by Unknown
Yet as she absorbed the new truth, a jolt of panic zinged through her. “I . . . I have to tell you about him. About what he has planned.”
“Yes. But not now. You’ve been through an ordeal, and you need to rest. We’ll be here when you’re ready.”
The three women withdrew from the room.
When they had closed the door, she ducked her head away from Talon, but he tipped her chin up so that she had to meet his eyes.
“I’m so ashamed,” she whispered.
“About what?”
“I was a spy. And a liar.”
“Not because you wanted to be.”
“But I feel awful. I felt awful the whole time I was doing it. I . . . I tried to tell you the truth, but I couldn’t.”
“I understand that now. It wasn’t your fault. I saw how horrible he was.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “You saw him?”
“Yes. In your vision.”
She ached to cover her face. Instead, she found Talon’s hand and held on tight.
“He’s surrounded by slaves who are all terrified of him—and all under his power.”
“We can talk about that later.”
“But . . . I have to tell you all of it.”
“Later.”
Before she could protest, he brought his lips to hers for a long, hungry kiss, and the heat that came from him enveloped her. Not like Vandar’s fire. A healing heat that sealed the two of them together.
He tightened his hold on her, and they rocked together on the bed. When he eased away and cupped his hand around her breast, she gave him a startled look.
“There are people in the house, and . . . and . . .”
“Yeah. But they can wait.” He stood up and opened the window. “We’re going outside. To a place where we’ll be alone. Too bad we’re not in my room. I have a sliding glass door, but it’s only a four-foot drop from this window. Not too far.”
From the top shelf of the closet, he took down what looked like a rolled-up quilt. “Sleeping bag,” he explained as he threw it outside on the ground, then climbed down and held out his arms. She slung one leg over the sash before letting herself down, landing in his arms, where she had to press her mouth against his shoulder to hold back a giggle.
He grinned at her, then picked up the sleeping bag and wedged it under one arm before slinging the other arm around her shoulder as he led her away from the house, to a circle of pine trees that she’d passed on her walks. Directing her to one side of the circle, he showed her a place where they could slip through the branches.
“This is where I change.”
She studied the sheltered place in appreciation. It was a private spot, the ground soft and fragrant with fallen pine needles.
After unrolling the sleeping bag, he unzipped it and laid it on the needles, making a double-wide bed. Then he reached for her, and she came into his arms again.
His mouth found hers, and he began to kiss her as he worked the buttons on the front of her shirt before pulling it off her shoulders and dropping it on the ground. After dragging his own shirt over his head and sending it to join hers, he pulled her close.
The feel of his chest hair against her breasts made her draw in a quick breath, and she pressed her cheek to his shoulder.
“This time is different,” she whispered.
“Yes. Because there are no barriers between us.”
It was true and so much more. The first time she hadn’t known what making love would be like. The second time she’d felt frantic with the compulsion Vandar had placed on her to use their sexual connection to control Talon. But this time, it was just the two of them, knowing where they were going together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TALON SWAYED HER against his body, entranced by the way her hardened nipples dragged across his chest.
He had known all along that she was his life mate. At first he had fought it. Today he embraced it.
Even though he knew they still had problems to work out, he wanted this time together.
And he wanted her to know what he felt. “I couldn’t make a commitment, not really. Now I want you to know how much I love you. How much I need you.”
He kissed her hungrily as he worked the snap at the top of her jeans, then the zipper. When he had slid her jeans and panties down her legs, she kicked them away, then helped him off with his clothing.
Together, they came down to the surface of the sleeping bag and lay facing each other, the blue of the sky above them and the pine trees walling them off from the rest of the world as they touched and kissed.
When her hand slid down to his cock, circling and squeezing him, he let himself enjoy her touch for a few moments before lifting her hand away.
“You’ll make me come.”
“I want to learn what pleases you. Everything that pleases you.”
“You will. We’ve got plenty of time.”
He saw a shadow cross her face. “What?”
“We still have to . . . to deal with Vandar.”
“We will,” he answered, but he couldn’t stand the uncertainty on her face, so he kissed his way to one of her tight nipples, biting gently, then swirling his tongue over her while he slid one hand down her body and into the warm wet folds of her sex, finding her slick and swollen for him. When he brushed his finger against the side of her clit, she sucked in a ragged breath.
