The bell chimed.

Omri looked toward the door and froze yet again.

This time, Willow sent him a reassuring intent before he could even think to ask.

This newcomer was different.

He was a young, athletic man with boyishly handsome features, blond hair, blue eyes, and a naturally playful smile. He seemed full of kinetic energy, his body wound with corded muscle beneath the jacket of a local volleyball team.

He was incredibly charming.

His aura was not.

Gunmetal and bruised violet surrounded him, streaked with emergency orange and oxidised red.

Omri was no longer certain he wanted to know what these men had endured to leave them all carrying such auras. He had never seen anything like them before.

The young man’s gaze swept across the room in an instant, taking in every person, window, door, and possible exit.

Then he spotted Julia and Summers.

His smile brightened, and he bounded across the shop before practically dropping into Summers’s open arms and settling comfortably across his lap.

Summers held him tightly and tipped his chin upward.

“Having fun, Brat?”

The young man nodded, his expression alight with amusement.

“I got you something.”

He extended one closed hand, barely containing his laughter.

Summers groaned but held out his palm anyway.

Something dropped into it.

Summers frowned and lifted the object for inspection.

It was a keychain shaped like a knitted black frog wearing a tiny crown.

Summers glared at it.

“I hate it.”

The Brat burst out laughing.

“No, you don’t. You love it, because we all got one.”

He held up his own keychain: an identical frog knitted in bright blue.

Summers looked at the frog.

Then at the Brat.

He huffed.

“Fine.”

The Brat’s grin widened triumphantly.

Summers’s hands slid slowly up his torso, pushing the jacket and shirt high enough to reveal an impossibly defined line of muscle disappearing beneath his waistband, before drawing him into a kiss.

When Summers finally released him, Julia held out one elegant hand.

“Where’s mine?”

The Brat scrambled off Summers’s lap and squeezed into the seat beside her, looking far too pleased with himself as he reached into his pocket.

A lavender frog dangled from his fingers.

Summers gave an amused huff of laughter.

The Brat grinned.

“Same colour as my favourite pair of your panties.”

Julia accepted the frog, then leaned forward and kissed him softly.

His face flushed at once.

“I’ll cherish it,” she murmured.

Summers watched them with a soft smile.

The entire exchange had been witnessed by one stunned Richard and the frankly numb remainder of the tea shop..

“Ben,” Summer’s said. Drawing the brats attention, “Where are they?”

“Kyle and Princess were looking at the restaurant menu,” Ben replied. “They won’t be long.”

As if on cue, the other two returned hand in hand.

Kyle immediately led Hart toward Summers, who had already opened his arms. Hart settled comfortably across his lap as though he belonged there, eating chocolate-coated peanuts from the bag Summers had given him.

Summers gave him a pointed look.

Hart smiled and placed a peanut between Summers’s lips before rolling up the packet and slipping it back into Summer's pocket.

Summers crunched the peanut.

“Did you get a frog too?”

Hart’s soft smile deepened. He reached into his coat and produced a pink knitted frog wearing a tiny crown.

Summers chuckled, then glanced toward Kyle.

Kyle lifted his shirt, revealing an alarming array of concealed knives. A green knitted frog dangled proudly from the hilt of one in particular.

The zealot looked deeply pleased with himself.

Summers beckoned him closer.

Kyle dropped to his knees at once. Summers caught him by the hair, pulled him into another hard kiss, and murmured against his mouth, “Thank you for keeping our Princess safe.”

The zealot looked as though he had just received the highest honour of his life.

At that moment, Willow arrived and placed a fresh tray of tea on the table.

Neither Ben nor Kyle gave Willow’s appearance more than a brief glance. Kyle rose and took the seat on Julia’s other side while Ben leaned eagerly toward the tray.

“Is this the magic tea?”

Julia hummed and pushed a cup toward each of them.

Kyle watched in fascination as Julia lifted her own cup and drank.

“Does this mean I can finally make something you enjoy at home?” Kyle asked, visibly pleased.

“It does.”

Julia turned toward Ben.

“What do you think?”

Ben took a sip, then licked his lips.

“It’s good.”

The group settled into easy company until Richard approached the table.

