by Cecilia Lane
Ari, exhausted and still resting on the ground, watched him closely as he grimaced and rose to his feet. His mouth twisted again when he bent to pull on the shorts and straighten. As much as he said he was fine, he was in pain. But the pink lines of the burn marks were fading before her eyes and he seemed to move with a little more energy with each second.
Damn shifters.
Chapter Ten
Chase stretched and enjoyed the release of tension in his muscles, but also the feel of Ariadne’s eyes on him. It was almost a relief. After everything they’d been through with the demons, it was a simple pleasure to just enjoy her attention for a moment.
But it was a short-lived relief. He scanned the space between all the cabins. The guests were as still as statues. He frowned. If they didn’t come alive again, he had no choice but to turn Ari in. She would be swallowed up by the Agency’s prison and he would have no hope of seeing her again. Chase’s bear growled and spat at the thought.
Ari, too, noticed the guests. She shuffled to her feet and fidgeted, a sure sign of her nervousness. She knelt and picked up the spell book. It’d been exactly what they needed to banish the demons. Her rapid flipping through the pages didn’t give him much hope.
“I don’t know how to wake them,” she admitted absently, still with her attention buried in the book.
Waking them brought its own dangers. It was illegal to reveal the paranormal world to regular humans. Even if the guests were unfrozen, Ariadne would be in trouble if they remembered what had happened around them.
Chase’s brows drew together in a deep frown. All he wanted was to begin his life with his mate, but they still had too many complications to overcome.
Itching with the uncomfortable feeling of being useless, Chase glared at the unmoving guests. He yelled at them in his head and his bear joined in the chorus. Together, they silently urged the stubborn, helpless humans to get their asses in gear and start to move.
“If the demon isn’t in this world anymore, it should have broken the spell...” Ari muttered.
He started when he saw one of the guests complete the step he’d been taking at the time the spell had been cast.
“Ari, look.”
“Hold on, I’m almost done looking through the book.”
He grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. Her mouth opened to snap at him, then closed.
Almost as one, the guests reanimated. Luckily Chase had dressed beforehand. There would almost definitely be questions asked if he stood naked in the middle of the wreckage.
Soon, he heard one question repeated again and again. “What happened?”
Ariadne was spotted and recognized as the manager. Some of the guests broke off from their confused groupings and approached her. Chase resisted the urge to shoulder them aside and put her behind him.
“Freak storm,” Ari shrugged and gestured to the ruins of the resort’s recreational offerings. “Tornado touched down and went right back up again. Usually, the mountains tear up the storms, but I guess we weren’t lucky this time.”
“The last thing I remember was walking back to my cabin. Last night,” one man insisted.
“That’s what you get for hitting the minibar too hard, Paul,” another chuckled nervously.
The joke set off a rash of justification and explanations amongst the guests. Chase put his hand on Ari’s shoulder when she opened her mouth. He shook his head and she let the guests do all the talking.
He’d seen it enough times to know that most people would work themselves into a story that they deemed believable. They might have doubts or even some sort of understanding, but they wouldn’t voice it.
“Do you think they saw the demons?” Ari whispered.
“I think someone would have mentioned a pack of dogs or a yelling man. Maybe being frozen was for the best.” It was certainly the best situation for Ariadne. No one had died. No one appeared to have seen the demonic creatures that threatened the resort. Nearly everything had been set to rights.
It was more than he could hope for. There was just one last piece needed before he could mate the woman at his side. He needed to convince her.
She had shown remarkable determination to keep the resort running, but he wasn’t sure it was something she wanted to keep doing. The fact that she’d been put in the position to begin with angered him. He knew only the basics of the story that caused her sister to run away with a shifter and her mother to go catatonic, but he stood by his initial reaction. It’d been entirely selfish for Charlotte Wren to leave everything on her youngest daughter’s shoulders. He had the feeling that Ari had never really been able to explore what she wanted to do.
But if she decided to stay and help at the mountain resort, he’d make his peace with it. He’d swallow down the dislike he had for Charlotte and try to find the woman’s redeeming qualities. Hell, he’d even transfer to a small, dusty field office if it meant he could be near Ariadne.
He just needed to get her to accept him first.
Chase leaned down and whispered for her ears only, “We should go check on your mother.”
His hand on the small of her back, they quietly left the group of guests, pausing only to pick up Ari’s pack of magical supplies. The guests were too busy bickering over their alleged late night antics and discussing how powerful the freak storm must have been to tear up all the recreational equipment to notice. Some of them had started in with helpful suggestions on how best to maximize a payout from the insurance company when Chase and Ari’s feet reached the path toward their own cabins.
It was a short, quiet walk. Chase wanted to have their postponed conversation, but he knew the walk back to the cabins wouldn’t be near enough time to discuss everything that needed to be said. Besides, he didn’t think she’d appreciate being thrown to the ground or taken up against a tree if she agreed to have him. He doubted he’d be able to keep his hands off her for long after she said she’d be his mate.
All thoughts of how to phrase his words were interrupted when they saw the doors to both the Wren home and his cabin thrown open. He glanced at Ari and saw her face had drained of blood.
