by Stormy Glenn
Beau had carefully washed, dried, and unwound the ragged strips, and now they lay in a line, waiting for him to finish cutting up Dario’s shirt. Beau would use the pristine cream strips of his mate’s shirt and intertwine them with the dark blue strips of the old rug into a long, braided tail. He had already cut other pieces of material he had found around the house and would add them to lengthen the tail.
Once the length was long enough, Beau would fashion the braid into a flat circle, starting in the middle. As he continued to wrap the braid around, Beau would sew the edges of the braid together until it resembled a round rug.
Beau wasn’t sure how large he was going to make the rug. For sure, he wanted it to fit this bedroom, but Dario was the owner of the mansion and maybe he would want to move into the empty master suite down the hall. And if he wanted Beau to share it with him, the rug had to fit that room. Man, he would have to find a lot more material if that happened.
The bedroom door opened and Dario strode in, looking all hunky and yummy.
“What is this you are creating, my daring?” Dario asked as he surveyed all the different items littering the floor.
“A rug,” Beau answered.
He began braiding the strips together, his nimble fingers weaving the different fabrics into the braid as he went along.
Dario touched an orange and white strip with the toe of his boot. “Isn’t that the curtain from the parlor?”
“Um.” Beau bit his lip and concentrated on making the braid perfect. “Is that what the curtain in the parlor looks like?”
Dario reached down and picked up the collar and the front strip of buttons from one of his shirts. Beau hadn’t used those pieces for the rug. While holding it between two fingers, Dario raised an eyebrow at Beau.
Beau figured he could handle this situation two ways. Play dumb or go on the offense. Taking a deep breath to try and cool his heated skin he decided. Offense it was.
After setting the braid on the floor, Beau stood. Snatching the scrap of fabric from Dario’s hand, Beau threw it over his shoulder.
A huge smile spread across Dario’s face. “What are you up to, my darling?”
“Bunnies have needs, mate,” Beau informed Dario. “I have needs.”
Beau made sure every step he took toward his mate included an exaggerated sway of his hips. His reward was Dario’s eyes widening and his nostrils flaring. Beau didn’t stop until he was standing between Dario’s wide-legged stance and pressed up against his mate’s body.
“I can smell your heat.” Dario’s voice had lowered at least three octaves. The deep, rumbling bass sent shivers down Beau’s spine.
“I burn for you.” Beau wasn’t exaggerating. His body felt as if it were going to combust.
Dario’s arm tightened around Beau’s waist and swept him off his feet. “I won’t stop until you are so satisfied you won’t be able to move.”
Sweat broke out over Beau’s body. In the back of his mind, he knew he really was in heat, and from the look on Dario’s face, his mating heat was bringing on Dario’s bloodlust. Oh, ho, this was going to be interesting.
Beau looked up into Dario’s red, glowing eyes and admired the sharp, white fangs sticking down over the handsome man’s lower lip. Oh, the pleasure those fangs gave Beau. He shivered thinking about the pull of Dario’s mouth on his neck.
Let the fun begin.
“Bring it on, vampire,” Beau challenged.
Skin sliding against skin and the fresh, sweet scent of his one and only worked through the thick haze of red cloaking Dario’s mind. Moans of pleasure reached his ears, and something about the parlor curtain.
Tight, wet heat engulfed his throbbing cock and rich blood filled his mouth. Dario couldn’t stop moving, seeking, loving. Ecstasy was spurred on to greater heights by sharp nails scraping long strips from his back and teeth pinching his neck until the skin broke.
Dario’s cock thickened wider than it had ever been before. Wider still it grew, until he couldn’t move. Bright bands of gold sliced through the haze piercing through Dario until it found his soul and exploded in a fiery mixture of white, gold, and orange streamers.
Dario opened his eyes. Wide, dark eyes looked back at him from the most beautiful face that existed. Beaumont. His Beaumont. Dario could feel his one and only’s awe at what had just happened. What was happening.
