We chuckled on our way upstairs where the others were waiting. Piper was nowhere to be seen, but Darren had the limo waiting in the garage so we wouldn't have to go into the sun and Antoine was already in it... or so he said.
"Where's Piper?" I asked, looking around for the adorable blonde as I climbed in the back of the car. I sat with my brother on the far side of the limo, Marcus to my left, and Wynn and Rayne to the right. Antoine had the back seat completely to himself. That didn't really bother me because he spent most of our rides staring at his phone like he was doing now.
Antoine didn't even look up from his phone as he said the most pretentious thing I'd ever heard. "She's up front with Darren, where she belongs."
"So, an hour ago, she was family, and now, she's back to being the hired help?" I growled, leaning forward in my seat as I refrained from throwing myself across the limo at him.
Antoine let out an impatient sigh and sat his phone down long enough to meet my gaze. "She is still an employee, Draconius. Being part of the family doesn't change that, and besides, if she were back here, you would all fight over her." He lifted his phone back up to tap something out. "She's much more comfortable up there with Darren and not you panting lot."
I snorted. We'll see about that. I turned in my seat and tapped on the darkened separator to the front seat. It slowly lowered to reveal a serious Darren and a cheerful Piper who was bouncing in her seat.
"Why, hello there, lovely." I grinned at her through the window. "Am I correct in assuming you've never been in a limo?"
Piper grinned at me and bobbed her head. "This is really cool. I always wanted to ride in a limo. I mean, some of the kids in high school rented them for prom, but I wasn't allowed to. My parents..." She trailed off and then shook her head with a smile. "Never mind. I'm just excited to be here."
I glanced at my brother and then back to her with a mischievous wink. "Well, you aren't really experiencing it up there."
Before she could protest, Allister and I reached over the seat and pulled her through the window. She landed in our laps, her lower half sprawled in Allister's lap and her upper half in mine. Piper giggled like a fiend and wiggled in place.
"Oh, don't do that, love. You'll wake the one-eyed snake."
Wynn made a pained sound.
"What's the one-eyed snake?" Piper blinked innocently up at me. I was thankful she had chosen to wear jeans today because I didn't think I could handle her in a skirt back here. The temptation was just too great.
Rayne scoffed and shoved a pair of headphones in his ears after saying, "He means his dick."
Piper's eyes widened, and she shifted out of my lap into Allister's. Allister grinned like the smug bastard he was as I threw my hands up in the air.
"Here I am, making sure you get the full limo experience, and this asshole gets the benefits from it." I shook my head in mock disgust.
Allister held Piper closer and grinned over her head. "Well, I am the more attractive twin."
Piper giggled in his lap, and I scoffed. "You can't be more attractive. We're identical, down to our dick size."
"Really?" Piper's voice raised a pitch, and her eyes darted from my lap to Allister's as if really trying to see through our pants.
I gave her a saucy wink and shifted up to a crouch in the limo. "Wanna see? I'll prove it. Come on, Al, whip it out."
The others groaned and shifted away from us. Piper, though, was staring hard at my hands which had gone to my belt. However, before I could unbutton my pants, Antoine spoke up.
"The first one to disrobe in here will be walking to the hangar naked."
I groaned in disappointment before buckling my belt and sitting back down with a huff.
Piper glanced worriedly over at Antoine and then back to us. "Won't that kill you though? The sun?"
I lifted a shoulder. "Not right away."
"Hurts like a bitch though," Rayne piped in, showing he was actually listening through his headphones.
Wynn even chimed in, "Excruciatingly painful."
Piper tensed in Allister's arms and chewed on her lower lip. I could tell she wanted to know more but was afraid to ask, so I went ahead and put her out of her misery.
"It depends on how old you are,” I explained. “Like, Rayne here. He's the youngest of us, only a few decades old. He would probably make it to the hangar with just third-degree burns, nothing a little blood couldn't heal, but Antoine over there?" I pointed at the blonde aristocrat who was determined to pretend we didn't exist. "He is well over a few centuries old." Piper gasped as her eyes darted to Antoine's. She might not notice it, but I saw the way he puffed up his chest and tried to look more attractive to her eyes. "He would turn to dust in a matter of minutes."
Piper's shocked face showed a bit of awe and pity for our fearless leader. I had to admit that I was a bit jealous. I wanted her to look at me that way. Well, not the pity, but the rest of it? Totally.
When we arrived at the airport, we waited in the limo for a moment, not quite ready to get out and leave the cozy setting we'd created with all six of us. Eventually, we couldn't delay any longer. We filed out of the limo one at a time until it was just Piper, Allister, and me. I grabbed Piper's hand before she could leave and asked her a question that had been bothering me the whole way here.
"You're going to become bonded, aren't you?" I met her eyes with a bit of hesitancy, unsure of what she would say. We had all been saying, ‘oh we're family, she's ours,’ but she has yet to say what she wanted. Would Piper bind herself to us? Or would she rather take the risk?
The small smile that played on her lips made me sigh out the tension I was holding even before she murmured shyly, "Yes. I will."