He slammed into her one last time, leaving himself pressed tightly inside her while he collapsed on top of her. They both gasped for breath, exhausted from lovemaking like they’d each only ever dreamed of.
Pearl squirmed beneath him, letting him know he was squishing her. Ty lifted himself off her and rolled onto his back, pulling her with him. He shoved the pillow beneath his head and got comfortable, while Pearl kicked the spare sheet to the end of the bed and snuggled down into his arms, her head on his chest and draped her arm over his stomach.
They lay like that, neither speaking, just trying to catch their breath.
She lifted a leg and slowly dragged it up over his, using the tips of her toes to rub softly against his. Ty opened his eyes and looked down at their feet. Her small, human ones with the shiny black polish on her nails, and his larger, dark, bony feet, almost skeletal in appearance with claws at the tips of his own toes. Slowly he curled his own toes to pull them toward the soles of his feet and away from her plump little human ones.
“Unnnhhh!” she objected. No words, but enough of an irritated sound to let him know she didn’t like him pulling his toes away from her.
“Put ‘em back!” she finally said, shoving at his foot with her own.
“No,” he said softly.
“Why not?” she finally asked.
He hesitated to answer, then finally gave in. “They are not like yours.”
“Good,” Pearl shot out without hesitation. “I don’t want them like mine. I want them like you.” Pearl lifted up on an elbow and looked down into his face. “If you weren’t like you, and were more like me, I wouldn’t be lying here with you.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Without a doubt!” she said forcefully. Pearl laid her head back on his shoulder and began rubbing her toes over the top of his foot again. Slowly, his toes uncurled. He allowed her to rub her foot over his and her toes to trace the outlines of the claws on the tips of his toes.
Some time later just before she drifted off to sleep, she heard his voice.
“Once it became apparent that my brother and I would reconcile, and that I’d found you, I had hoped that it would make me more human. Able to move more freely about in the human world. But now that both are completed, I’m still me.”
The disappointment in his voice was not hard to detect. She didn’t know what to say to him to ease his discomfort, so she did something she never did for anyone, except maybe her sister — she went straight from the heart. “I don’t want to wake up to find my beast has turned into the handsome prince. I’ve always been a sucker for the creatures in the fairy-tales. Don’t fuck this up for me.”
Ty smiled to himself, lying there in the dark with his mate in his arms. Oh, he knew she had no clue she was his mate and had tied herself to him for the rest of their lives, but it didn’t matter. She had none-the-less. And when she finally realized it, that battle would be one of record proportions. He grinned even bigger, that one would be fun.
Ty ran a clawed hand over her shoulder and down her arm. She liked him as he was, didn’t want him human. He kissed the top of her head and allowed his eyes to close just as the bright morning sun was shining through the windows both across from and behind their bed. She let out a soft snore and relaxed completely into him.
“Mine,” he whispered.
Chapter 20
Ruby was dreaming of hammering. She was in a forest, high up in a tree and below her there were creatures, trying to chip away at her tree. They were hammering, pounding and shrieking their frustration at not being able to reach her. And this heat was so oppressive, she was sweating as though she was in a sauna.
She tried to roll over and found she couldn’t move. She struggled to open her eyes and realized she couldn’t move because 187 pounds of bat man was lying across her body, keeping her pinned to the mattress. She rolled her shoulder to move him away.
“Move!” she grouched.
“Quiet,” Jaime grouched back.
Then the hammering started again.
“What the hell is that?” Ruby asked.
“Your sister. Shh, be quiet and maybe she’ll go away.”
“What is she doing out there?” Ruby asked, trying to dig her way out from beneath Jaime.
“Near as I can tell, she’s picked up one of my small sledge hammers, and she’s slamming it against the steel door downstairs.”
“Well, go answer the door!”
“No, still sleeping.”
“It might be an emergency.”
“Can’t be.”
“Why can’t it be?”
Jaime pried open one eye and focused it on Ruby. “You’re here. You’re safe. Nothing else I give a damn about. Go back to sleep.” He raised his arm as though she’d slip beneath it and go back to sleep.
“Awwww, that is so sweet,” Ruby said. Then she swatted his ass. “Now get your ass up. I have to pee, go let her in.”
Ruby ran for his bathroom and though he bitched about it with every step, she heard him moving toward the door.
Jaime stomped down the stairs and through the inside of his garage. He walked barefoot and bare-assed through the tools he’d left lying about, through the cars in different stages of repair and stepped gingerly around the puddles of oil that had seeped onto the cement floor overnight.
The pounding on the door had started up again by the time he got to it. He unlocked it and snatched it open, standing there completely naked, glaring at Ruby’s sister.
“What?!” he yelled at her.
Completely unshaken she merely raised an eyebrow and let her eyes obviously drift to his package, then back up to his face. “Nice.”
“What do you want?” he asked, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“I want you to wake up and take me to where Ty lives.”
Jaime chuffed out a laugh. “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.”
Pearl stepped around Jaime and raised her voice to shriek level. “Ruuuubyyyyy?” she screamed, as she followed almost the same path Jaime had taken to the door, toward the stairs that obviously led to living quarters as she searched for her sister.
