by Lauren Dane
And he was gone, leaving them alone in the car as Simon began driving up the hill to his place.
Chapter 26
SHE was all business as she stood in his garage and looked at his equipment. “I don’t think we need all this stuff.” She touched the sleeping bag with the tip of her boot. “Don’t need the tent.”
“I’ll carry all that.”
She turned, outrage on her face. “No, you won’t! I can carry my own gear.” Clearly agitated and worried, she began to pace. “We need to be fast. We should be going right now.”
“Going right now is not only foolish, it won’t help Nell. It’s dark. You can’t track in the dark. And you’ve just spent a lot of energy and magick on those goons you interrogated. You need to change your clothes and eat a real meal before we go anywhere.”
“I can snuggle up against you.” She turned and he caught the fear on her face. The fear she’d fail.
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “You’ll find her.”
“What if I don’t? How do I tell William his wife won’t be coming home and the nursery they’ve decorated will remain empty? Huh?” She started to cry and it filled him with befuddled tenderness. She didn’t cry. She was one of those people who always seemed so confident.
He tipped her chin up and kissed her. “You won’t have to. But if you do, pixie, if you do it’s because you tried your hardest and it still didn’t work out. Please. Come inside, change your clothes. You’ve got blood all over your dress. You need to eat. I’ve tracked for most of my life. Please trust me. It’ll only help if you take some time right now. You’ll be glad of it later. You’re tired and spent and you need to refuel. You miss things when you hie off without being prepared. We can do nothing for a few hours. It’ll take us some time to drive up there, but we can’t take the chance of missing something from the main road because it’s too dark. You’re exhausted. You’re hungry. You need to rest and prepare. Then we’ll go. An hour and a half and we’ll go. If you rush now, you could miss something important.”
“I do trust you.” Her bottom lip trembled and big, fat tears made her eyes glossy.
“Baby, I want to help you. I can’t stand seeing you like this.” He picked her up and she hugged him tight, wrapping herself around him as he carried her into the house and toward his bathroom. “Let me help you.” He turned the shower on and unbuttoned the front of her dress. Each tiny heart shaped button slid from the hole and exposed the skin below. His beast filled him to the skin, pressing tight. The scent of magick, of his and hers, hung in the air.
“I need you. I’m afraid, Seymeon.”
That was more than he could stand. The sound of his given name on her lips, threaded with fear and so much sadness.
He pushed the dress from her shoulders and bent to pull the boots off before divesting her of the bloody tights. She stood there, all his, looking at him with nothing but desire and trust. Trust that he’d make her all right and he swore that if it was the last thing he did, he’d live up to her expectations.
Her panties, a barely-there scrap of red, hit the floor as she held her hand out. “I need to be clean. Before…”
He spoke to her in a language she didn’t understand. A language of his people and one he rarely used here on this side of the Veil. But she didn’t need to know the exact words to understand him and what he meant.
She’d never allowed herself to truly need anyone before. She’d relied on her wits and her family of course. But not so much since the bust up with Helena. And never, ever like this.
He cleaved to her. An old-fashioned term, but so totally appropriate. He sheltered her and respected her and even when he bossed her around, he never crossed the line.
He made her feel as if she could stumble and the world wouldn’t end. But of course it would.
If she failed, the world could very well end and it loomed over her again.
As if he’d plucked it from her head he pressed his lips to her temple. “You’re not alone. I’ll catch you if you fall. It’s part of the job of loving someone.”
That was it. The first sob came as he pulled her under the spray and she let the tears go. She cried as she soaped up the big scrubby thing. From his fingertips up she caressed and washed, kneaded and touched. Each finger, his wrists, the forearm and elbows. She concentrated on him, on touching him so that she could manage the fear before it choked her.
She knew he wanted to make her better. Knew it was hard for him to see her cry. But he let her do it. Which meant something. It meant that he knew her. Understood she needed to get it all out so she could move past it.
That scared her more than the Magister did. But it was the kind of fear you had when something monumental and wonderful was involved. She kept telling herself she’d let him all the way in when she was able to fully wrap her head around this thing they had.
But it was a sham. There was no letting this man into her heart. He was there. Six hundred years old or not. Whether he dumped her, or whether he was way more experienced and knowledgeable about the world, the imbalance wasn’t enough to hold him outside her heart.
She scrubbed his back, kneading his muscles, not failing to cop a feel of that rock-hard ode to creation of an ass of his. And then he turned, pressing her to the warm tile at her back.
“I need you, Seymeon.” She loved his name, loved using it in the intimate moments between them.
“I’m all yours.” His hands roamed as he soaped her and she arched, remembering how good it was between them. Remembering the way he made her feel with just a simple breath of a touch.
“When you soften for me this way, what a gift you give me. You’re a gift, Lark. So delightful and strong.” He kneaded her muscles as she slid his hands up one of her arms.
And then to her breasts. Kneading more softly, but she knew he was there. Knew he demanded everything of her and that he deserved it.
“Clever. Canny, in fact. You have to break everything down to understand it and then you make it into a weapon. You’re vicious and bloodthirsty and I’ve never in my life seen anything more magnificent than you.”
