by Bianca D’Arc
In her to the hilt, he stilled.
“Okay?” he asked, his breaths coming short and hard against the nape of her neck. Damn. She hadn’t known how much of a turn on that could be.
“Almost perfect,” she whispered back, her voice rough. “Move, please. Make it sublime,” she instructed him, and his chuckle was felt as well as heard, so close were their bodies.
Then, he followed her directive. He began a slow, pulsing motion that started out easy and quickly worked its way into a frenzied state. She thought he rose to his knees behind her, his big hands anchoring her hips in just the right position for his thrusts. Then, he went to town, making her come once, twice, three times before he joined her in ecstasy.
She cried out his name, glad the guest house was far enough away from the main house that, even with shifter hearing, the family of lynx shifters couldn’t hear her. Ace’s growl as he joined her in climax probably shook the rafters of the little house. It certainly shook her world. She had never imagined that she’d be so drawn to the sounds a bear shifter made while in human form, but she felt like they were a peek into the wild soul shared by both bear and man.
It pleased her that she could make him lose control to the point where he’d let his bear side show through. She knew he was careful not to do that, lest he give himself away. That he felt free to be who he really was with her meant a lot.
When the storm wound down, he cuddled her into his arms as they rested for a while. The next time they made love, he took a more traditional position, but the passion still ran just as hot. The ecstasy was just as explosive. And the man was just as sublime as she’d asked him to be.
All night long.
CHAPTER NINE
Ace’s cell phone rang before dawn, waking them both. He answered on the second ring, wiping the sleep from his eyes with his free hand as he sat up in the disheveled bed. It was Tim, and his tone was brusque.
“Don’t come to Montana,” he said, right off the bat. “We have reports of Venifucus activity all around our location. They seem to have sent a huge force of their operatives to Montana, though it appears they haven’t been able to figure out exactly where we are. But we’ve been fielding reports from shifters, shaman, and the occasional priestess, all over the state. There’s a witch hunt going on, and the object of it is Sabrina.”
“Shit.” Ace ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll go west, then, I guess. Trying to get to my friends in Phoenix would be just too damned far if she’s as hot as you think.” He paused a moment. “Why are they so eager? Do you have any idea why they’re so keen on finding her?”
“We have some suspicions, but until another high-level magic user can examine her brand of power, it’s all just conjecture,” Tim said, his tone somber.
Ace told him about the incident with the wind gust during their flight down from Canada. Suddenly, it seemed more important to reveal all than to save Sabrina a bit of embarrassment over her loss of control.
“She could be some kind of wind elemental,” Tim offered, confirming thoughts that were just forming in Ace’s mind.
“Not full-blooded,” Ace agreed, “but she definitely has that sort of flavor to her power. And it’s still evolving.”
“You’ve got a contact in Grizzly Cove, right?” Tim asked.
Ace sighed. “Yeah. I’ll give my buddy a call and see if we can go there. I hear there are some powerful mages in town that have proven to be on the right side of all this. Maybe they can help.”
“I’ll call John Marshall on your behalf, as well,” Tim volunteered. “Whatever is going on with Sabrina, we can’t let her fall into the hands of the Venifucus. For one thing, she’s an innocent. For another, whatever power she has, it must be something the Venifucus want really bad. We can’t let them have it.” They were both silent for a moment, thinking about that. Then, Tim spoke, again, more quietly. “Do you want me to send backup?”
“Not yet,” Ace told him. “We’re traveling light and fast, and we’re not too far from the coast, as long as the guys in Grizzly Cove let us in.”
“They will,” Tim promised. “Big John owes me a favor, and if I have to call it in, I will. This is too important. Though, I’d rather have his willing agreement to help, of course.”
“I don’t think we’ll have a problem. Bears love a challenge,” Ace reminded the werewolf Lord. Both men chuckled. “I’ll call my friend, now. If I encounter any problems, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, I’ll check in later tonight.”
“Sooner, if you have problems,” Tim reminded him unnecessarily. Ace agreed, and they said goodbye and ended the call.
“What’s happening?” Sabrina asked, concerned by what she’d heard of Ace’s side of the conversation.
“Change of plan,” Ace told her, and she just knew he was trying to sound cheerful for her benefit. “We’re going to head for the coast, not the Lords.”
“But I thought they could help me,” she said, confused by the sudden change in destination.
“Lucky for us, they’re not the only ones who can,” Ace replied. “I have a good friend and colleague on the Washington coast. That little town I told you about? We’re going to head there, just as soon as I clear it with my friend.” He tugged on a pair of pants as he headed for the door of the cabin, taking his phone with him.
She didn’t like the fact that he went outside to make the phone call. He was hiding something from her. The danger level had ramped up since the night before, she just knew it. Though, what had caused the change, she had no idea.
Sabrina knew she had blown them off course, and they were on the wrong side of the majority of the mountains, but at least they were now in the right country. Surely, they could make it over land to the Lords from here? Something must have changed in the overnight hours. Some new threat had been discovered, or some confrontation had occurred. She wasn’t sure what had happened exactly, but to cause them to change their destination entirely, it had to be something big. That worried her.
