by Lisa Ladew
“I was wrong, I admit it,” Crew said, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the floor. “Dahlia and I are trying, so I’m over-sensitive right now.”
Rogue smirked at him. “Trying? Trying what? Paleo? Pilates? New sex toys?”
Crew shot her another dirty look. “You’re a bitch sometimes, Rogue, you know that?”
Rogue crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Yeah, I know it, somebody’s gotta be. Don’t blame me if you all push me to extremes.”
Mac laughed and kissed her on the cheek. “Fuck ‘em if they don’t like bitches. More bitches for me.”
Rogue shot him a look. Eventine smirked. If looks could kill, there would be a smoking hole somewhere in Mac’s body.
“Sorry,” he said, laughing, not-sorry stamped clearly on his face. “It was a compliment. I like you bitchy.”
Eventine shook her head, ignoring Rogue, who had climbed into Mac’s lap and, oh look, now they were making out. No, don’t look. She would have thought Rogue was wolven, the way she marked up her mate.
Eventine waited for Crew to look at her. He finally did. “You know the young will fight, too, right?” she said. “If there’s still a fight, they’ll be called to it as surely as the rest of us are.”
Crew looked out the window then back. “Yeah, I know. Let’s get this over with. What do we have to do?”
***
Eventine and Dahlia lay side by side on the big bed in Cerise and Beckett’s bedroom, on top of the covers, fully dressed with their shoes on. It was Eventine’s first indication to Rhen that she was done playing. She knew Rhen didn’t like shoes in the meadow, and if the shoes were stripped from the two of them when they arrived, that was fine, they were still coming in with them on.
“Ready?” Dahlia said. She sounded exhilarated. Crew had worked earnestly with her, from Evie’s point of view, not holding anything back from her, feeding her detail after detail until Dahlia seemed overloaded. Eventine had declared they were going. The moon didn’t seem to be moving. The night didn’t seem to be progressing at a normal speed, and she had a feeling that the longer Jaggar and Leilani were caught up in whatever they were going through, the longer the night would last.
“Ready,” Eventine said and closed her eyes. Her only instructions were to relax fully. Dahlia had to do everything else. Dahlia took her hand. Evie held on tight.
Almost immediately, Eventine felt a jerk through her body, and when she opened her eyes, they were standing up on the Path of the Catamount, shoeless. The place seemed empty and the colors had leaked out of everything.
Dahlia almost squealed. “I did it!” she cried. She dropped Eventine’s hand and turned in a little circle, excitement shining on her face.
“You did,” Eventine said. “I had no doubt.”
But now what?
31 – Her Mate’s Home
Jaggar stepped up to a box on the wall and bent so he could put his eye up to it. It beeped and a door in the tunnel slid open, letting in light. He still had ahold of her hand, and she followed him through the doorway, smiling. She could have gotten them through it with her mind, but she was glad she hadn’t. She felt like she’d learned a little secret, watching him do that. They ended up in a kitchen, between a breakfast nook and a refrigerator.
“You live here with Canyon and Timber?” she said, looking around. The place was cozier than she’d thought it would be, with lacy curtains bordering bright windows, colorful hand towels hanging from multiple hooks, and a shiny marble counter spanning the opposite wall.
“Yes,” he said, and his voice and tone were dark all of a sudden. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, then let her go, cleaning up, his mind obviously on other, not pleasing, things. She was glad she could see, and that the clock in her mind was not spilling too much silver light. She watched her mate as he moved, his large back muscles flexing under his shirt, making her feel too hot.
Jaggar started at one end of the counter and gathered up all the dishes there, stacking them and moving them to the sink. “Not mated, neither one of them is mated,” he muttered under his breath, talking to himself. She shivered at his tone. Jaggar shook his head, pulling open drawers and shutting them again quickly, like he was looking for something.
Leilani sank into a chair at the dining table, trying to figure out what he was doing, until he pulled a cooked pancake out of a drawer filled with towels. He pitched it in the garbage, checked a few more drawers, then opened a small door at the beginning of the hallway, finding a bowl on the top shelf. He took it down carefully. It was a bowl of cereal and milk, with a spoon inside. Jaggar shook his head, muttered something about Canyon, then dumped the cereal down the drain. The spoon clattered as it hit the bottom of the sink.
Leilani saw something in the attached living room that made her smile. “Is that a pop-tart in that potted plant?” she asked.
“Probably,” Jaggar said, running water in the sink, but his voice was far away, like his mind was occupied. “My roommates like to do stupid shit like plant food in strange places. They call them opportunity snacks. They buy MREs by the case just to fuck with me, but they prefer cereal and pancakes.”
He stopped what he was doing, staring out the window, his expression even more intense than usual. He held out a hand to her. “Come here, Lele, I want you to see this.”
She was happy to fit under his arm and press close to his body. He maneuvered her so she could see out the window. In the distance, just past a field of corn, was a large white farmhouse in the middle of a couple of acres of land.
“That’s Burton’s place,” he said. “Harlan lives there with Burton and now Eventine will, too. We could move in there.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Positive. There’s more than enough rooms. I know they’d want us.”