Crying again, only this time for joy, she moved close enough to tiptoe up and grab his hair to haul him in for a kiss.
“I love you,” she whispered into his mouth and he swallowed it, groaning as he slid his hands around to cup her ass and haul her closer.
“I love to hear you say my given name. I love the scent of your skin as it warms, the perfume of my woman wanting me. And I love you too.”
He picked her up rather easily, bringing her breasts to his mouth and licking over her nipples as he continued to speak. Half in English, half in Lycian. It poured from him like a tribute, washing over her, making her feel like a queen that this man should be brought to such poetry because of her.
“No one has ever made me feel the way you do,” she murmured as he brought a shiver with the edge of his teeth.
He growled in that way and held her tighter, his fingers splayed across her back, holding her in place. She knew he wouldn’t drop her. Not in any way. The fierceness that evoked in her brought even more desperate need to be possessed by this male, in the way only he could provide.
“You taste better than anything I’ve ever licked.” To underline his point he licked the side of her breast, his gaze locked with hers. Normally she’d suggest he give it a try in other places, but there was nothing more she needed, wanted, than to have him in her.
“Fuck me.”
His grin went very, very wicked. “I’m getting to that.”
“Not fast enough!” She writhed, the slickness of skin to skin making the need burn hotter.
“You need to be ready. I’d be a cad if I just shoved myself into you if I wasn’t sure you were nice and slick.”
Every word in her brain just sort of went away for a few seconds.
And then he slid her down just enough to bring his fingertips through her, testing that slickness, which she could have told him about ha
d he not said all that hot stuff and made her stupid with desire.
He pressed then, the fat, wide head of his cock against her, sliding in bit by bit.
It was deliberate, this erotic torture.
“I’m a patient male, you know this,” he said, holding her still as she tried to move down on him farther, faster, to take him deeper. “I know what I’ll be getting so very soon. Let me enjoy it. Let me help you enjoy it. Hold your horses, pixie, and I’ll make you feel good.”
“I already do feel good,” she gasped as he got just a little deeper.
“There’s more.”
“I know! This is why I’m trying to get to it.”
He laughed and kissed her hard, still taking his sweet time to torture her with that deliciously slow entry.
If she only knew how hard it was for him to keep it slow when the siren’s song of her body lured every part of him to ravish and plunder the sweetness of her body. The steam in the air of the shower stall held their scent. Skin and soap… and sex. She was delicious and lush, ripe and her body against his was everything he wanted. All he needed.
She writhed, the minx, to get more and he unleashed a little more and gave it to her, seating himself fully in one stroke. Her gasp satisfied him as much as it titillated.
So tight and hot around him. Her inner walls clutched and fluttered, driving him insane.
Good. So good. Even there on the brink of madness, with violence all around them, this was perfect. This was what he’d gone six hundred years with only the briefest tastes of. This was everything.
She held on, her nails digging into his shoulders. His beast rode that edge of pain and approved of the way she demanded her pleasure. Unable to stop himself, not wanting to anyway, he leaned in and bit the side of one of her breasts. Not to harm. But to mark.
She made a sound, gods, that sound, deep and dripping with desire. She hooked her ankles at the small of his back and he got even deeper as he pulled back and licked over the bite. “Mine.”
Nodding, she took his face between her hands and held him still for a moment. “Yes. Yours.”
He snarled and thrust harder, watching to see her reaction, never, ever wanting to harm what was his. But she didn’t react with fear, she angled herself enough to lean back and thrust against him, meeting him each time he got in deep.
Grateful for his size and strength, he got a hand free and found her clit, circling it slowly. She tightened around him again, graying his vision for a moment. So very close. She needed to be with him when it happened. The circling sped until he squeezed her clit gently between thumb and forefinger. She sat upright on a gasp and began to come around him, writhing and moving as she did, dragging him in with her until he was blind with it.
He went to his knees, still holding her, gaze locked on hers as they both recovered their breath. One corner of her mouth slid up. “You gave me a hickey on my boob.”
He laughed and slowly left that warmth and set her on her feet as he stood as well.
“I did.”
“Good.”
FEELING better than she had before the shower sex—ha, that was an understatement—she stared at the computer screen as he drove his heavy-duty truck up U.S. 97.
They’d hit U.S. 2 shortly enough but there were myriad little timber roads and other relatively unused roads leading back to cabins and Park Service locations along the way. There was no way she could have seen them all in the dark. Even in the early dawn it was a challenge, but workable.
She knew they had a place up there, somewhere. Even managed to work out the most likely twenty-square-mile area based on what she’d seen and the research she’d been able to do. Gage’s crush, Rose, had come through with some property deeds and other records, which helped take hundreds of potential miles down to about twenty.
Twenty square miles was still big, especially out there.
She snuck a look at him, so big and in charge as he drove. He’d made her eat a big, protein-laden meal before they left. She’d been annoyed by waiting even twenty more minutes but he’d been right. The sun was coming up and they’d be able to track far better in the daylight. The food and being surrounded by so much nature had given her a second wind. That and the sex.
