Carolina Pearl

by Sela Carsen

  Conn scrambled to his feet behind her, and tossed the crowbar like a boomerang. It clipped him behind the knees and he stumbled over the last two steps. Aubrey landed on his hands and knees at the bottom, but recovered quickly and took off like the hounds of Hell were on his heels.

  Actually, she knew a couple of Hellhounds. Nice guys. A little intense. She sure could have used their help right now because she did not feel good.

  She wobbled to a standstill as Conn backed away.

  Wrong direction, big boy. She took two steps toward him before she realized at least one nail had gone a little deeper than muscle. It felt like someone was using a cheese grater on her spleen.

  She sat down abruptly, her haunches crumpling under her, and then pain consumed her world.

  A familiar scent neared, soothing, but not enough to take the edge off. He came closer and closer until his heat comforted her. Until his hands spread over her fur, stroking and caressing. But when his fingers began to probe at the jagged spears of agony in her side, the wolf appeared. She meant to snap the air near his arm, but misjudged. Skin parted lightly under the tip of her fang, tainting the air with no more than the promise of blood. He jerked his hand back and she whimpered, ashamed of her outburst. He stripped his shirt off and slowly returned to her, soothing and stroking at her ruff.

  The old lady spoke in her head again, murmuring warm mother sounds, calming her as the human poked and prodded and found the nail heads. She burned. Shifted. Changed. And faded out of consciousness.

  Chapter Five

  “Jesus Christ. Holy shit. Jesus Christ.”

  “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, boy.” Aunt Pinkney’s voice would have startled him, but he was currently all out of startle and well into his stock of what-the-fuck.

  “She’s…she’s…”

  “You might want to consider getting those nails out.”

  “I have to take her to the hospital.”

  “You can’t. They won’t know what to do with someone like her.”

  “Well, where am I supposed to take her, Aunt Pinkney? The vet?” Conn knew he was shouting, but he felt entitled.

  “Settle down, child. Take her down to the kitchen and see what you can do.”

  “What if she’s hurt inside? I could kill her if I move her.”

  “I doubt it, unless you’ve been using silver nails on your roof.”

  He shook his head and realized he was shaking all over. Oh please God, not Blair. Please don’t let her be hurt. Please don’t let her die. Reassured by his aunt’s words, he gathered her close for a moment before he pulled himself together and carried her downstairs into the kitchen.

  Other than some glass near the door, everything was still clean and tidy. He set her down on the floor, thanked God she was still unconscious, and got to work. He quickly scrubbed his hands in water so hot he nearly blistered, then brought a steaming bowl and a stack of dishcloths with him.

  He had to pull the nails out with his fingers.

  The first one was under her armpit and fairly shallow. It slid out easily, its passage eased by a trickle of fresh blood. The second, lodged in the flesh of her breast, was also simple. The third one, though. The third one was lower down on her side and it had hit bone. He wasn’t sure if the rib was broken, or if it was merely grazed. Either way, he ended up using a pair of kitchen shears as leverage to pull it out as smoothly as possible.

  As bad as the third nail was, the fourth was worse. The fourth hadn’t hit bone; it had gone between her ribs and hit blood. When he pulled it free of her body, instead of the seeping he’d seen before, he got a flood. It gushed out in pulsing spouts and he frantically pressed down with the towels, trying desperately to stem the tide that soaked through towel after towel with no end in sight.

  As he worked to keep the blood inside of her instead of pooling on the floor, he began to realize he wasn’t alone. More than just his aunt, the kitchen was filling with vaporous forms in costumes that varied from Pinkney’s 1950s housedress all the way back to knee breeches. Each form stretched a hand toward the fallen woman, then made way for one figure in particular.

  A woman in a Colonial-style gown with her hair tied back in a tidy bun came forward.

  “You’ve done well, Conn Lucas.”

  “I’ve killed her. She won’t stop bleeding.” His heart bled with her, dripping out onto the floor where the generations of his ancestors could step all over it.