Leilani shivered, knowing he was right. Her destiny came barreling in at her. The start of the rest of her life. As long as he didn’t go to jail.
He must have been thinking the same thing. His expression darkened and he looked around like he wanted to get his mind on something else, anything else.
“Could you live like this?” Leilani asked softly. “Like ghosts? Part of the world, but not really?” She wasn’t asking because it was something they would try, not really. She was just exploring all options, finding out where he stood.
He shook his head and gazed out the window one more time, then he took her hand and pulled her away from the window. “Let me show you the rest of the house.”
She wanted to see the rest of the house very much. She wanted to do anything that would take her mind off of her reality. He led her through a living room decorated with simple gray furniture and a massive TV, and throw pillows thrown everywhere. There was an entryway, and a hallway, and some bedrooms, and at the end, he opened the door to his room. She knew it was his room at once, because it was pin-neat, just like his office, and it held his scent. She would recognize the way he smelled anywhere, masculine and rough, rather like the beast he sometimes thought he was. She loved the way he smelled.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the way watching her mate move from behind had made her feel. About what came next.
Leilani pulled Jaggar by his hand to the bed and sat down, looking up at him, sensing his reluctance, but not bowing to it. She kissed his big hand like he had kissed hers, then she placed it on her cheek. He cupped her face and stared down at her, turmoil in his eyes.
She pulled his hand lower. “Touch me,” she said.
The words that came to his lips were too fast, too automatic. “You’re not ready.”
She placed his fingers how she wanted them, so they were cupping her right breast through her shirt. “I am ready.”
He licked his lips, his eyes following his hand. He shook his head, but didn’t pull away, and his voice was almost a whisper. “I’m too rough.”
She arched into his hand. “You’re gentle.” She lay back on the bed, inviting him with her eyes, feeling a b
it of sadness when he didn’t follow her and his hand fell away from her breast.
She found a pillow and lay her head on it, crooking a finger at him, inviting him to join her, body and mind. “This is what comes next.”
His expression went hard, as if that’s what he was worried about, but he joined her on the bed, moving to cover her body with his, bracing himself with the headboard so he didn’t put one bit of his weight on her. His breathing was rough, his muscles hard and tensed. He was so sexy she couldn’t take it, so sexy her hands ached to touch him.
She closed her eyes and arched her upper back, pushing up to him. He brushed her mouth with his so softly that it spread goose bumps all over her body, starting at her neck and radiating downward. She cried out, she couldn’t help it, the pleasure of her mate’s lips touching hers was so intense it made her think of things she’d rarely thought of before.
He kissed her again, staying close this time. She opened to him, accepting him inside her mouth. She knew what to expect because of books she’d read. She knew how it was supposed to be, and how it was supposed to feel. Like fireworks, like explosions, like nothing in her life would ever be the same again.
Which was exactly what it did feel like. They were the only two people on the planet. Nothing would dare challenge them, and nothing could stop them. They were made for each other, their bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces.
His kiss traveled, moving to the corner of her mouth, then across her cheek, then to her ear and down her neck. She opened her eyes, taking him in, so glad she could see. She drank in his every line and hard plane, committing them to memory again and again. When she was blind, she would remember every moment of this time, keeping this image of him in the front of her mind.
The lower parts of his biceps were bare below the hem of his short sleeves. They were big and deliciously curved, flexing and growing. Her fingers floated that way, caressing him. Then his forearms and his hands. She kept her touch light, tracing down to his fingertips as he kissed her neck, plying her with his tongue and lips. She’d never seen anything so sexy in all her life than this man above her.
His forearms were corded with pure, tense muscle as he gripped the headboard hard enough to break it. He kissed a line down her skin, finding her collarbone and kissing every imagined point of it. She let out a sigh. He was gentle. So gentle with her. Again, she ran her fingers down his forearms, to his hands, then back up again, turning her head, arching so he could access more of her neck. His teeth grazed her skin.
Oh! She would get bitten, wouldn’t she? The thought brought her only pleasure, only that feeling of intense rightness. She wanted it. She welcomed it, even if it hurt.
She moaned softly at the images in her mind, of her big, intense mate, staring into her eyes, saying her name, and entering her. Penetrating her. Biting her.
Leilani’s upper back arched of its own accord. Her body twisted under her mate, and before she knew what she was doing, she was on her belly. She pulled her hair in front of her, wanting her shirt off, wanting her shoulders bare-
***
Jaggar held on to his right mind, but barely. As long as he didn’t let go of the headboard, he’d be ok. As long as he only touched her with his tongue and his lips, he couldn’t be too rough with her.
Her frosting scent flared, thick and full of sweetness he wanted to drown in. She undulated and twisted beneath him and his fangs grew in his mouth. His gaze found that spot, the one at her neck where it met her shoulder. The skin was smooth, creamy and he longed to mark it. To tear into it. To mark her. To tear into her.
Take me to church, he whispered inside his own mind, willing his teeth to return to their human-size, desperate to get himself under control. He would never claim her. He would never mark her with his teeth. He was too… beastly, and she, too fragile.