Chase motioned for her to stay behind him as he climbed the stairs to the Wren home and pressed himself against the wall one more time.
He heard floorboards creaking inside. The stench of the blood on the walls was thick in his nose, but it wasn’t nearly as fresh as it had been. He couldn’t identify any new smells of decay that would be a sure sign that they’d missed a demon.
But before he could ease around the corner and check inside, something small came flying at his chest. The woman held a dark object in her hand and aimed for his head. “Be gone!” she wailed.
Chase caught Charlotte Wren’s wrist in his hand and plucked the heavy cast iron skillet from her grasp. She struggled against him until he let her loose and she shuffled a good distance into the house.
Ari followed her inside and Chase trailed after them. He set the skillet down in the kitchen and heard Ari scolding her mother. “Mama! I told you to wait in the other cabin. You don’t know what could have been waiting here for you.”
“I didn’t want to stay there. The shifter could have come back at any moment and tried something.” Charlotte jerked her clothes straight and narrowed her eyes at him when he entered the living room again.
“You’re being ridiculous. He wouldn’t have hurt you. I told you already, he helped take on the demons.”
“Demons that were here because of him, no doubt. He probably sold his soul to get them here and seduce you.”
Ari shook her head. “No, Mama. I accidentally brought the demons here. It was my fault. Mine. Not Chase. I took your spell book to summon snakes and it got out of control. Chase helped put everything right.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him. “I don’t think I could have done it without him.”
Charlotte stomped toward her and snatched the spell book out of Ari’s hands. “You’re a fool, Ariadne. You’ll be lucky if I let you put
an altar in your room again.”
Instead of melting under the criticism, as Chase suspected she’d always done, Ari didn’t back down. “I turned the summoning circle into a banishment circle, Mama. I’m not entirely incompetent.”
Charlotte eyed her daughter with shock. Then she took in Chase. He could almost read her thoughts. He stood too close to Ari. Ari had grown a spine. Therefore, Chase must be the problem and needed to be cut out of the picture.
“No,” she growled. “You’re just a dumb witch. As dumb a witch as your sister, to give it up to a shifter. I expected more from a Wren, but I’ve been cursed with loose children.”
Ari’s shoulders slumped. “He’s not a bad person, Mama,” she mumbled even as Charlotte smirked with victory.
Charlotte scoffed. “He’s a shifter. They’re all perverts. Has he told you he wants to bite you yet? He’ll eat you alive if you let him. I didn’t raise you to be a foolish, idiot girl.”
Chase shook his head. It was too much. He didn’t want to interfere in a family matter, but Charlotte was carrying things too far. He had tried to be patient, hand over his heart. But the woman was determined to be hateful. He could take it. He was used to hearing all sorts of terrible accusations cast on his character when he busted up criminals. Undercover with the fighting ring had been a nearly continuous stream of filth and obscenity. But he wouldn’t let the woman pick at Ari.
“Ari, grab your things.” He held his breath for one long moment as Ari looked between him and her mother. He hadn’t wanted to force her to choose. He wasn’t sure whom she would pick. But then she nodded and disappeared down the hallway.
He turned back to Charlotte. He knew his large size intimidated people. It’d been one tool in his chest during his undercover operation. He pushed into her personal space, lowering his face to get right in hers. “You will not speak to her like that again.”
His witch’s mother sputtered. Her eyes widened in fear, but her mouth drew down in anger. “Get away from me, shifter.”
“Oh, believe me, I will. I’m taking your daughter with me.”
“You will not! She’s not yours to take! I won’t have another shifter steal my daughter away from me.”
“You will not keep me from my mate.” He growled and let a bit of his bear shine through his eyes.
“Mate? Mate! You bastard. You already bit her, didn’t you? Get out of my home before I curse your cock off!”
Ari shuffled out of the hallway with a stuffed bag. “Mama, it doesn’t have to be this way.”
Charlotte turned hateful eyes on her daughter and Chase prepared to knock the old woman out if she so much as made a move toward Ariadne. “Mate. I see you believe the filth these beasts use to trick poor girls into spreading their legs. Go put your things away and we’ll forget about this horrible incident.”
Ari’s mouth hung open. Her eyes blazed and she straightened up a full inch. “I will not.”
“Then you’re as dead to me as your sister if you walk out that door!”
Ariadne waited quietly on the couch while Chase quickly threw together what he’d unpacked in the cabin, then tossed the bag into the SUV. He secured the weapons box. She knew it was time to go when he picked up her duffle bag.
Her entire life had been distilled down to one bag. Her home was still trashed from the demon’s whirlwind of damage. She’d managed to throw as many clothes as she could dig out from under her dresser and overturned mattress in the bag. Her altar was beyond repair, but the magical supplies in her pack were still with her. The one thing she wanted was a picture of her and her sister, and luckily she’d been able to find that in the mess. The glass had a large crack down the middle, but the frame was otherwise undamaged. It was wrapped in an old sweater on top of everything else.
It felt odd that she could put everything she truly owned in one bag. Everything else belonged to her mother and her grandmother before her. The furniture had been passed down the family line and replaced only when absolutely necessary.