“You should nap.”
“You didn’t nap.”
“I only need about three hours sleep or so. You, however, need more. Apparently to keep your strength up to argue with me over anything and everything.”
She rolled her eyes, knowing he was teasing her on purpose, to keep her from dwelling on Nell. “I’ll sleep after we find her and bring her home.”
He sighed, but said nothing.
“There should be a timber road just up here.” She leaned forward and kept watch for it.
Another mile or so and they found it but he didn’t turn down the road. Instead he drove on another mile or so and pulled off the highway, pulling into the trees until they couldn’t see the road, and more importantly, no one from the road could see them.
She’d need to check the timber road for magickal traps, which is another reason they didn’t drive down it. Before they got out, he pulled her to him and kissed her, hard. “You will listen to me today. I know you understand your job, but I know how to track. Do we have a deal?”
He did actually know far more than she ever could about tracking, so she nodded and let herself be amused at how bossy he got.
“Good.”
She got out and grabbed her pack. Not too heavy, but he glared at her anyway. She’d agreed to let him carry the packs once he’d shifted and taken on his beast. “Jeez, I’m not trying to put it on. Stop with the menacing stares. I know you like kittens.”
He couldn’t stop his laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I know. I can’t help it. You see, I have this uber-bossy, alpha-male boyfriend. I have to be or he’d take over.” She winked. “Get naked. I’ll pack your stuff in the bag. I don’t want you naked and cold when we get to the house where they’re keeping Nell.”
Oh, that look. Lascivious as he slowly stripped off, he tossed his shirt, jeans and shorts her way. She rolled them carefully and tucked them into one of the empty bags. “Use that strap on each side once I shift. You can hook the boots there so the weight is distributed evenly. I could carry you too, you know. It wouldn’t even make me tired.”
“Hush you.” As if she’d ride him like a pony. Well, not for this purpose anyway. “I’ll happily ride you when this is over and we’re alone in bed.”
He shifted with a grin and held still while she got the saddle bags on him, attaching his boots securely so they didn’t repeatedly bang him on his sides. He gave her a look and jerked his head.
She’d take the point, looking for any spells that would need disabling. They’d go bit by bit as he’d also be looking for other kinds of traps.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” she murmured before she stood and they headed back toward the logging road they’d travel next to.
They hiked for several hours. She’d stop occasionally to be sure he wasn’t tired, but he nudged her to the pack with food so she stayed hydrated and fed. Adorable.
They’d come upon two houses and a small, run down cabin. None of them had any sign of recent occupation. No magic had been used on or near them either. So they kept going and she refused to let herself think about how scared Nell would be. She just hoped Nell knew they’d do everything they could to find her.
Chapter 27
ABOUT seven hours in, Simon froze, the hackles on his neck rose and he growled low. She stayed near. He was, after all, a big, giant wolf with razor-sharp teeth. And he shielded her with his body anyway so she couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to.
Her othersight was open and she scanned the area. She hadn’t seen anything as they’d been walking, but his nose was far more sensitive. And then she heard it, a vehicle coming down the nearby logging road. They already had cover so she pulled out some field glasses and waited for the car to get close.
A driver and a passenger in an older model SUV. Not entirely unusual for a back road like this. But they were deep in the forest by that point. Hikers at this stage in the year were unusual. There was snow on the ground in places so they knew no one had been where they were at least since the last snowfall.
“I don’t recognize them. But we should follow. What are the odds they’re here for anything but that house?”
He jerked his head and they continued to hike.
Every minute that passed was a minute her friend was in danger. Was a moment closer to the Magister being able to come into their world and bring some sort of disastrous cataclysm.
She pushed her exhaustion away. Breathed in deep. The font was a vibrant thing; she knew she could draw from it if and when she needed to. Which helped. Having Simon there helped too. As long as he kept going, she knew she could as well.
She pushed ahead, stopping only occasionally to pull out the map and mark their progress.
THE sun had passed the high point and was dropping off in the west. They’d lose light in another hour or two and this deep in the forest they’d find it pretty tough going to see anything, even with his super vision.
The air all around them cooled as she drew energy from it. From the scent of the trees, the sharp cold of the breeze, the crunch of snow at her feet. She wasn’t cold, which was a relief. Steadily moving kept her warm. But snow had begun to fall, which meant tracks would be obscured on top of everything else.
Finally Simon put himself in front of her and stopped, shaking his head a few times and nudging her to sit on a nearby outcropping of downed tree trunks.
“We need to keep moving. It’s going to be dark soon.”
He growled.
“Dude, I’m fine. I’ll even eat a breakfast bar.” She riffled in the pack until she found it and then smiled as she caught sight of the watch cap he must have tucked in there without her seeing. She put it on. “Thanks. Now let’s get moving again.”
Simon knew she was pushing herself to find Nell, but her pace was relentless and while he could easily handle it as man or beast, she was another story. He didn’t want her working until she fell over. He stopped and she tried to keep moving so he shifted back and grabbed her hand. The bags slid to the ground. “You need to take a break, damn it.”