“What do you call that place that you just touched?” she asked.
“Your clit. A very sweet place.” As he spoke, he bent over her, parting the folds of her sex and lowering his mouth to her.
She gasped. “What are you doing?”
He lifted his head far enough to say, “What I wanted to do before. Getting a taste of you.” He used his lips and his tongue on her, trying to drive every thought from her mind except the heat flaming between them.
He knew he had succeeded when she begged him, “Please. No more!”
Lifting his head, he stared at her stunned face.
He surprised her again, lying down on his back and lifting her so that she was straddling him.
From his prone position, he looked up at her and grinned.
When she tried to cover her breasts, he reached for her hands.
“It would please me to look at you when we make love,” he said in a thick voice.
She swallowed. “Okay.”
Her face turned serious as she raised her hips and came down on his cock, seating him firmly inside her. Once they were joined, she grinned and surprised him by contracting her inner muscles around him.
“Ah . . that’s good.”
She grinned again and arched her back, thrusting her breasts boldly toward him, and he could see that she had discovered she was enjoying this variation on a basic human activity.
As she looked down at him with new confidence, she began to move, and he was stunned by the intensity he saw on her face, and by what he felt.
“Oh, Talon. Oh . . .” She gasped as her movements became more frantic.
“Lean forward,” he told her. “Press your clit against me.”
She did, working herself against him, and he struggled to hold himself back, waiting for her to reach the peak of pleasure. When he felt her inner muscles contract in small spasms, he let himself go, joining her in a thundering climax that seemed to shake the ground around them.
When he came back to Earth, he gathered her close, holding her sweat-slick body to his.
“I love you so much,” she murmured.
“I love you,” he answered. “It feels wonderful to say that.”
“Yes.”
She snuggled against him, and he held her and stroked her, wishing they could stay where they were for a long time. But she had told him a threat still hung over them, and he wanted to wipe it out so the two of them could be truly free.
“We should go back.”
She ducked her head. “Renata and the others, they’ll all know what we’ve been doing.”
“Yeah
. Because it’s the same thing they do when they want to show their life mate what they’re feeling.”
She nodded, and he held her for a while longer, then sat up.
“I think we have to face the music.”
“The music?”
“It’s an idiom. And I’m damned if I know where it came from. Maybe the musical theater. A performer who was nervous would have to face the orchestra pit when the curtain opened.”
She laughed. “That doesn’t help much. What’s a musical theater? Or an orchestra pit?”
He was glad to explain the terms while they got dressed because it was a good way to distract her.
When she looked up from pulling on her clothes, there was a tentative expression on her face.
“What?”
“It’s a relief to be able to ask you questions without . . . being afraid.”
“Oh, sweetheart. It must have been so hard for you.” He pulled her into his arms and held on tight for long moments.
When he plucked a couple of pine needles out of her hair, her expression turned shy.
“Don’t worry about my family. If they’re thinking anything, it’s about me. They know I didn’t want to bond with anyone. And now I’m well and truly snared.”
“I’m not sure that helps.”
As they approached the front door of the lodge, he saw a couple more cars in the driveway and knew more Marshalls had arrived.
That reality was unnerving, but he stopped worrying about his own reactions when he felt Kenna’s hand tighten on his.
“We’ll get through this together,” he said.
“But there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“I want to hear it.”
“Maybe you won’t think so when you do.”
Talon squeezed her hand. “Get used to understanding that I’ll be beside you. Always.”
She squeezed back. “I hope I’m worthy of that.”
“You are. So come save me from facing the family alone.”
She made a clucking sound as he led her through the front door, then down the hall toward the living room, aware that all eyes were on them.
“You’ve been outside,” Rinna said.
“Yeah,” he answered with no further explanation, trying to act like it wasn’t unnerving to find so many of his relatives and their life mates making themselves at home in his living room.
He and Kenna sat together on one of the sofas.
At least everybody was acting like they’d simply been out for a stroll, when they knew damn well it was more of a horizontal encounter.
“You haven’t met Jacob and Grant,” Ross said, like they hadn’t burst into the bedroom a while ago to protect their mates. “Jacob and Renata are married. And Grant and Antonia.”
Kenna nodded shyly.