Three pairs of eyes shifted toward him immediately, while Summers and Julia continued sipping their tea.

Kyle tilted his head.

“What business do you have here?”

Richard ignored him and looked directly at Summers.

“Are you doing this deliberately to spite me?”

Summers’s arm tightened around Hart as he lowered his cup to the table.

Kyle glanced between Summers and Julia.

Julia explained calmly, “This is Dick. The ex.”

Three pairs of intensely murderous eyes snapped onto Richard so quickly that he flinched backward.

A knife appeared in Kyle’s hand almost too fast to follow. He twirled it between his fingers with unnerving skill, then looked toward the others with a sharp grin.

“Remember when we castrated that senators son who bullied our Princess and used his testicles as golf balls?”

Hart took a delicate sip of tea.

“They made terrible golf balls. They exploded on impact off the tee.”

Ben turned toward Julia.

“When are we scheduled to play golf?”

“Eight thirty tomorrow morning,” Julia replied calmly.

All three pairs of eyes returned to Richard.

The zealot’s grin widened.

“You should come play golf with us.”

Richard stared between them, clearly uncertain whether to believe any of it.

“Are you threatening me?”

Hart raised one brow.

“Did we explicitly threaten you?”

Richard gestured sharply toward Kyle.

“He drew a knife.”

The blade stopped twirling between Zealot’s fingers, revealing itself to be nothing more than a small teacake knife.

Hart took another delicate sip of tea.

“He invited you to play golf.”

“At eight thirty,” Ben added.

Julia glanced at her phone.

“The tee time is confirmed.”

Richard turned back to Ashley.

“So, what? You think you’re better than me now?” His mouth twisted. “You were drinking yourself to death when I met you.”

The entire table fell silent.

Ben’s smile vanished.

Hart’s gaze turned glacial.

Kyle’s fingers twitched near his waist.

Julia lowered her teacup carefully onto its saucer.

Then Hart spoke.

“Do you know he never relapsed after you?”

“He hasn’t touched alcohol since,” Ben added. “And we make certain he never has to face that alone again.”

“We keep no alcohol in the house,” Kyle said. “I don’t even use it in my cooking.”

“I have it removed from every hotel suite before we arrive,” Julia added.

Ben leaned forward.

“Bet you can’t say the same.”

Richard looked both disbelieving and offended.

Hart tilted his head.

“Do you know what he did instead of drinking?”

Kyle’s expression was filled with devotion as he looked at Ashley.

“He tattooed nearly every inch of his body so he could never look at himself without remembering that he survived.”

“He pierced his cock,” Hart added calmly, “because he decided that pain freely chosen belonged to him.”

“He became one of the most efficient mercenaries alive,” Ben said.

Julia folded her hands.

“He built a reputation so formidable that three governments attempted to hire him, and two attempted to assassinate him.”

“And then,” Ben declared proudly, “he became King.”

Hart’s soft smile returned.

“In our Pixie Queen’s harem.”

Richard froze. His mouth opened and closed several times as he tried to process everything, but his mind appeared to catch on a single detail.

He stared at Ashley.

“You… pierced your—”

“Several times,” Ben said, grinning.

“A solid-gold Jacob’s ladder,” Kyle supplied.

Hart sighed dreamily.

“It feels incredible when he fucks us.”

“Better sex than I’m sure you’ve had since before you renewed your wedding vows,” Kyle added.

“And you forgot the reverse Prince Albert,” Ben said. “I choke on that one almost every day.”

He turned his delighted grin on Richard.

“You’re so jealous, aren’t you, Dick?”

Hart sighed.

“Tragic for you. He’s ours now.”

Julia regarded Richard over the rim of her cup.

“I’m sure you’ll also enjoy the pain of watching every one of your hard-won clients abandon you for your former wife.”

As if on cue, Richard’s phone chimed.

He looked down at the screen.

All colour drained from his face.

“What did you do?”

Julia shrugged.

“I merely identified several possible instances of professional misconduct. Your practising certificate has been placed under immediate interim suspension pending a formal disciplinary investigation.”

Richard stared at her.

