They had to call out for Chinese. Again. And this time, they got free General Tso’s shrimp, free spareribs, and a free six-pack of Chinese beer. There might even have been mention of naming a new baby after Kylie. Or maybe they said a boat. It was hard to hear over the cheering in the background.
When she finally crawled into bed beside Dag, Kylie was stuffed and her fridge boasted of one measly container of leftovers. A swarm of locusts couldn’t have eaten as much.
“Next time I invite this group over, remind me to buy a supermarket first,” she griped, collapsing back onto her pillows. “I swear to God, I think Spar ate an entire pig. I’ve never seen that much twice-cooked pork in one place, let alone seen it disappear into one mouth like that. I don’t even keep kosher, and still I felt a little guilty just watching him.”
Dag chuckled and drew her close. “He claimed he needs plenty of fuel in order to be ready for tomorrow’s battle.”
“He’ll be lucky if he can haul his tokhes out of bed in the morning, much less do battle. I’m just glad there’s antacid in the guest bathrooms. I have a feeling they’ll be needing it.”
They lay in the darkness for a few minutes, listening to the house and the houseguests settle in around them. Kylie knew she needed to sleep. Today’s magical workout had been the most intense Wynn had led yet, and tomorrow was the big day, but her eyes refused to close.
“And how are you feeling, little one?” Dag asked softly, his voice rasping across the silence like a work-roughened hand over sheer, smooth silk.
“Nervous,” Kylie admitted, letting out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding in a rush. “All of a sudden it feels like I have hundreds of people’s lives in my hand. Oh, wait, I do!”
“Our hands,” Dag corrected, squeezing her gently. “The weight of this is not something you carry alone, sweet Kylie. We all know what is going to happen, therefore we all share the responsibility to stop it. In fact, according to the traditions of my kind, you and Wynn, and Kylie and Ella, none of you need to put yourselves at risk. This is why the Guardians were summoned. It is our duty to stop the Seven, not any of yours.”
“Is this you getting ready to forbid me to go again?”
He laughed. “No, that is one lesson I believe that I have learned. I will forbid you nothing.” Swiftly he shifted, his hands clasping her waist to lift her and set her down on top of him. “Have you not realized it yet, little human? I cannot, because I can deny you nothing. Whatever you ask for, I will give you. Whatever you need, I will provide.”
She gazed down at him silently, reading the sincerity in his voice and the love in his eyes.
Yes, love. How had she missed it before?
Her mouth began to curve. “And what if I need you, big guy?”
“Kylie. I am already yours.”
* * *
She leaned down to kiss him, and he shook with the need to seize her. Instinct rode him hard, urging him to take control, to claim, to plunder, to mark his woman forever as his. The need was fierce and dark and primitive, but then, so was Dag.
He had entered the world as a warrior, in a time when wars raised kings and toppled empires, when men who fought ruled and the men who ruled never stopped fighting. Summoned into being for one single purpose, he had been created not to evolve but to defend and to destroy, or so he had thought.
Now, he believed that perhaps he had been summoned for this purpose, for this woman, to exist wholly and solely for her. It hit him like a revelation, and it felt like a blessing.
Grasping hard on his control, he forced himself to remain still beneath her, flexing only his fingers as they caressed the soft, tempting skin at her waist. That, he couldn’t help. He could no more stop touching her than he could stop needing her. Neither was an option.
He concentrated on the kiss, on the feel of her lips moving soft and warm against his, on the teasing strokes of her clever little tongue, on the sweetness of her taste and the whisper of her breath against his skin. It helped for a little while, but when he began to feel the heat of her pussy dampening the skin of his abdomen he could no longer hold back his growl of need.
Pushing herself into a sitting position, Kylie smiled down at him and ran her tiny hands over his bare skin, taunting him. Her short, neat fingernails scraped over his nipples, making him hiss, and her fingers kneaded his muscles like a kitten arranging its bed. He hoped by the Light that sleep was not the first thing on her mind.
