Reaching for Home (House of Garner Book 3)

by Erin R Flynn

  “I think I want them to always be this sensitive,” Kristof growled as he pinched my nipple. “Bigger or smaller, they are perfect and I am blessed to touch them.”

  “Agreed,” Cerdic said firmly. “I just beg you keep showing them in sexy shirts that I’m dying to take off of you.”

  “So you can suck them? Do you want to suck my tits?”

  “Shit, you are so wound up today,” Cerdic groaned, both of them turning me so they could do just that as they fingered me together again.

  “I might need that again,” I panted as I flopped to the bed. “I don’t know what’s going on with me. I think it’s Dennis and them. We figured they’d be a problem, but spies and that crazy? I just feel… Anxious. I want my coven and to feel safe. We keep having these short stretches of feeling safe in our bubble and it gets popped. The only thing I want popped is my cherry to have anal sex!”

  “Wow, that was not what I thought we’d hear you say,” Darius muttered from the foot of the bed. Jaxon and Branko were with him. “Um, now? Are we doing this now?”

  “No, we’re going to hunt soon.” I grabbed the pillow and moved it over my face. “Just ignore me. I got possessive and jealous again, and I hate I get so demanding and bitchy, and then I sort of spin out from there.”

  “Love, you declare I’m yours all you fucking want,” Cerdic chuckled as they spread my legs wider. “Isn’t this the prettiest pussy you’ve ever seen?”

  “Yes and the tastiest,” Branko groaned. “Her lips are all swollen. Did you take good care of her?”

  “Yes,” I said as I moved the pillow. “I got a bazillion orgasms, and they each got one. I’m a bitch like that.”

  “What else is going on, love?” Cerdic pushed again.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just feel anxious. I don’t know why. It’s like I’m missing something and I’m pissed I’m behind a step.”

  “I’ve been feeling that way too,” Jaxon confessed. “We all go through that mood now and again, my love. Is that why you wanted to be armed again?”

  “Yes.” There was no reason to deny it, so I wasn’t going to. “I think I want my guns back too. Dresses and skirts for during my period because you’ll all hover anyways, but I want to feel ready better the rest of the time.”

  “Maybe some sexy Lara Croft holsters,” Darius suggested, and a few of them groaned.

  I pushed to sit up. “I don’t know who that is, but I really like the grommet belt, so I thought something that clipped to that? Maybe a different harness for one katana with the guns?”

  “And more jeans and shirts like that?” Darius checked, clearing his throat.

  I studied him closely. “Have you declared you’re mine today?”

  His eyes flashed shock. “Yes, I introduced myself as your fiancé. Jaxon did as well several times.”

  “Then I’ll get more jeans to shop tomorrow and you both can fuck me hard tonight.”

  “Fuck me dead, Inez,” Jaxon groaned with feeling.

  I smirked at him. “The faster we kill baddies the faster we can come back and have fun, but no one gets anything if one of you even gets a boo-boo. New rules.” I locked gazes with Branko as I ran my fingers over my pussy. “That includes you.”

  He swallowed loudly. “Yes, My Princess.”

  Right answer.

  12

  We got a lot more corrupted this time. No one was bored this time for sure, but it also wasn’t the scariest fight we’d had, and I was pretty sure no one wanted a repeat of those moments on the bridge outside Anchorage where we’d worried we were in deep shit.

  “Starting our third pass,” Tyson said into the radio when we were up again and in position.

  “Safety off,” I replied as I flipped up the casing and hit the switch to arm the minigun.

  “Green light,” Trisha cleared.

  I opened fire, aiming into packs of corrupted to hopefully get a few head shots—as the minigun would pop them like melons from the distance we were at—or at least wound some to get eaten, which was still a kill. The minigun fired three thousand rounds a minute, so calling it fast was an understatement and I was careful not to waste ammo.