  “You have the right of it, Pinkney. He worries overmuch,” she said over his head before answering him. “She will not die. Not by such a trifling wound, though it bleeds heavily.”

  Footsteps sounded. Real ones, not ghostly ones. A hugely pregnant woman came through his door, then stopped at the counter and put a hand under her massive belly. “Whew. That’s a hike to get over here.”

  Gabriel’s trumpet could blow this minute and it wouldn’t distract his attention from Blair. Was she getting paler? Was her breathing getting more shallow?

  “Hey, you,” growled a masculine voice as it came up the stoop. “You want to tell me why my pregnant wife decided to haul ass over to a stranger’s house in the middle of the ni—sweet Jesus. Blair?” He turned on Conn and snarled. “What happened to her?”

  “There was someone in the house. He broke in and went upstairs. He was standing in the nursery room door with my nail gun.” His voice broke and he tried to pull it together. “She…she jumped in front of me.”

  “Where is he? I’m going to kill him.”

  “Now Maddox, she’ll be fine,” said his wife. “You know she will. There’s no silver in those wounds, is there?”

  “No,” answered Conn.

  “Then it’ll be all right, Conn. These guys are unbelievably tough.”

  He shook his head. “She’s bleeding so much.” Still pressing down with one hand, he moved the other to caress the pearl at her ear, leaving a smear of blood on the dull glow.

  Debra—he knew her from her walks with Blair—lowered herself to the ground on all fours like a camel with the hump on the wrong side. “I am never going to get back up on my own.”

  Conn lifted the towel and used a fresh cloth and the hot water to wipe away the worst of the gore. She was still leaking a steady flow of crimson.

  “Is this the nail you removed?” she asked, picking up the two-inch spike.

  He nodded, beyond words now, and watched as she poked and prodded around the wound. She laid her hands over the black hole and concentrated for a moment. Conn swore he saw a soft golden light pulse around her fingers, but then it was gone.

  Debra leaned back with a gusty sigh. “She’ll be fine. Based on the placement, it’s possible she nicked something, but she’ll be healed by morning, I promise. You’ve cleaned it and you’re applying pressure. There’s not much more to do until she stops bleeding.”

  She reached up for her husband, and Maddox lifted her with relative ease, then pulled out a chair for her to sit on.

  Conn checked Blair’s side again and decided that the bleeding had slowed, seeping now in a sluggish flow. He didn’t understand any of this. “Hey, can you…” He looked around for a corporeal helper who wasn’t about to pop and spotted Maddox. “Can you grab one of the quilts off the couch for her?”

  “Not one of my prize-winning quilts! Why don’t you use one of those other blankets?” screeched Aunt Pinkney.

  Conn rolled his eyes. “Or maybe a blanket from my bed?”

  “I heard her,” said Maddox before he went in search of a warm covering for his sister.

  “He heard her?” he asked Debra.

  “Oh sure. It’s a werewolf thing,” she said, waving a hand breezily. “They can see and hear ghosts. Not too many humans can, though.” She didn’t quite pose it as a question, but her curiosity was unmistakable. He had no answers for her, though. He’d never seen one before he got to this house and now they were popping out of the woodwork.

  “He is my kin, after all,” said the Colonial lady. “I am Temperanc
e Cotesworth.”

  So that’s who she was. Not enough his aunt was hanging around. He also got to meet Great Great Great whatever Grandma.

  “Wow,” breathed his neighbor. “You’re the Swamp Witch.”

  Temperance smiled. “I believe the title now belongs to you, daughter of Morgaine.”

  Blair moved slightly and moaned. His attention snapped back to her as Maddox came in with a warm microfleece blanket. Conn wrapped her up and lifted her in his arms.

  “Y’all can stay and chat and have your coven meeting or whatever. I’m going to go make sure she’s comfortable.”

  Maddox stood in his way. “I think she ought to come home with us.”

  “Leave her here, Maddox. She’ll be fine. And your mother will be thrilled.”

  Conn had no clue what they were talking about and he didn’t care. He nodded to everyone, thanked Debra, and pushed past Maddox to climb the stairs to his bedroom.