“I like that you’re mine, Dag,” she whispered, leaning down to rain kisses along his collarbone. “I like being yours.”
He stiffened, hardly daring to breathe. Was she finally admitting the truth? He was afraid to let his hope soar too high.
Her soft little body wiggled atop him, making his jaw ache and his fangs intrude on his human form. Then she reached back and closed her hand around him and he forgot about human and Guardian, about hope and duty, about everything but his mate and the need to be inside her.
He growled her name and caught the white flash of her smile in the darkness. A moment later, she rearranged herself slightly and positioned the head of his shaft against her entrance. Then she sank down and he hissed at the sharp, sweet pleasure.
He both heard her sigh and felt the rush of her breath against his skin. He felt the muscles in her thighs and her belly tighten and she enveloped him in her slick heat. A shiver rushed through her from head to toe, and the feel of her shaking above him and clamping down hard around his erect cock nearly made him howl. He controlled himself, barely, if for no other reason than that he refused to share one second of this experience with anyone else. To be overheard even by their friends would steal a particle of the pleasure that he meant to hoard greedily for them alone.
Dark eyes stared down at him as she began to move, her hips twisting and rocking in a sensuous rhythm that stroked and squeezed each hard inch of him without mercy. He watched her breasts shimmy as she moved and lifted his hands to cup the soft mounds, teasing the hard nipples with flicks of his thumb and quick pinches that made her hum and gasp.
Ignoring the tingling at the base of his spine and the pressure building in his groin, he savored every soft sound she made, every shift of her body, every flush of her skin. He wanted the moment to last forever, to never have to rise from this bed, to never have to slip from her body, to never have to see her look into the face of evil and know fear.
“Dag.”
Her hoarse whisper drew at his soul, made him croon soft nonsense even as he increased the force of his hips thrusting upward to meet her. He heard her breath catch in her throat and then the change in her ragged breathing and knew her climax was close. Shifting his grip, he slid one hand between their bodies and teased her sensitive clit while his other palm cupped the back of her neck and drew her down toward him.
“You are mine, sweet Kylie,” he whispered, knowing the words sounded rough and possessive, more like a snarl than the promise he intended. “And I am yours.”
She didn’t seem to mind his tone, because she shuddered and tightened, and cried out, her breath hot and damp against his skin. “Yours,” she panted. “Mine.”
Her body strained above him, hips flexing, thighs gripping, pussy clenching as she fought for her pleasure. Determined to give it to her, to give her everything, he drew his finger in swift hard circles around her little bundle of nerves, then suddenly struck, pressing directly over it, hard and deep.
She cried out and shattered, the rapid spasms of her channel around his cock pulling him over his own edge. He emptied himself into her, gasping her name, but all he could hear was her raspy, beloved voice reaching out to him through the darkness.
“Dag. I love you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Der ergster sholem iz beser vi di beste milkhome.
The worst peace is better than the best war.
Kylie really thought there ought to have been a film montage, one of those scenes where the grim-faced heroes and heroines buckled themselves into tight garments of canvas a
nd leather, and then armed themselves with unwieldy arsenals of high-tech weaponry in preparation for the ultimate battle. It would have been so cool.
Instead, she got seven ordinary-looking humans (well, as ordinary as Guardians could look in their human forms) dressed in average if casual clothing carrying nothing but their cell phones. Well, in Wynn’s case she had added a messenger bag that Kylie was convinced held not only the kitchen sink, but a bathtub and washer-dryer unit as well.
That was it. No machine guns, no big black knives with wicked blades and grips meant to stay grippy even when covered in the enemy’s blood. Not one single lousy hand grenade. How was a girl supposed to go to war without hand grenades? Honestly.
The closest she had were two small pouches Wynn had pressed into the hands of each of the Wardens on the way out the door. “Drive-away salt,” she told them. “Fil has used it before. If you get cornered by something nasty, use it. It won’t destroy anything much bigger than a hhissihh, but it will give you some room to maneuver out of a tight spot.”