Cum kept pumping from Dario into Beau’s welcoming body. Minutes passed. Beau’s skin took on a luminescent quality and his scent changed. Deep satisfaction filled Dario.
“What just happened?” Beau whispered and touched the corner of Dario’s eye. His fingers came away wet.
“Love, bonding, and life, beloved,” Dario’s voice cracked, just a little.
Beau smiled, and the understanding between them blossomed. Joy, excitement, and love ran through the mate bond that had grown more powerful.
“Cool.” Beau covered his mouth as a huge yawn escaped. “I think a nap is in order, and then how about we go see if we can find some lasagna? Wouldn’t that taste good?” Beau yawned again as his eyes drifted shut.
Dario frowned as he pulled his softening cock from Beau’s body. He wanted to stay inside his beloved forever. But that was not to be. If he didn’t go and get a warm washcloth to wipe off the spunk from Beau’s skin, his bunny would wake up grumbling about itchy, dried cum.
A few minutes later, Dario let the washcloth fall to the floor and pulled Beau into his arms. At this moment, life was beyond wonderful.
Chapter Nine
“What the hell?” Clay slammed his hand onto the table. “Lasagna and cinnamon rolls? Again?”
Dario hid his smile. After three days in a row, he, too, could have done without choking down the weird combination of sickly sweet and tangy spiciness, but a glance over at the utter bliss covering Beau and Baxter’s faces told Dario this wasn’t the last day they would be eating this meal. Besides, the exasperation in Clay’s tone alone made it sort of worth it.
“We need to have a meeting.” Clay looked around the table. His gaze was so intense that the groans emitted from the other bunnies stopped mid-moan. “Tomorrow, we are finally hitting that lab.” The word finally was emphasized.
“Hey, it wasn’t our fault you took a little longer to heal from the last mission.” The rings on Baxter’s finger clinked together as he licked frosting off the tip. “And we had to wait out Beau’s heat.”
Beau’s shoulders hunched and he sunk lower in his chair. That didn’t stop him from taking a big bite of lasagna. Dario put a protective arm across the back of Beau’s chair. He dared anyone to comment and make Beau feel uncomfortable.
“Well, I’m better now, and this mission is important.” Clay brought everyone’s attention back to him. “Basil has discovered large quantities of crates are being delivered to this laboratory and has traced them back to China. The security surrounding this lab is beyond anything we’ve seen before. I want to find out what is so important in this lab.”
“Is knowledge all you want, Barclay?” Vey asked. “Isn’t this also a rescue-and-destroy mission?”
Clay’s face became a mask of unemotional granite. The ever-present duck on his lap laid its head against Clay’s chest. The leader of the Battle Bunnies looked down and gently stroked his hand over the duck’s downy feathers.
Clay looked up and frowned. “I want to know what this lab is hiding. If you can somehow take a sample of whatever you find, do it, and then get the hell out of there.”
“So, you are saying we shouldn’t take the time to save any paranormals we find?” Bailey asked.
“We will get the sample and then blow the place to smithereens,” Clay stated, his voice a deadly calm. Too calm.
“But…” Baxter started to object.
“No!” Clay’s fist pounded the table. “You will listen and do as you are told.” Clay’s chair crashed to the floor as the man leaped to his feet, and still holding the duck, stalked out of the room.
“What the heck was that?
” Baxter’s question broke through the silence of the room.
“Has anyone else noticed that Clay hasn’t looked so good for a while?” Basil asked.
“Not to mention, he’s been acting more of an ass than usual,” Dominic pointed out.
“Hey, that’s our brother you are talking about,” Bailey objected.
“He has been crabbier lately…” Beau spoke up.
“What do you sense, Bailey?” Basil asked.
“Nothing,” Bailey replied in a quiet voice, “and that worries me. I’ve always been able to sense my brothers. Over the last several days, Clay has become more closed off.”
Bax let out a small snort. “More closed off?”
“More than usual,” Bailey said. “Clay has always been a little closed off, even when we were in the labs, but this…” Bailey shook his head. “It’s almost like he’s turned to stone inside.”