  Once there, he gently laid her on the bed. He got a box of bandages and antibiotic cream, plus another warm, damp towel and cleaned the blood from her skin carefully and thoroughly. Before his eyes, however, the shallowest of the wounds seemed to be healing themselves. The third and fourth nail holes were still there, but no longer bleeding.

  He took his softest T-shirt from the dresser drawer and pulled it over her even though her nudity was unimportant now. He wanted her warm and comfortable more than he wanted to see her naked. The perfection of her body was secondary to the wounds she had received. For him.

  She had jumped in front of a nail gun for him.

  “What were you thinking, Blair? Why would you do that?”

  He received no response from his insensate savior, although he suspected she was more asleep than unconscious now. Her breathing was deep and even, and her color was back to normal.

  He heard the back door close and checked to see the lights were out in the kitchen. Maddox and Debra were gone. There were no ghosts around.

  They were alone.

  He stripped down to his boxers and crawled into bed beside her, making sure he lay against her unwounded side. Dim starlight filtered through the old lace curtains at the window and he watched her face as she sighed and moved, her brow furrowing slightly before she rested again.

  Tonight, it was enough to know she was safe in his arms. He’d deal with the werewolf thing in the morning. And then he was going hunting. With a nail gun.

  Chapter Six

  Morning sun angled across the room, leaving lacy patterns on the hardwood floor and over the foot of the bed.

  Not her bed.

  She turned her head on the fluffy down pillow—she liked firmer pillows—and saw something she’d gladly wake up to. Conn’s eyes were closed, and asleep, he looked so young. The lines that care and stress had given him were smooth, leaving only the soft brackets around his mouth.

  Stretching as much as she could without waking him, Blair felt the pull and ache in her side from…her eyes went wide.

  She was going to gut that son of a bitch with a hacksaw. How dare he shoot nails at her?

  Blair slid quietly out of bed and made for the bathroom. When she was done, she stripped off the T-shirt and stood in front of the mirror, examining the tiny pink holes in her side.

  There was a knock on the bathroom door and she said, “Come on in. I’m…” She was standing naked in a bathroom. Decent was probably not the right word, but she didn’t stop him.

  No, uppermost in her mind was the realization that he’d already seen her naked because he’d seen her Change.

  He stood in the open doorway, and in the mirror, she watched a remnant of terror leave his eyes.

  Without a word, he approached her, his eyes on hers. Not on her body, not on the scars that now marred her, on her eyes. He stood directly behind her, the cushion of air between them so fine she could feel the faintest tickle on her shoulder blades from the hairs on his chest.

  His fingers encircled her wrist, for once, not bending her to his will, but exploring. He lifted it above her head and looped it back so it rested behind his neck, pulling him closer. Only now did he look at her body, trailing gentle fingers over each mark.

  When he got to the lowest one, the one with the widest scar, though it was barely half an inch, he finally pulled her close and held her like a man clinging to his last breath.

  “You scared the hell out of me, Blair Moreau,” he murmured into her neck and she could do nothing but hang her head and let the tears fall. Then something subtle shifted. He pulled her arm down and spun her around so she was trapped between his hard body and the counter.

  The crippling heartbreak was gone from his eyes, replaced by anger. “What were you thinking, woman? Don’t you ever step in front of a nail gun—or anything else—for me again! I could wring your neck.”

  But the rising hardness between her thighs didn’t feel angry to her. The strength of his grip set her blood flowing faster, so she merely shook her hair back and whispered, “Yes, Conn,” before she reached up and bit him on the chin.

  Thought ended. Instinct took over. He reached up and fisted his hands in her hair, pulling her head back farther, then he ran his teeth over her jaw, down to her ear where he bit her on the earlobe hard enough to sting. She squealed and pushed herself up so she sat on the counter.

  Blair wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him into the place where she needed him most. She reached to pull his boxers down, but he stopped her.

  “No. You do what I tell you.”