Which was all well and good, and Kylie made sure to thank the witch, but it still wasn’t a grenade.
Since she had pouted about it all the way to the convention center, Dag didn’t need to read her mind to know what to say to her as they parked and climbed out of her car, followed by Wynn and Knox. Ella, Kees, Fil, and Spar had followed in a rental.
“I told you, little human, any weapons the Guardians require we will summon when the time comes,” he said, patting her hand. “Cease your worry.”
“It’s not worry,” she grumbled. “It’s disappointment. I was promised a battle royal, and now I just feel let down. You guys wouldn’t even let me dress all in black.”
Wynn sent her a look. “We need to look like all the other attendees, Kylie, not ninjas. And I mean attendees at this event, not Comic Con.”
Kylie stuck out her tongue. Childish? Yes, but satisfying.
Thinking ahead to the possibility of collateral and structural damage to the facilities, they had parked the cars not at the convention center itself, or even at the attached hotel, but at a public lot a few blocks away. No one wanted to believe it would come to that, but things happened. Either way, the parking situation meant they had to hoof it to make the meeting on time.
Kylie couldn’t help noticing the incongruity of the day. It had turned out to be one of those rare moments of early-spring perfection that occasionally settled over New England like a blessing from above. The clear blue sky seemed vast overhead, with the warm sun shining down and tempting humanity out of houses and businesses, urging the shedding of thick winter layers. A fresh breeze teased through hair and picked at light fabrics with just enough nip to remind everyone to enjoy the interlude while it lasted. The day was just too beautiful to believe that so much death and destruction lurked just around the corner, but she supposed that was what made evil evil—it didn’t care what it had to destroy, it just wanted the destruction.
The group entered the convention center and blended with the crowd of other attendees. Polite chitchat created a little blanket of sound as bodies milled in the hall outside the auditorium, plenty of coffee cups in evidence, waiting for the big event.
Kylie had to bite back a laugh that owed more than a little bit to hysteria. The “big event.” Ha. If only they knew.
A hand landed on her shoulder and squeezed. Looking up, she caught Dag’s reassuring gaze and tried to relax. It didn’t go very well, but she made the effort. Maybe if she’d gotten that cape, she’d feel differently.
She almost expected to hear tense, slowly building music in the background, like a movie sound track. Every one of her senses had gone on high alert, making her simultaneously jumpy and strangely numb, as though nothing around her were quite real; it all seemed too overamped, as if it were actually playing out on a movie screen.
Maybe she needed to take a break from her film addiction, Kylie told herself, trying to keep her actions casual as she glanced around her. At least for a while, until she could stop comparing her life to a Marvel Studios production. It might be the healthy thing to do. Put down the remote; step away from the Netflix.
“Everyone, remember the plan,” Kees said, as ushers opened the auditorium doors and attendees began to flow into the room. “We must wait until they make their move. If in doubt, look to Wynn or Ella. They will be monitoring for a buildup of energy that could signal the moment.”
Kylie nodded and tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. This one read ALSO, I CAN KILL YOU WITH MY BRAIN, partly in homage to one of her favorite television shows and partly to remind her that she could do things she had never before thought possible. As Wynn had told her, she just needed to concentrate and try not to get in her own way.
With Dag’s hand at her back guiding her through the aisles, she made her way to the spot everyone had decided on last night. The four couples would split up, with each one choosing their seats in one of the four corners of the room.
They had theorized that the most likely scenario for the Order’s plan was to open the four anticipated portals at the edges of the room around the four corners. This would effectively surround the audience, blocking them from the exits, and trapping them inside the room. Dividing up along similar lines would allow the Guardians and Wardens to launch the quickest possible response, and hopefully put them physically close to their targets.
You know, maybe.
It drove Kylie’s analytical, scientific soul bonkers that with all of their research, all of their preparation and strategizing, they still found themselves walking into the lion’s den with nothing more than a “best guess.” She felt pretty confident that best guesses were one of the main ingredients in lion chow, and she really didn’t want to have to explain to her grandmother why neither she nor Dag had managed to show up at Shavuot dinner.