He shut it down, all of it, pulling back, retreating from his mate. He pushed to a sitting position on the side of the bed, and put his hands on his head, staring at the floor.
“You’re not ready,” he said, repeating his argument from earlier, not able to say what was really going on. He would scare her if he said the words that were running through his head again and again
I don’t have control over my need to mark you as mine.
Which was unacceptable to him.
32 – Eventine’s Demands
Eventine waited for Rhen to speak. She’d let them enter, surely she had something to say? Eventine burned to hear her say anything, and when no message came, Eventine almost lost her temper. Cool it, she told herself. Nothing has changed. This is how she’s always been.
But she needed a minute before she conveyed her message. “Let’s look for Jaggar and Leilani,” she told Dahlia. “This way.”
She led Dahlia through the forest that held no color. The gray was so intense, she almost missed the pink that the meadow used to be.
They reached the end of the path and pushed into the meadow itself. No one was there. Her office still stood, colored gray and grayer, but nothing else moved. Would Jaggar and Leilani be down a path? Had they already returned to the Ula? Dahlia walked toward the office.
Eventine managed to get some of her control back and she spoke into the meadow, making Dahlia turn to look at her. “I’m not leaving until I talk to you,” Eventine said clearly.
A voice came to her, came from all around her. The way Dahlia looked up let Eventine know that she heard it.
When you leave is not up to you.
Anger flared inside Eventine and she let it go. It would not help. Besides, finally she was getting somewhere. No one had ever spoken to her in her decades in the meadow, although she knew instinctively that this was not Rhen.
The catamount.
“You’re not Rhen.”
No answer came back to her. That meant assent, in Eventine’s mind, which was good and bad. Good because she knew who she was dealing with, bad because the catamount had always seemed to hate her, and did not think she had belonged in the meadow.
“You know I came here to ask for help.” She took a deep breath, knowing that what she was asking for was unethical, and maybe immoral, if she held herself to human standards. Did she? She did, or she tried to, but she would ask anyway. It was too important.
“We need Jaggar back in the KSRT.”
The voice came, clear and loud and dangerous. That is up to Leilani.
Hope surged inside Eventine for the first time in days. “Does she know that?” Eventine said.
No answer. She wanted to push her luck, wanted to demand an answer, but she knew the catamount would kick her out of the meadow for the smallest infraction.
When she spoke, she kept her tone light. “Okay, good, because I know she wants that and I know you’ll be very clear to her that it’s up to her.”
No answer. She spoke again. “We also want Leilani healthy and we know you can do that.” She hoped Rhen could do that.
Time travel comes at a price to the Ula or to the traveler. Leilani has chosen to accept that price upon herself and, as such, we cannot reverse her choices.
Eventine considered, thinking she was starting to understand this, starting to “get” what in the hell was going on here. She asked another question. “Again, I’ve got to ask, does she know that she has chosen to take on that price herself, or even that there is a price to be paid?”
There was no answer for several moments. Eventine was just about to try again, when the catamount spoke.
On some level, she does.
Eventine started to lose her cool with the riddles. “There has to be some way around this. You can’t ask Leilani to live like she is for the rest of her life. It’s not fair.”
The catamount spoke right away this time. There is no reversing what has been done. There is only traversing it.
Keep your cool, Eventine whispered to herself. Dahlia sat down in the flowers and stared at the sky, her eyes turbulent.
“Are you saying she has to live like that? Blind? Scat
tered? Not able to control her power?”
We have already offered Leilani a way to traverse her injuries. She did not accept it.
Eventine shook her head, clamping down on herself as hard as she ever had in her life. Had she once thought she had daddy issues? Daddy issues were nothing compared to Mommy issues.
“You asked her?” she said. “You told her clearly what she wasn’t accepting?
The catamount’s voice was hard. The meadow offered. She refused.
Eventine shook her head, cool and calm all of a sudden. She would get her way no matter how long she had to argue, no matter what she had to do. They could throw her out and she would return again and again. They could bar the entrance and she would knock until her knuckles were bloody. She would demand what was right, and she would get it.
“I just know there’s a riddle in there somewhere,” she said lightly. Then she pushed, just a little bit, hardening her voice. “Offer it to her again.”
The catamount spoke quickly, easily, like they were discussing something of no consequence. We cannot. Not in the same way.
“Then offer in a different way,” Dahlia said from the ground, the duh on the end of the sentence implied but not spoken.
There was no response.
Eventine sat down next to Dahlia to wait them out.
After several moments, she couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She spoke into the meadow, barely keeping the hostility out of her tone. “Did you forget we are here?”
We are considering. Discussing.
“How many people am I talking to?”
No response.
“Why have none of you spoken to me before?”
No response. “Okay,” Eventine said to herself. “Keep your cool.” Dahlia patted her on the shoulder. They waited.
After what felt like an hour, the voice spoke again.
Jaggar will receive a gift. We cannot force him to take it.
“But you can make it clear to him what you are offering?” Eventine said, her next question already on her tongue, about how would that help Leilani, when a moving sensation caught her around the middle.