  It helped it was night and now I could see the bullets and their trajectory, which added a serious level of awesome having only used rifles before and they didn’t do that. I saw more closer to the river and changed to an M pattern to get more from each group and maybe some stragglers. The fires from the blown up vehicles helped a lot, as apparently we didn’t do well with night vision goggles.

  As we had good night vision as vampires… But I was a baby vampire. Eddie and I agreed that it was stupid the night vision goggles didn’t work for us still then, but it was something about our non-human eyes. Right, that sounded like some bullshit writing in the fine print.

  Eddie had laughed when I’d grumbled that. Glad I wasn’t alone on the baby vampire front at least.

  “Pass complete,” Tyson said when we reached the end.

  “Safety on,” I replied and did it.

  “Land this round,” Trisha ordered. “Inez, head to James’s chopper, you get your wish to blow shit up. We keep using all the bullets and not enough of what goes boom.”

  “Fuck yeah!” I yelled, wiggling in my harness as I willed the chopper to go faster. Then I had a worried thought. “Are we running too low?”

  “Not yet, but we could use an influx of ammo for the miniguns and assault vehicle weapons soon,” she replied. “We found a ton of ammo, but a lot of it was all handguns and rifles. Awesome to fight, but then we upped the game and those wouldn’t do much against a million corrupted a night.”

  “Can you guys map out where the best spots to check will be with Kristof and Cerdic? We calculated that between Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, their metro areas, and everything in between was about twenty million total. That’s a whole fuck ton of corrupted.”

  “Roger,” Trisha replied. “I also suggest we start with the plan for LA except we send a few fighter planes off from the carrier. We know where there is so much ammo for those. Mostly where we left the planes because we couldn’t use them and there was no point to the weight.”

  “Map it out,” I agreed. “Lead them to LA from all over. What are they going to do once there? Pout? Kristof was lobbing flares from further than any of us could see. Lob a small jar of my blood into the same crater every night and blow it to shit. Attack from several fronts.”

  “But carefully is how we all stay safe,” James reminded, probably noting the pushy tone to my voice.

  I didn’t know why I was agitated and wanted to hurry. Maybe part of it was the numbers we crunched? There were a whole lot of corrupted, and I worried there might not be any people left in the end if we didn’t fight back faster now that we could.

  Maybe I just needed a fucking vacation and a week off from worrying.

  Yeah, right.

  My mood was back up to giddy as we landed and James met up with us. Tyson took over flying his chopper since it had the right rig, and I got in the harness… And James got in behind me.

  “There’s a kick with this one, and you don’t know how to load and charge it,” he explained.

  I nodded as we lifted off, nodding to James’s friend that I saw him with now and again, forgetting his name but thanking him for handling the reloading. It felt like I thought riding on a motorcycle with someone would. We were both straddling the mount, our feet on either side of the gun, and he was reaching around me. He went over the basics as we flew into place.

  “Ready to make our pass with the grenade launcher,” Tyson said as he turned the chopper to get us on the correct side.

  “Safety off and charged,” James replied as he did it.

  “Green light,” Trisha confirmed.

  I hit the trigger and fired off a few rounds, wanting to see them land. My eyes went wide as they did. “Holy. Fucking. Shit. I’m in love. I’m stealing this gun, James.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he chuckled. “Ge
t shooting.”

  “More like get wet,” I muttered under my breath, the laughter coming back at me letting me know they’d all heard me with their better than human hearing. Great.

  I ignored it and fired a few into each group, mentally pumping my fist as they landed and went boom even as I was locking on the next targets.

  “Her fangs are out, her nips are hard, and she’s seriously aroused,” James said in the headset, letting me know my fangs had come out at least.

  “I’ve been donating the blood to lure them, remember?” I grumbled, shooting off some more shots. “I gave more to Kristof to get them out of Calgary.”

  “Pass complete, and stop poking at my princess when others are listening, James,” Tyson warned, a growl in his tone.

  “Safety on, and you’re right, but in my defense, I meant it as praise that she fits in well with us, but not everyone needs to hear that.” He moved his mic away and kissed my head. “Sorry, sexy bite. I’ll behave when there are guests.”