When they headed out later that morning, Lucien’s plane was already long gone, and his sister’s family were asleep, having stayed up all night with him. Ace left the key to the cabin under their front door mat, as they’d arranged the previous evening. Sabrina had done her best to clean up after them, leaving the place in as close to the condition they’d found it in as possible. She’d also left a note of thanks on the table for their hostess to find later.
“I feel strange sneaking away like this,” Sabrina told Ace as they mounted their bikes in the early morning light.
“We’re not sneaking. They can hear our engines, even if they’re mostly asleep. They expect us to be leaving, and it’s only courteous to let them sleep in after they stayed up all night visiting with Lucien,” Ace told her. “From what I understand, he’s got some kind of legal trouble in the States that keeps him far from his family. They were thrilled to see him, even if it was only for a few hours.”
“Well, I enjoyed meeting them,” Sabrina said. “Having a safe place to stay was like a miracle after the problems we faced yesterday.”
“Ready to make a run for Grizzly Cove?” Ace asked, challenge in his eyes and a determined expression on his handsome face.
He’d told her a bit more about the town last night, but she still couldn’t picture it. A town filled with all kinds of bears? She couldn’t even imagine what they would find when they finally got there. They just had to get through Idaho and drive the entire width of the state of Washington until they hit the coast, traversing more mountains, until they finally hit the downhill stretch toward the rocky coastline.
“I guess so. You said it was about eight or nine hours away?” she asked just to be sure she knew what she was in for.
“If we ride straight through and keep to the speed limit, it’s eight and a half, but we’ll have to stop for breaks and to eat, of course,” he told her. “We’ll skirt around Spokane and the larger cities, but the best passes through the mountains are on the main highway, so we’ll tr
y to stick to it as long as it seems safe.”
“And you really want to try to do this trip all in one day?” she asked again, just to be sure.
“If at all possible,” he replied. “Let’s just take it one step at a time and see how we do, okay? I don’t want to push you too hard, but I also want you safe as soon as possible,” he admitted, which made her feel sort of warm and fuzzy inside.
They set off, their engines rumbling down the drive and onto the road. The sun was playing hide and seek with puffy white clouds, and Sabrina felt a little tickle of wind teasing the back of her neck. She could sense the winds above, starting to gather. Was she causing it? No. She couldn’t be. Her power levels were running at a lazy equilibrium after the night spent in Ace’s arms.
So, the winds were natural. A storm gathering above them, blowing in from the northwest. She could almost taste the tang of the ocean on the air, even though there was a heck of a lot of land between their location and the coast that was their goal. Sabrina kept watch on the billowing clouds. If conditions got bad for their ride, she’d try to do something about it, but she was afraid she might make it worse. She thought about maybe talking it over with Ace before she took any action, just in case.
Sabrina rode alongside Ace as they made their way to ever-larger roads. When they neared the highway, Ace pulled over on the side of the road.
“Anything wrong?” she asked, pulling up alongside him.
“Nope. Not so far. I just wanted to stop, observe, and sniff around a bit before we hit the highway,” he told her. “Tim said there was a lot of Venifucus activity on the roads all over Montana.”
“Seriously?” Sabrina was a bit appalled. “Was that why we headed in this direction, instead of going to their place?”
He shrugged. “This’ll work out better in the long run. While the Lords are good guys, I don’t know many of their people. They’re kind of secretive. I have a good friend in Grizzly Cove, and I know some of the other guys, and…we’re all bears. I know bears. I know what we can handle and how we react. If push comes to shove, I’d rather have those bears backing us up—no offense to the Lords’ people. They only have one bear I know on staff, so to speak, and I have no idea what the rest of their people are, but I think it’s a mixed bag of mainly wolves, but also cats and raptors. Maybe others.” He shrugged again, looking around. “Like I said, I don’t know all that much about their operation.”
“But there have to be more than just bears on the coast, right? You said there were mages. Witches who could help me figure out my power,” she reminded him.
“Mates,” he supplied, nodding as he continued to scan the horizon. “Quite a few of my bear brethren have found mates with magical abilities. Powerful abilities, by all reckoning. They’ll be able to help you. I have no doubt about that at all.”
Reassured once more, Sabrina watched him for a few moments. His eyes saw all, and his nose was lifted slightly to the wind. He was engaging his shifter senses to survey what lay ahead and all around. She found it fascinating.
Finally, he nodded as if in satisfaction. “I think we’re clear. You good to keep going?”
He turned those warm brown eyes on her, and she nodded. She’d say yes to anything when he looked at her with that devilish hint of a smile.
They started moving, again, and it was a couple of hours before they stopped at a roadside restaurant to grab some food, walk out their stiff muscles, and use the restrooms before hitting the road, again. He kept them to a quick pace, breaking the speed limit, but only by a few miles per hour. He didn’t draw attention to them, and they were moving rapidly along the interstate, making good time.