She blindly followed Chase out of the cabin and loaded herself into the SUV. He looked at her for a long moment before turning the key in the ignition. She knew he was waiting for her to object and run from the vehicle, or reassure him that she wanted to leave. She felt too torn to give him what he needed.
They drove in tense silence. Her mountain home inched by as he eased through the resort and down the tiny road. Her life streaked away faster once he hit the main road and sped down the mountain.
She was getting her wish to get out from behind the front desk and leave the quiet mountain town, but at what cost? She didn’t know who she was outside of Charlotte Wren’s daughter and resort manager. Her mother would need help running the resort, especially after she’d been gone from the day-to-day activities for so long. There was so much cleanup needed to repair the demon’s damage.
Ari let out a trembling sigh. Chase glanced at her and his fingers tightened around the steering wheel, but he didn’t say a word.
Even the guilt and fear couldn’t hold back the flicker of excitement that grew inside her. She would have choices that she hadn’t had in the mountain town. It wouldn’t take a fight with the local librarian to get a new book on the shelves. And she would have Chase beside her, without the snide remarks her mother was sure to make at every chance.
Had Raina felt the same sort of excited dread when she left?
It took a handful of hours on the road before they arrived at their destination. She guessed he’d go to the nearest city with an airport. Most of the guests arrived and departed from the city. Chase would be no different. Her future, too, would begin by passing through the airport.
Chase checked them into the hotel and Ari followed behind, still lost in her thoughts. She barely noticed the room and plopped down on the couch.
Chase had proven himself to be a caring, determined person in the short time she knew him. He’d called her his mate. Mates were strictly a shifter thing, but she watched enough princess stories as a child to have an idealized fantasy about true love. Mates were the closest thing to that dream. And Chase said she was his.
It was still far too early for her to say she loved him. She barely knew him. But he had told her humans felt an undeniable attraction and a powerful draw to their shifter halves. She had felt something for him the moment she saw him come in for breakfast. She wanted to believe it was just her anger clouding her head, but his voice had rumbled and stroked her then as it did every other time since.
“Ari, we need to talk about what happened.”
She looked up and blinked. Chase stood in front of her. Worry was etched all over him, from the way his eyebrows were drawn together to the frown on his face. She felt a new pang of guilt that had nothing to do with leaving her home behind. She’d caused him to worry.
She said softly, “Did you mean what you said? That we were mates?”
There was no hesitation in his answer. “Yes. I knew it the night the demons came through the circle. I didn’t want to admit it at first, but I knew. I think I knew it before then, but I couldn’t be sure. I had no sense of smell that first time I saw you.”
She looked away and her cheeks reddened. “That was me.”
“What did you do?” His sigh was filled with resignation.
“I may have burned a family recipe. It’s supposed to drive a shifter away from an area and instill a sense of unease so it doesn’t want to come back.” She studied her hands in her lap. It seemed so petty and childish when she said it to the shifter she was fated for.
“Well, from personal experience, your family recipe needs to be tweaked. I woke naked and had no memory of my time as the bear, but it looked like the beast tore up a bunch of trees and it definitely didn’t keep me from you.” He took a seat next to her and pulled one of her hands into his lap.
As soon as their skin touched, she felt an electric jolt spreading through her. “I’m sorry. For everything. I guess this means you’ll be taking me in for questioning now?”
“That depends.”
She turned to look at him and he tugged on her arm. She let him pull her across his lap, her thighs straddling his. Her breath caught as soon as she settled. He was hard underneath her. Another thrill zinged through her, down her spine and settled in her core. She licked her lips and met his gaze. “On what?”
His hands trailed down her back and cupped her ass. He pressed his nose into her shoulder and inhaled deeply. “Are you determined to drive me away again?”
Her heart thudded loudly in her chest when she said the most natural thing in the world. “Never again… mate.”
Chapter Eleven
There wasn’t anything else to do. Chase groaned and his hands kneaded the round of her ass. He nipped at her throat, then kissed a quick line to her lips. It started soft, and he nibbled at her lips. His tongue laved over the small hurts and she fisted her hands in his shirt. Then his tongue swept across the seam of her lips and commanded her to open for him.
Warmth spread through her when she welcomed him into her mouth and their tongues mingled. He slid and stroked along hers, turning their gentle kiss into something deep and dark. The musky, all-male flavor of him pulled a moan from her chest, but it only urged him on.
His hands held her steady as he stood and walked them into the adjourning bedroom. Then he gently unwound her from around his waist, sliding her down his body. Ari nearly moaned again at the feel of his hard muscles against hers.
As soon as her feet were back on the ground, he dropped to his knees in front of her. As tall as he was, he was at just the right height to nuzzle her stomach and breasts. His hands pushed at the hem of her shirt, revealing inch after inch of her skin. He followed the slow reveal with a smattering of kisses.
When he had her shirt rumpled on the floor, he unsnapped the button of her jeans and rolled the stiff fabric over her hips and thick thighs. Again, each inch revealed to him was rewarded with a soft kiss or a rub of his rough beard against her skin.