  “Thanks. Otherwise I thought it was funny.”

  “I know, but he’s absolutely right that our being lax shouldn’t be a thing that we let others see.”

  “So let’s kick them out,” I joked.

  “I hope you’re kidding,” Sebastian said in the radio. “And we’re all clear over here. If you land and allow us to finish whoever is left, I think we call it a successful night. We have culling to do tomorrow.”

  “Roger that,” James replied. “Bring the choppers in and hold fire unless close proximity.”

  “Can you hold all fire, mate, and I’ll come right to that side? Those are some big bloody bullets, and I was ordered not to get a boo-boo.”

  “Hold all fire,” James confirmed, shaking his head. “No boo-boos, huh?”

  “Nope. I’m not kissing boo-boos, but I’ll let them do dirty everything to me if they come back without them.”

  “That would work for me,” someone replied along with a few other colorful comments.

  We landed, and not long after Kristof, Sebastian, Jacob, and Branko confirmed the corrupted were all dead.

  I went over to Jacob and gave him the green light I knew he was looking for. “If you can check the lines, find us the trains we’ll need to fix, and teach several people what to do, I’ll allow Princess Matilda to send a party to raid the smaller areas like Sebastian is as long as you lead it and keep them under control. Anymore than that and I think I need a big fucking apology from Olivia to not look like a doormat.”

  He blew out a harsh breath. “That’s fairly accurate, and as much as I hate to admit that, I don’t want to betray your trust when you’re willing to give us that inch.”

  “I was willing to give yards and yards, but yeah, that was a huge slap in the face, and he’s not even changing his tune, completely spying and planning to do any and everything he wants. An inch is all I’m open to.”

  “It’s better than most, as Matilda would have killed Dennis just for the insult.”

  “That’s a bit much when the world is drowning in death, but I will if they act on his plans. Make that clear because I will take them all out. Hell, Kristof is dying to now, so I’ll just quit stopping him.”

  “Understood, and I thank you, truly I do, Princess.”

  I nodded. “You guys are helping. That was all I wanted. I would help you help yourselves if you helped us too. The fight tonight wasn’t even the worst we had. There were a lot of people in North America and not a lot survived, and I want the rest to.”

  “That would be nice,” he agreed, sounding as tired and heavy hearted as I felt.

  I went to check on the others, noting Thomas, his son, and several other owls seemed a bit lighter. I smiled at them. “It’s nice to turn the tide after seeing so often they win, right? And they don’t come after you like feral savages like they do me.”

  “It definitely healed us some,” his son agreed. “Nothing can ever give us back what we lost, but trying to keep others from suffering as we have is a nice fucking feeling.”

  “Amen to that and let’s drink,” I chuckled.

  We took the choppers back to the airport, as they had some seriously full tanks of fuel from what Trisha said, which she planned on taking some of it for the aircraft carrier. It made sense not to completely wipe it out if we were going to be coming back or maybe leaving a clan to manage the place for me.

  I had already let out the charge from Cerdic’s blood earlier to handle some ChargePoint stations and an array of electric vehicles. But then we got all wound up again getting cleaned up and I fed from Jaxon. He let me lead, and I tried a different position, one I’d learned in my research books, the Amazon, where he was inside me but I was basically moving on top like it was missionary with his legs spread.

  “Where did you learn that?” he panted when we were done, both of us having enjoyed it a lot.

  I shrugged. “If it works one way, it made sense to work the other way.”

  There was a lot to do with that energy, but we didn’t know what trains were the ones to fix yet, so instead I turned half of a used car lot into energy beads.

  “We should see if there’s a rail line that comes close to the coven. It might be a better way to send everything from certain locations, not just to the ship, drive down or up, and to the coven.”

  “You’re right, this opens a whole realm of being more efficient and so does leaving the clan here as keepers for you,” Kristof praised as he lifted me in his arms.