“For concealed impairment,” she continued, “repeated professional dishonesty, failure to disclose conduct affecting your fitness to practise, and the mishandling of client matters while impaired.”

Richard looked close to fainting.

Then his expression twisted.

He reached for an empty teacup, his intent suddenly and unmistakably aggressive.

Before his fingers could close around it, an unseen force seized him and dragged him bodily toward the door.

It flew open.

Richard vanished through it.

The door slammed shut behind him with a final, decisive snap.

Everyone watched the bell above it sway until it gradually went still.

Then Ben’s face lit up.

“I love it here.”

Kyle’s grin stretched almost manically wide.

“As do I.”

Omri could not have spoken if he tried.

Neither, apparently, could anyone else in the shop.

Ashley, however, merely lifted his tea and drank, looking utterly resigned to the fact that his entire life was about to become citywide gossip.

Marnie was the first to react.

She rose with her notebook in hand and crossed the shop in strides far more confident than anyone had ever seen from her.

Everyone at the table looked up as she approached.

Marnie smiled.

“Hello.”

Then she opened her notebook to a blank page and held it out to Summers.

“Can I have your autograph?”

The other three men stared at her.

Then, one by one, they broke into affectionate grins directed at Summers.

Summers let out a long sigh, accepted the notebook, and picked up a pen.

As he signed, he asked, “How old are you?”

“I’ll be seventeen in a month.”

Summers ran a hand down his face.

“We corrupted a minor.”

“Hardly,” Marnie said. “You’ve given me character inspiration for my next book.”

Summers groaned.

Marnie’s confidence strengthened.

“I was also hoping I could ask you about life as a mercenary. Only if you’re willing.”

“It’s pretty boring,” Ben said. “Ninety percent planning and maintenance. The rest is explosions, gunfights, and hearing loss.”

Marnie’s eyes lit up.

“What’s the largest radius you’ve ever seen a body explode across?”

Ben blinked.

Then he replied with alarming casualness, “I once discharged an IED that turned a man into paste across roughly twelve metres.”

Marnie brightened and immediately wrote it down.

Ben looked toward Zealot.

Zealot looked back at him.

“I like this girl,” Zealot said.

Then he turned to Marnie.

“You’re a writer?”

Marnie nodded quickly.

“I write a murder-mystery serial based on a collection of unsolved crime-scene cases. Though I changed the victims to girls for plot reasons.”

Zealot grinned.

“Which series?”

“A Catalogue of Murder.”

The entire table stared at her.

Zealot’s grin widened.

“I enjoy that series. Your attention to detail is excellent, although I’m certain that if the investigators had examined the brickwork more carefully, they would have found fragments of skull the acid wash missed.”

Marnie’s eyes grew enormous.

Her pen was already moving.

“You know the Rutherford case?”

Zealot laughed.

“Do I?”

“What do you think the motive was?”

He did not even appear to consider the question.

“Rutherford had an unfortunate habit of sleeping with minors. One girl suffered an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured and nearly killed her. Her mother happened to find the right person at the right price.”

Marnie went still.

So did the crows.

Then every crow in the rafters began discussing the case at once while Marnie frantically wrote down everything she could hear.

A moment later, she seemed to realise something.

Colour rose across her cheeks.

“Wait. You all read my story?”

They nodded.

“Of course,” Ben said. “It’s in the top five, right beside Princess’s.”

Marnie’s face lit up as she turned toward Hart.

“Really? Which one is yours?”

Hart lowered his cup modestly.

“Raiders of the Dead Sun.”

Marnie immediately thrust the notebook containing Summers’s autograph toward him.

“Can I have your autograph too?”

Julia slid another notebook across the table.

“Only if we can have yours.”

Marnie’s mouth fell open.

A brilliant blush spread across her face.

“And a photograph for our wall at home,” Zealot added.

Before Marnie seemed capable of processing what was happening, she had been drawn into the centre of a group portrait.

Willow stood in front of them with a phone held perfectly level.

“Everyone look this way.”

Marnie sat surrounded by several of the most dangerous people Omri had ever seen, clutching two notebooks to her chest and smiling so widely that her cheeks must have hurt.

Willow took the photograph.

End.