Jaime shook his head and slammed the door closed, locked it and followed Pearl as she picked her way through his repair shop.
Pearl was halfway up the stairs, still calling Ruby’s name when Ruby popped her head out of the door upstairs and waved down at them. “Hey! Just ran through a quick shower. What’s up?” she asked, before disappearing inside the door again.
“Why are you still sleeping?” Pearl asked, finally reaching the door and making herself at home as she walked right in.
“Because it’s what? 10:00 A.M.?” Ruby asked, her back to them, while she ran a brush through her wet hair.
“No, it’s like 4:30 P.M., and I need you to wake up and help me!”
Jaime walked into his home, completely ignoring the sisters, went straight to his shower, turned on the hot water full blast and splashed his feet around in it to rinse them off, then crawled back into bed, pulling the pillow Ruby used into his arms to snuggle his face back into it, so he could get just a bit more sleep.
Ruby stopped talking and watched him, a furrow between her brows.
Pearl stopped talking and watched Ruby to see what she’d do.
“Hey!” Ruby shouted at Jaime.
When he didn’t answer she tried again.
“I’m talking to you!”
Jaime didn’t hear the girls start up talking again, so he opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at Ruby. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Did you answer the door like that? Completely buck-assed naked?”
“Yup,” he said, grinning. “She wakes us up, she takes her chances at what she’s gonna see.”
Ruby stood there, mouth gaping, her eyes wide. “Fine!” she finally managed to get out. “You wait and see how I answer the door when your brother comes calling. Naked and holding a bottle of baby oil!”
“You will not!” he said, sittin
g straight up in bed.
Ruby grinned evilly. “Watch me,” she promised, a gleam in her eye.
“It’s not all that impressive, Ruby. I mean, it would have been, but now that I’ve had Ty, a human just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Not that they did much to begin with.”
“Hey! I will have you know he’s pretty damn hot!” Ruby said, pointing at her man.
“Yeah, you tell her, baby,” Jaime said, lying back in bed.
“I didn’t say he wasn’t. Just that he’s human.”
“And so is Ty,” Ruby insisted.
“You sure?” Pearl asked.
“Yes. He and Jaime are twins. They are basically the same genetically. Like fraternal twins, just one looks like mom and one looks like dad.”
Pearl was quiet while she digested the information. Finally putting her hands on her hips, and wincing just a bit. “Fine. I’ll accept that. Just as long as he keeps looking like… which one does he look like?”
“Mom.”
“Keeps looking like his mom and I’m good. So, anyway, can you show me where he lives?”
“Not exactly. Why?”
“Because he left me this. I found it on the pillow when I woke, and I’m going to help.”
Pearl handed a slip of paper to Ruby. Ruby opened it and started reading. She didn’t even finish before she looked at Jaime, who was already sliding to that end of the bed to see what she was reading. “You have to go help him.”
“What is it?”
“He says he’s going home to put things to right. He’ll be back for me when it’s over, and I’m to be patient because if he’s injured, it may be a while before he can come back to me. He said to stay near Ruby so you can protect us both and to take care of myself and take no unnecessary chances,” Pearl paraphrased.
“Clearly he doesn’t know you very well,” Ruby commented.
“Clearly,” Pearl agreed.
“He said nothing at all about me?” Jaime said, getting out of bed and bringing the top sheet with him, wrapping it around his waist.
“Aw, look, Ruby. He does pay attention!” Pearl snarked, pointing to the sheet around his waist.
Jaime glared at Pearl, then at Ruby when Ruby giggled.
“You want me covered or not?” he asked Ruby pointedly.
“Yes!” She pointed to his covered package. “Mine.”
“Then stop laughing.”
Right away Ruby sobered, trying to contain her giggles, covering her mouth with her hand.
“He left this for you,” Pearl said, digging in her back pocket and pulling out another piece of paper.
Jaime took it from her and scanned it quickly. “Oh, no. No, no, no! This shit is not how it’s going to go down,” Jaime said, stomping toward the bathroom.
“What is it?” Ruby asked.
Jaime didn’t answer, he’d already started the shower.
Ruby looked at Pearl. “What does his letter say?”
“I don’t know, it’s his letter.”
Ruby smirked and put her hands on her hips.
Pearl gave up the impression she didn’t look because it wasn't meant for her and grinned. “It said that he hoped that Jaime understood, but this was something he had to do alone. He had no doubt he could kill their grandfather, but if his grandfather’s forces took him down, he needed Jaime alive to watch over me and those of their people that would need protection. He’s going to try to take down the entire colony alone. He told Jaime that he is sorry for all the years of resentment and hate between them and wishes it would have been different. Oh, and he told Jaime to keep searching until he finds the truth about their parents.”
“But last night they were talking about doing this together,” Ruby said.
“I know!”
“So what the hell happened?”
Pearl shook her head, held her arms out, palms up. “Male?” she asked.
“Yup. Male. They all have their heads up their asses.”
“Hey!” Jaime snapped from the bathroom.