“Could it be something else?” Dario asked. “Could he be sick?”
“And that would make him an asshole?” Dominic asked.
Dario shrugged. What the hell did he know? He had been on the scene exactly a week. That did not mean he knew the man well, or any of the brothers and their mates. He knew Beau simply because they were mates and he had devoted himself to learning every last secret the beautiful man had.
“He’s never told us not to rescue anyone we found before.” Bailey’s voice was soft, almost a tremble. He sounded lost. “That’s kind of what we do.”
“And that’s what we will continue to do,” Basil said. “I understand that Clay wants us to figure out what they are hiding there, but this just feels wrong to me. If Clay doesn’t agree for us to free whoever we find, then maybe we need to rethink this entire mission.”
Bailey gasped, his head coming up. It was eerie how he stared right at his brother as if he could actually see him. It was even weirder to see Basil squirm under Bailey’s shocked look. “You want us to go against Clay?”
“One of the main things Clay taught us is to follow our gut instinct,” Basil said, “And mine is screaming that this is wrong.”
“Mine, too,” Bax said.
Beau raised his hand, but didn’t say anything.
All eyes turned to Bailey. Dario’s jaw dropped when the man’s shoulders slumped and he said, “Fine, but I think we need to confront Clay about this. The more closed off he becomes, the harder it’s going to be to get him to talk.”
Dario leaned down to whisper in his mate’s ear. “How do you feel about this, my darling? Is confronting Clay what you think we should do?”
Beau’s head turned and snapped back. “You’re asking me?”
“Your opinion is the only one I care about, Beaumont.”
“Oh.” Beau closed his mouth and then turned to look at the others gathered around the table. “I guess we should talk to Clay. I’m not sure confronting him is the right way to go, but Basil is right. This feels wrong.”
“Then you will not go.” After watching the brothers jump all over Dominic when he said something about Clay, Dario wasn’t about to mention how much he didn’t want Beau going on this mission.
Whatever was up with Clay might have been making everyone else feel uncomfortable, but Dario’s instincts were screaming at him that this whole mission was wrong. He just couldn’t figure out why, and he didn’t want to endanger his mate while he did.
Beau swallowed hard as he looked up at Dario. “You know if it’s decided we go, I have to go.”
Dario hardened his jaw. “I know.”
“Please don’t be mad at me.”
“Oh, love, I’m not mad at you. I could never be mad at you.” Dario tightened the arm he had wrapped around Beau’s shoulders and pulled him closer, pressing his mouth against the side of Beau’s head. “You, my darling, are my reason for living. I could no more be mad at you than I could stop breathing.”
Beau’s smile right before he leaned in and laid his head against Dario’s chest was all the reward he needed for not telling his mate what he really thought. He wasn’t mad. He was enraged, but not at Beau. He was mad at the people that had put his mate in a position where he was forced to endanger his own life to save others.
Dario could have happily gone on snuggling with his mate if Basil’s phone hadn’t beeped. The man jumped up and raced out of the room as if his feet were on fire. “What was that all about?”
“He probably has some sort of computer program running,” Bax said. “That little beep was his phone letting him know the program is done running.”
“What program?” Dario asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. Damn it.
Beau shrugged. “Who knows.”
“Basil has some sort of symbiotic codependent relationship with computers.” Bax snickered. “We’re pretty sure he’d mate with one if he could.”
Beau chuckled. “He sleeps with a small tablet under his pillow.”
Dario smiled down at his mate, loving the amusement on his face. “So, if I wanted a good in with him, buying him a top-of-the-line computer would be the way to go?” It could be arranged. He wouldn’t know how to do it, but Cealio would.
“Oh, man.” Beau’s eyes grew larger. “He would be your slave.” Dario started to laugh when Beau frowned. “Oh, wait,” Beau grumbled, “that might not be a good idea.”
“Not to worry, my darling, the only slave I want is you.”
Beau started to smile again. “Okay, that’s—wait, what?”