All the while, the weather began to thicken. The sun disappeared completely around eleven in the morning, and they made their second stop shortly after. Ace went into the gas station convenience store to pay for their purchases. They topped up their tanks and took a few minutes to sit at a picnic table at the side of the building and eat lunch. They’d been on the move since dawn, and Sabrina was starting to feel it.
“Storm coming,” she said quietly around a bite of sandwich. “Do you think I should try to do something about it?”
“I’d rather you didn’t use your magic, if at all possible. We may have lost them, for now, but if they’re scanning for your energy, any use of it could, potentially, lead them to us, again.”
“Then, we may have to stop. I feel rain coming, and it won’t be long before it reaches us,” she told him.
Ace looked thoughtful. “I want to get us to safety today, if possible, but using your power could be a problem. On bikes, we can’t really make time in rain.”
“I could use just a little tendril of energy to try to nudge the storm away from the highway,” she offered.
He tilted his head, considering. “Do you think you can push it away from our path without drawing too much attention?” he asked, his tone low and serious.
“I can try. Otherwise, we’re going to get smacked with heavy rain.” The feeling had been growing all morning. “We’re going to ride into it within the next hour.”
“Do you want to try this here or shall we go up the road a ways and see if we can find a more private venue for you to try your magic?”
“Private is probably better, just in case something goes wrong,” she told him, trying not to cringe. He knew her power wasn’t fully under her control, so there was no use in pretending it was. She’d either push the storm away or cause unanticipated problems.
If she managed to control it—as she had when they’d been in the air—then they could keep going. If not, they’d have had to stop, anyway, for the storm. So, she had a fifty-fifty shot.
About twenty minutes later, they were in a small clearing just off the side of the highway, hidden from the road, but with a relatively clear view of what lay ahead. Ace had led her to the perfect location at the top of a hill where she could see a good portion of the sky. He had also whipped out his phone and tapped up a live weather radar image so he could watch what was happening with the storm while she did her thing. She thought that was pretty ingenious.
“Okay, I’m just going to try to nudge this a little north, so it doesn’t hit the highway,” she told him, already thinking about how she would loose the power that was building within her.
A little blast here and little tweak there. She just had to be careful not to overdo it. Her abilities had grown, and that was the basis of all her problems—or so she now believed. She’d been over-casting when she sent her power out into the winds, and they’d responded in unexpected ways. The challenge here was to use just the right touch. Just the right amount of her own energies.
“I’m going to start really slow,” she told Ace. “How long does it take before you see the updated radar image on your phone?”
“I’ve got a direct line to the radar the military sees, so it’s basically live,” he told her. She was impressed by his connections.
“Anything I do will have a ripple effect that may take a few minutes to fully resolve, so I’ll just do a tiny nudge, and we can maybe watch what it does before I make my next move.” That sounded like a really great plan to her, and he nodded his agreement. “Here goes nothing.”
She reached out with one hand, tapping a finger in the direction she wanted the main body of the storm to go. She was using the barest bit of her power. If nothing happened, so be it. She would ramp this up slowly and, hopefully, avoid the mess she’d made, time and time again, up north. Done, she lowered her hand and stepped back to Ace to watch his phone with him.
“It’s moving,” he said as the next radar sweep showed modification of the storm. They watched the radar image loop around, and the storm was different, changing. “Hell, it’s really moving. That’s just about perfect. I bet the next radar spin will show it clearing the highway completely.”
“Wow.” She hadn’t used much of her power at all, and the big storm was already clearing their path. No wonder she’d been having trouble. Her abili
ties had grown even more than she’d realized. She was a bit stunned.
“This could be a problem.” Ace’s somber voice came to her, and she immediately refocused on the tiny screen he was holding. The main body of the storm was moving away, but the tail end of it was curling around a bit, on a direct path to the highway.
“I can fix that, but it’s going to require a more delicate touch,” she told him. “I didn’t realize until just now how big my gift had gotten.” She was almost afraid of it, right now, and she was trembling a bit with shock.
Ace must’ve seen her distress. He moved closer, putting his big arms around her from behind, hugging her close to his warm body. He rested his head on top of hers. He was so tall. She hadn’t ever been with such a large guy before, and she found she liked feeling delicate compared to his mass. He touched her with the utmost care and treated her like she was some kind of rare treasure. She liked that, too.
And his energy seemed to stabilize hers. He was a delicious sort of magic. Big, furry, fierce magic.
Feeling more balanced than ever, she reached out one hand and gave the lightest tap of her power toward the tail of the storm, to put it back on track with the main body of the clouds, wind and rain. Ace held his phone out in front of them both, and they watched together as the little line of fierce storms got back in line with the rest of them.
Loop after loop, the storm straightened out and flew northward, away from their path. She’d done it. With his help and support. Sabrina turned in his arms and reached up to kiss him soundly.
“Thank you,” she whispered against his lips. “I couldn’t have done that without you.”
They kissed passionately, but when she wanted to take it further, he let her down gently. “We need to get back on the road,” he told her. “Much as I’d like to stay here for a bit and ravish you, your safety comes first.” He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead before stepping away.