Of course, if they didn’t show up, no explanation would be necessary, because bubbeh would be sitting shiva over her mangled corpse. As excuses went, it was about the only one Esther would accept.
Kylie settled into a seat at the end of a long outer aisle in the rear right corner of the room. Then she had to slide over a seat as Dag insisted on putting himself directly on the aisle. With the threat expected to come from the outer perimeter of the room, he had already told her he would expect her to let him stand between her and danger. She had initially rolled her eyes, but when he pointed out that she was so much smaller than him that she couldn’t effectively shield him anyway, she had to concede to his logic. She’d need three of her to block him from attack.
At least their assigned seats kept her from having to crane her neck to look around her. She had a decent view of the whole room, although the balcony had given all of them cause for grief. They couldn’t be certain that the nocturnis would not choose to open the portals up there rather than on the auditorium floor, but they were not able to effectively cover both levels so they had to work with the highest probability. Opening portals on the balcony would be more discreet, but it would also delay the moment when the demonic attack could begin, and it might give some of the crowd time to escape in the initial moments of violence.
Gee, wasn’t this a fun topic to muse on?
Turning her attention to the stage, she took in the elaborate curtained backdrop, the projected images of the Carver foundation’s logo, and the silent slide show of all the good work the group was doing. In a good number of the photos, Richard Foye-Carver posed with shirtsleeves rolled up and battered boots on his feet, helping African farmers in their fields, listening to the concerns of poor women, even playing with dusty urchins and their underinflated soccer ball. It was enough to warm the coldest heart.
Provided you didn’t look closely enough to see the dead, flat, empty void behind the man’s smiling eyes.
Kylie shifted in her seat and glanced down at the time displayed on her phone. T-minus eight minutes. She wondered if her nerves would survive the wait.
“Relax,” Dag whispered, leaning down to place his
lips near her ear. “Your worry will only slow your responses. Do as Wynn advised you and breathe slowly.”
“Easy for you to say, Goliath. You were made to fight Demons. I was made to eat latkes and kvetch about the state of the world. There’s a big difference.”
“No,” he disagreed, brushing his mouth against her temple. “You were made to set me free, little love, and to spend a lifetime by my side. Never forget that.”
Well, when he put it that way …
It didn’t do away with Kylie’s nerves, but it allowed her to press them back enough to manage a deep breath. The feel of his huge, warm hand enveloping hers didn’t hurt, either. Both gave her courage, and if all else failed, she would do the one useful thing her father had taught her—fake it with authority.
When the lights dimmed and music began to hum through the loudspeakers, she felt every muscle in her body go tense and had to force herself to shake off the instinctive reaction. Adrenaline, Wynn had taught her, could be her friend or her enemy. Enough of it would sharpen her senses and hone her reflexes, helping her out in tight situations, but too much could make her freeze and leave her vulnerable to attack.
Fight or flight. Kylie sure as shudden intended to fight.
The focus in the room turned to the stage where a small, portly man in a wrinkled pair of khakis and an ill-conceived shirt-and-tie combination appeared behind the podium to introduce the keynote speaker. With a forced-casual glance she saw the ushers who had manned the doors step inside the room and pull the panels closed behind them. All perfectly innocent actions to ensure privacy and minimize the chances of outside interruptions and distractions, but to Kylie it smacked of sinister intent. The ushers to her appeared more like guards, stationed at the exits to prevent any attempt at escape.
She forced her attention back to the man speaking at the front of the room. Kylie barely heard a word he said. While the music had gradually lowered and then turned off, the buzzing in her head had quadrupled in volume. She felt as if a swarm of bees had nested in her ear canals and settled in for a long honey-making chat. She couldn’t seem to sit still, either. Her habitually bouncing foot shook so fast her eyes could barely focus on the movement.
Rocked by Love (Gargoyles Series) Page 24