  She moaned at the erotic order, delivered in his gravelly morning lawyer voice. She wouldn’t think of disobeying, not if he was going to do wonderful, lovely, sinful things to her if she followed his instructions. Instead, she let herself go, allowed him to take her where he wanted, sure it would be exactly what she wanted, too.

  He palmed her ass and yanked her closer, so she was barely resting on the edge of the vanity. Her arms he placed behind her so she could hold herself up, but not touch him. She laid herself open to him. Trusting. Welcoming. Waiting.

  There was no hesitation this time as he slid his hands over her waist and up her sides. He bent down to lick at each pink little scar, tracing a pattern on her ribs with his tongue that was so sensual, she shivered in delight.

  His hands continued up, the work-roughened palms scraping sensation over her skin until he reached her breasts. He pushed them up.

  “Look,” he told her. “Look at how beautiful you are in my hands.” She had no choice but to tip her head down and look. She didn’t see herself, though, except as she was held in his large, tanned hands. He was the beautiful one.

  He let his thumbs slide over her nipples, watching them bounce back, hard as glass, aching, burning for him.

  “Please,” she whimpered.

  Conn chuckled. “Soon.”

  Instead, he abandoned her, leaving her bereft, but not for long. No, instead he licked a path up the middle of her body, from between her breasts all the way to the tip of her chin. He blew on the wet trail he’d made and the cool, quick contrast made her shiver again.

  He tipped her chin to the side, exposing her throat to him. He leaned forward and gathered her close before he whispered, “Move.” He twisted his torso over hers and the friction of the springy hair on his chest on her swollen nipples made her catch her lip in her teeth.

  She moved against him, straining for more and more sensation, pressing for more and more of his heat, of his flesh on hers. Now they were nearly one flesh, melded together from shoulder to hip, only the thin cotton of his shorts in their way. She could feel him rocking against her exposed, wet heat, seeking the relief she could provide. In this one way, they were equals right now. Each wanting the same thing.

  He held her hips, rubbing his thumbs over the crease of her thighs where they were pulled against him. His lips teased over her throat, following the vein that tightened and rushed under his caress.

  Conn opened his mouth and let his teeth take over where his lips left off
, scraping down her throat to the exposed tendon. Her screams of bliss from the night before still rang in his ears, but this time, he wasn’t going to stop. This time, he would unleash his desires on her without mercy. He needed it—needed her—too badly to let mannerly constraint stop him this time.

  And she was so ready. He felt her sex leaving damp heat against the front of his shorts where he teased her with short, hard grinds. He opened a drawer and pulled out the box of condoms stashed there, tore one packet off the strip with his teeth.

  “Oh God, yes,” she panted, her hands still behind her exactly where he’d put them. He could see the whiteness of her knuckles as she strained to keep herself there and he decided to reward her obedience.

  He bent and licked one nipple before sucking it deep into his mouth. Pressing it hard between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, he suckled and hung on while she cried and bucked beneath him.

  Blair was loud, the echoes of her cries bouncing back against the cold tiles of the bathroom. He loved it, encouraged it by flicking his thumb over her other nipple, with another strong pull on the one in his mouth. Her flavor on his tongue was an aphrodisiac in itself. The heady scent of sex underlaid with fresh, green spring and…he sniffed. Wet dog?

  Conn sucked again, molding her other breast in his hand, squeezing the nipple between his fingers just to hear her breath catch. He pulled away with one final lick and dropped his boxers around his ankles, kicking them away. He ripped open the packet, but didn’t put it on. Instead, he handed it to her.

  “You do it.”

  Her eyes glowed like the wolf of the night before, all gold and amber, rather than her normal human blue and it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his life. Conn knew that he should be afraid of a woman who changed into a wolf, but she’d protected him, trading her safety for his own. Spilling her own blood for him. Blair Moreau could turn into an eight-foot tall, face-eating monster and unless she did it right now, he wasn’t stopping.

  Her fingers were cold and her hands shook, but it was perfect. The light strokes of those chilled little fingers added a shocking wake-up sting to his cock, and he couldn’t wait couldn’t wait to open her up.