Before Dario could reassure his mate that he didn’t mean slave literally, Basil came running back into the room. “I think Clay heard us talking. He took the floor plans out of my office and took off. I think he’s going to hit the lab by himself.”
“Shit!” Every Battle Bunny present jumped to their feet and raced toward Baxter’s office.
“I’ll check his room,” Dominic said.
Dario, Vey, and Dominic raced after them, Dominic splitting off to run upstairs. They reached the office just as the bunnies came barreling out. Beau grabbed his hand as he ran past, pulling Dario along.
“I need to go get changed,” he said as he hurried up the stairs.
“What, where are you going?”
Beau glanced back over his shoulder with a look on his face that said Dario was being stupid. “After Clay.”
“The duck was locked in the bathroom,” Dominic said as he met them at the top of the stairs. The duck was quacking his little heart out as he waddled down the hallway. “There’s no sign of Clay anywhere and his mission gear is gone.”
“He did it,” Beau whispered as the blood drained from his face. “That rat bastard really did it. He went on a mission without us.”
“We’ll find him, Beaumont.” Dario didn’t have a clue how, but he’d search the entire surface of the Earth until they did. “Go get geared up. I need to make a phone call.”
Dario watched his mate hurry off down the hallway without a word of protest before glancing at Dominic. “How many soldiers should I call in?”
Dominic’s eyebrows shot up. “How many you got?”
Damn. Somehow, Dario had known Dominic would say that. “Hopefully enough.”
“You might want to have a few hang out here at the house. The housekeeper is always willing to watch the kits when we go out on a mission, but the more security there is, the better everyone will feel.”
Dario started dialing. Cealio could arrange to have a unit of his best soldiers sent to the estate. The moment his head of security connected, Dario gave him his orders. There were a small number of soldiers that had accompanied him and Alberto to the states. The rest would need time to get there. While they wouldn’t be available for this mission, Dario somehow suspected they would need them in the future.
Dario finished his phone call and then hung up. He turned to look at Dominic when the man continued standing there. “Was there something else?”
“Bax is carrying kits and he had some troubles with the pregnancy after the last mission. He’s not very far a
long, but these things go pretty quick. I’d prefer that he stay here, but if Clay is in trouble, I’d have better luck talking to a wall.”
“Carrying?” Dario gulped as he slowly lowered the phone, his gaze going to the door halfway down the hall. How had he forgotten that bunnies—male and female—could procreate? Beau had mentioned it before. Dario had been too interested in getting to know the beautiful man. The words hadn’t sunk in—until now.
“Bloody hell.”
Chapter Ten
Beau’s leg bobbed in agitation. He still couldn’t believe the vampire thought he could order him to stay back at the compound. When he had politely declined princey’s suggestion, scratching his nose with his middle finger, Dario actually told him that, at the very least, he’d better stay close to his side. The princey mistakenly thought that he and the troupe of behemoths that had showed up a few minutes before could protect him.
In retaliation, Beau had taken a total of two seconds to have the head behemoth, Cealio, on the floor with the guard’s own knife pressed against the overly muscled vampire’s neck. Beau had made sure his voice sounded bored when he asked, “And who is going to protect you?”
Having made his point, Beau had released the man’s head and let it drop to the floor before striding out of the mansion with his head held high, going to sit in the back of the van. A minute later, a red-faced Baxter was storming out of the house and climbing into the van beside Beau.
“Dominic tried to make me stay home because I’m pregnant. What’s your mate’s excuse?” Bax asked through their mind link as he shot the stink eye at Dominic as the wolf walked out of the mansion.
“Because I’ve been craving lasagna. He thinks I may be pregnant, too.” Beau lifted his chin and looked down his nose at princey as he joined them inside the van.
Bax turned and looked at Beau, his eyes dropping to Beau’s flat stomach. “Are you?”
Beau shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe.”
He scooted over and made room for Vey and Bailey when the two men climbed into the back of the van with them. As soon as everyone was inside, the van started moving.