Jaime came out of the bathroom holding the same sheet around his waist, though he was now glistening with water droplets.
Pearl tilted her head to the side, as though appreciating a piece of fine art. She tapped her finger on her chin. “You know, he is really, really pretty.”
Ruby’s face lit up, turning to look at her man. “He is, isn’t he?”
“I’m right here!” he said, stalking past them to his closet as they spoke about him as though he wasn’t even there. “Go away, Pearl, so I can get dressed.”
“I’ll just wait outside the door there,” she said, moving to the door that would lead out to the balcony over-looking the inside of his garage.
Ruby went straight to Jaime. Wrapping her arms around him from behind. “What are we going to do?” she asked, kissing his back.
Jaime turned to her, holding her face in his hands while he looked down at her. “Remember I told you once that my grandfather came after me as a young child?”
“Yes, you said he wasn’t able to hurt you, and flew away in a rage.”
Jaime nodded. “Yep. I was at school, he reached out to grab me and the flesh of his hands seared as though he was holding onto a flaming torch. I felt nothing other than a sense of warmth. But his hands were burned, horribly. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why. All I know is he couldn’t hurt me. Then my teacher came running across the playground toward me and hurried me inside. She acted like she didn’t see anything, so I did, too. But I know she did. I know she did, because she kept looking over her shoulder at the sky, and when she got me inside, she kept checking my arms where my grandfather grabbed me. But there were no marks.”
“And you’re depending on that happening again if he tries to lay hands on you?”
Jaime nodded.
“And what if he doesn’t try to touch you. What if he tries to shoot you, or stab you? Or what if he doesn’t even try himself. What if some of his guard tries to attack you? Just because you were protected from his personal touch once, doesn’t mean he can’t harm you.”
“It saved me before.”
“He was startled and left before he was detected. He’ll know better this time. It doesn’t guarantee your safety!”
“I know,” Jaime admitted and turned his back on her to start pulling clothes on.
“Jaime! They could kill you!”
Jaime pulled a shirt over his head and turned back to Ruby, still buttoning his jeans. “We think he killed our parents. He’s made both of our lives immeasurably painful. He treats his people as though they are his prisoners. He needs to die.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” Ruby said, real fear in her eyes.
“I don’t either. But I can’t let Tyrisey handle this alone. He is my brother. We just found each other.”
“Tyrisey knows it’s dangerous. He wanted you to stay out of it!” Ruby insisted.
Jaime smiled sadly. He kissed Ruby’s lips and walked over to his nightstand. He rummaged around for a moment before closing the drawer and coming back to her. He reached out his hand and Ruby immediately placed hers in his. He slipped a round solitaire ruby ring set in silver on her finger and raised his eyes to hers.
Ruby looked from the ring on her finger to Jaime’s face.
“I love you, Ruby. I’ll be back. I have you waiting for me so I won’t be long.” Jaime kissed her. “I can’t stay out of it. I have to help him. With me he’s got a chance. Alone, he’s most likely dead.”
He kissed her again quickly and hurried from the room.
Slowly, while staring at the ring Jaime had slipped on her finger before rushing away, Ruby sat down on the edge of the bed. Pearl walked into the room and quietly took a seat beside her. After a few minutes Pearl spoke in a soft voice, breaking the quiet that had descended on them. “Come out to New Mexico, they said. Get a new perspective, sexy bats and men. It’ll be fun, they said.”
Ruby burst into laughter that quickly turned into tears. P
earl held her and they both cried a bit together.
“So, what are we going to do?” Pearl finally asked Ruby once her tears had dried up.
Ruby looked at her like she was crazy. “What do you think we’re going to do?”
“We’re going to help our men!” Pearl answered.
“Yes the hell we are! Somebody’s got to save their asses!”
Chapter 21
Clarence chuckled as he grabbed up the white rook in his hand. “I’m on fire today, Francis. You better mind your P’s and Q’s or I’m gonna win!”
Francis snarled. “You’re cheating! That’s the only way you ever beat me!”
“No I ain't! I always beat you. You just don’t like losing! Can’t admit anybody is better than you at anything!”
Francis stood up, preparing to swipe the pieces from the board they played on, only a commotion at the front of the store stopped him. He turned his attention to Ruby, and a girl that looked just like her, only with tattoos, and piercings all over her body.
“What happened to her?” Francis asked.
Clarence looked over his shoulder to see who Francis asked about, and shifted Francis’ bishop while Francis was preoccupied. He realized that Francis hadn’t met Pearl yet. “Oh, that’s Pearl. She’s Ruby’s sister. Met her last night. That one’s a firecracker. Makes Ruby look shy,” he said, chuckling.
“Looks like they both fired up at the moment,” Francis commented.
Both girls spotted Clarence and started over, talking over each other. “Clarence! We need your help! And anyone else that wants to help us!”
“My help?” he asked, turning in the booth to face the girls.
“Yes! Ty is going to take on his grandfather. And he planned to do it alone, but Jaime found out, and now Jaime’s going to help him. And someone has to save their asses.”
Wings Page 17