  “Say I’m smart again,” I teased him as I snuggled up to him, out before he could even reply or get us back to the hotel.

  13

  The next morning we were in the chopper and headed to Edmonton, for real this time and even starting earlier since I’d have more ghosts. Plus, we wanted longer to play. Trisha landed the chopper right out front and confirmed all the corrupted were out. We were still armed and would clear each place—as was smart—because if people couldn’t sense Jaxon or scents could cover me, then the reverse could be true.

  We’d brought breakfast with us and had eaten along the ride, but we’d also still had a large thermos of coffee and a bunch of muffins. We shopped, but then when someone started trying stuff on, we snacked and gave opinions. None of them messed around either, so once a size or style was confirmed, we were moving on.

  “I think we should have an exchange store at the coven,” Trisha told me as she measured me for bras. “Like what Goodwill was but without cost. People grow out of stuff all the time, and we can’t be wasteful like we used to, so if there’s still life in whatever, leave it there and it’s free. It’s a good way to distribute new clothing supplies too.”

  “Smart. Maybe with a few industrial washers or whatever and we pay people to run it.”

  “I like it.”

  We smiled at each other, and I thanked her for measuring me. We finished up there and were headed to Urban Planet before The Body Shop and then our fun at the Disney Store, but I saw something that caught my eye. I walked over to the jewelry store and saw the protective gate was busted down… And yet the store hadn’t been raided.

  Kristof.

  Still, I was grateful for the windows across the way that let me be able to see without the lanterns or flashlights. This was something I wanted to see in natural lighting.

  Especially because I almost immediately found what I wanted.

  “You like that?” Maggie asked as they caught up.

  “Yes, but for them.” I bounced that around and nodded. “I wear the matching one. It’s the ring of my nobles and they belong to me. Engagement rings I wear on a necklace, but we wear those. It’s made of tungsten, the strongest naturally occurring metal. And it’s pretty, but there’s some darkness to it.”

  “Why does that matter?” Trisha asked as she moved around the display and busted the lock.

  I opened my mouth but then closed it. “Do you know Sebastian’s not Nora’s Night? But she has kids with her Night?”

  “The Night thing always see
med very… Favoring,” Hope muttered as she looked at the ring after Trisha pulled out the display. “Some shifters have multiple mates, a lot of times the head of a clan if our numbers are low in a species, but none is above the other. Maybe the eldest or first mate, but from my limited experience it always seemed like a Night was the mate and the others were extra fun.”

  “I get that feeling too,” I admitted. “Darius said his mom only had kids with his dad as he was her Night. Maybe that’s better, but he speaks of his dad being his mom’s greatest love, and I don’t think that’s fair if you have more than one.” I shook my head as I studied the ring next. “I couldn’t do that. I love them equally. There’s stuff I share with Darius that’s special, but it’s not better than what I share with Jaxon.”

  “Knowing you, you were thinking of naming them all your Night,” Trisha teased me.

  “I was.” I shrugged. “It’s expected to take a Night, so I’ll take multiple. That way I can have nobles in the coven that aren’t mine but are free to live with us.” I moved along to look at something else. “Maybe I have an oldest Night if Kristof and I get that far, but that’s more because I’m a baby and because me starting a coven or even taking one over at my age has never been done before.”

  “It hasn’t?” Maggie asked, giving me a shocked glance.

  “Kristof said the youngest he ever knew was over three hundred years and that was because someone died and a new princess was needed to take over.” I pointed to another row of display. “And I want my knights to wear these. I’ll wear one on my right hand. There’s six different options, and they work for men or women. That way it’s clear up front and always who’s on the team.”

  “It is pretty,” Lara muttered, taking the display from Trisha. “Silver with black diamonds. Nice.”

  “The problem is when we shift,” Trisha told me.

  “We get some of those necklaces that have ring holders and that will work for when we shift.”

  Maggie snorted. “Simon and I will just figure out something else.”

  Right, they shifted into smaller cats.