Jacob leaned forward, addressing her. “Renata and I have been to your world. I take dogs there who have been trained to be dangerous. The healers in Sun Acres can cure them. Do you know Sun Acres?” he asked politely.
Kenna shook her head.
“It’s a city to the south—in your world.”
“Oh.”
Talon listened, figuring they were trying to make Kenna feel comfortable. The trouble was, he couldn’t really follow the conversation. He didn’t know anything about her world. And he certainly hadn’t been there.
Kenna glanced at him, then said, “I guess I’d better stop stalling and tell you how I got here, and why.” She swallowed. “I was a free citizen of Breezewood. My father owns a shop that makes sandals and boots, and I went to the school for adepts.” She glanced at Talon. “In my world, children with psychic talent go to special schools where they . . . learn to use their full potential.”
Rinna smiled at her. “I went to a school like that. What is your talent?”
“I can move objects with my mind.” She glanced at Talon again. “That’s how I kept the tree from crushing me. And how I helped you lift it off me.”
“So that’s why it got suddenly lighter.”
“Yes.” She flushed. “And that’s why the barbecue grill flew across the patio.”
“Ah. I thought I’d kicked it.”
Her voice grew high and strained. “And I broke into a house. Vandar ordered me to bring back things from this world, and I didn’t want to steal them from you. So I took them from someone else. Only they disappeared.”
“I followed you—as a wolf. Then I dug them up and took them away,” Talon said. “But I was too angry to talk to you about it. So I left.” He glanced up, challenging anyone to make something of that, but nobody commented.
Kenna dragged in a breath and let it out. “This time he wanted me to get you to bring me guns. And bullets. He thought you’d do it. I knew you wouldn’t.”
There were exclamations around the room.
“To start a war in your world?” Ross asked.
“To give to his soldiers so he can invade this world,” Kenna said in a rush. “That’s why I’m here. He wanted me to spy on you and report back to him, so he can prepare for an invasion. I . . . I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Ross answered. “And now that you’ve alerted us, we can stop him.”
She gave Ross a desperate look. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. He’s not human. He’s a monster that you can’t even imagine. He sends men to raid nearby cities and bring back slaves. A raiding party of his soldiers captured me about three months ago.”
She gulped and went on. “When he captures you, he decides if he can use you or if you’re too strong. If he thinks you’re a danger to himself, he kills you right away—by drinking your blood.”
Again, she heard exclamations from the people in the room.
“How many slaves does he have?”
“I . . . I think about three hundred. He gets them all together to watch him kill.”
There were gasps from the women in the room.
“I’m betting they would rebel against him if they got the chance,” Ross said.
“They’d be too afraid.”
“What if he was . . . disabled?”
She flapped her arm in frustration. “You don’t understand how much power he has.”
“I felt it. When I went into that dream with you,” Talon said.
Her breath hitched. “That was a dream. In real life, defying him is instant death. If you even could. I tried, after I came here. I thought maybe he was too far away to reach me, but I was wrong. Remember the migraine headaches I kept getting?”
“That’s what you called them. The symptoms didn’t quite fit. So I thought it was something else.”
“You were right. They came from the wards he put in my mind. When I tried to tell you about him, the pain made it impossible for me to speak.”
“The bastard.”
“We saw him, too,” Rinna said softly.
“But you don’t know what he is. Not really. Nobody can,” she said in a broken voice. “Unless they get close to him. And that means he’s enslaved you.”
When she shuddered, Talon slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his side. “Don’t forget, you’re not alone. We’ll face this together.”
She looked like she could barely breathe, and he thought she’d had all she could take for now. “This is getting kind of intense,” he said. “Let’s go outside for a while. Just you and me.”
Her grateful look made his heart turn over.
“We’re going to take a few minutes,” he said. Without waiting for any replies, he ushered Kenna toward the door.
Outside, the sun was just setting.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she murmured. “He told me this world had . . . technology and machinery. But I’ve never seen so many trees in my life.”
“This is the kind of place a werewolf wants to live. In the woods.”
“You have room to run.”
“Yeah. And walk. Let’s go down toward the river.”
Hand in hand, they wandered down the hill.
“Do you swim there?” she asked, gesturing toward the shimmering surface.
“Mm-hmm. There’s a swimming hole.”
“Another term I don’t know. But I can guess. That place where the water looks deep?”
