brat?” Zeus asked her mildly.

  We both knew him well enough to know his intent did not match his tone.

  “She can handle it,” she argued.

  And it was true, normally, I could handle any of the teasing heat King or Harleigh Rose threw at me. It was the language of love in the Garro family, in the Fallen family, and I was just as fluent after years of being Zeus’s wife as the rest of them.

  But I felt almost seasick from the pregnancy hormones, as if emotion was lopsided and every thought was blurred with dizziness. I sniffed, preparing to defend myself, but my overprotective husband beat me to it.