by Maia Dylan
Liam grin formed slowly, and there was more than a hint of arrogance in the look. “I’ll remember that for the next time I wake up well before you. And just for future reference? I’d love to be woken in the same damn way, whenever you get the chance.”
Neve grinned as she leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “You have a deal, Deputy Sheriff Barrett.” Neve went to lean in for another kiss, with thoughts of a decadent morning spent wrapped around each other, but stopped when Liam’s eyes widened into a look that clearly said, “Oh shit!”
She squeaked as he plucked her from on top of him and dropped her to the mattress beside her. “Shit! Sorry, baby girl, but I’m running late and if I come in late one more time, Ryan is going to have a conniption fit!” Liam apologized as he leapt from the bed, and dove through the door to the bathroom. Neve giggled at the incredible sight of her bear’s shapely ass moving rapidly away from her.
She pulled the blankets up around her, warding of the chilly winter morning air and snuggled further into Liam’s pillow. His scent surrounded her and she sighed deeply. She loved the way he smelled, and even though she showered daily, she knew that to shifters, she would always carry Liam’s scent.
A few minutes later, fresh from the shower, Liam barreled back into the room and went straight to his closet. “What are you going to get up to today?” Liam asked as he started pulling on a fresh uniform as quickly as he could.
“I’m heading back to my place to do some research with the girls.” Neve sat up, pulling the blanket with her, not because she was hesitant to see her girly glories to her bear, but had more to do with the fact that the air was chilly in the bedroom. “Ariana wants to look at the last part of the prophecy for like the millionth time. You never know, we might hit on something, right?”
Liam turned as he pulled on his jacket. “You know, while you’re there, you could pick up the rest of your stuff.” Although his tone was relaxed, Neve caught the tension that flowed beneath it. “You’re practically living here anyway and…well…I—that is um, you—Damn it, Neve!” He stalked from the closet and moved to sit beside her on the bed, caging her between his arms. “I love knowing that you’re here when I come home at night, and that I have you here in the mornings to wake up in any wicked way I like. Move in with me.”
Neve’s heart turned over at his cute stuttering request, and the way he growled the last three words. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he asked in surprise.
“Yeah, okay.” Neve nodded. “Liam, I’ve made no secret that I want to be with you. Hell, I’ve been throwing myself at you from the day we met with the hope that one day you would just give up and catch me. If you are seriously asking me to move in with you, and you mean it as a long term choice, then yeah I would love to.”
Liam’s smile made her melt just a little and she felt something within her click into place. She’d had some seriously awkward moments in her life. She had lived through the foster system, managed her way through the discovery that she could wield water and call the rain, worked out that land spoke to her through a connection to the earth she had never been able to fathom, and then discovered she was a warrior for a goddess in a war against a narcissistic demon hell bent on enslaving the world as she knew it. However, in that moment, when Liam asked her to be with him, it made everything worth it. As if she had merely been on a journey that was leading her here to this moment.
“I am seriously asking you to move in with me, and I mean it as a life-term choice, not just a long-term choice, baby girl.” Liam’s voice rang with a joy and happiness that mirrored her own. He leant in and kissed her gently before pressing his forehead to hers. “You won’t regret forgiving me for fucking up with you so badly, Neve. I promise you that.”
“I know, babe,” Neve reached up to cup his face in her hands, gently tugging him forward for another soft kiss. “And if you do fuck up again, I will forgive you because this is where I am meant to be. Here in your arms. Oh, and you should know that if you do require forgiving, I will flood your car and quite potentially your house.”
Liam’s soft laughter had her grinning. “That’s just one of the things I love about you, you’re a vengeful little thing.” He kissed her a third time, and Neve wrapped her arms up around his shoulders, kissing him back just as passionately.
“Damn it,” Liam murmured as he sat back with a sigh. “You certainly make it hard on a guy to get the hell out of this bed.”
“Well, to be fair, I do love making you hard,” Neve sassed with a sultry smile. Liam laughed with her then stood reluctantly from the bed.
“I’d better head out.” He grabbed his keys from the top of the dresser and turned to look back at her from the doorway. “I’ll see you tonight if not before.”
Neve blew him a kiss. “I’ll be looking forward to you coming home to me.”
“Home,” Liam repeated. “I like the sound of that.” He winked at her before he stepped through the doorway and headed to work.
Neve sighed gently, but couldn’t wipe the grin from her face. “Me, too.”
* * * *
“Regular sex with a bear definitely suits you.”
Neve frowned and turned to look at Casey where she sat across the table from her. “What?”
“It’s just that you seemed to have mellowed a lot since you’ve been banging the bear.” Casey grinned unrepentantly despite the disapproving look Maggie was giving her. “You smile more, and are a whole shitload less intense. Not to mention you’ve stopped trying to get us to learn dances better suited to people with a little more natural rhythm than us.”
Neve couldn’t stop the giggle that burst forth. “Hey, it looked easy enough on the internet!”
“Yeah, but we made it look like we were all suffering bouts of epilepsy!” Ariana added.
“What my ever eloquent daughter is trying to say,” Maggie said dryly, “is that you look happy, Neve. We know that there is a history and issues that exist between the two of you, but it makes us all very happy to see that the two of you are trying to bridge that gap, and still forge a future together.”
Neve smiled at the woman that was fast becoming like a mother to her. Maggie and Kingi had taken her under their wing and pretty much laid claim to her the moment she had stepped foot into Freedom Springs.
“On that note,” Neve felt heat flood her cheeks as she spoke. “Liam and I were talking this morning and he ah—well he asked me to move in with him.” Neve didn’t really know what she was expecting after her little announcement. Granted, she didn’t expect to have them light fireworks or sound trumpets, but she certainly didn’t expect the confusion that graced each and every one of their faces.
“Neve,” Ariana asked gently and Neve suddenly felt a little nauseous. Did they all think she and Liam shouldn’t be together? “We all kind of thought that you already were?”
Neve’s jaw dropped. “What do you mean? My stuff is still in the bedroom upstairs!”
“That may well be true,” Fiona said as she reached for her coffee cup. “But you haven’t slept in that room for weeks. And we have been thinking about what to do after we kick Aeron’s ass back to the Otherworld or into the afterlife and just so we are all clear, my vote is for the latter. We thought about opening this place backup as accommodation.”
“So, you were going to kick me out anyway, is that what you’re saying?” Neve said as she fought to hide the grin as everyone else in the room shifted uncomfortably.
“Neve, you will always have a place here,” Maggie’s warm tone was drowned out by a louder voice.
“Hell, yes we would have if we had to!” Casey said with a shrug. “You and Liam are soul mates. I don’t give a furry rat’s ass what the Fates have to say around the mating side of things. Apparently they get things wrong. The two of you are destined to be together. We would have pushed you out of the house and made the two of you talk long enough to come together as the couple we all know you should be. And if that gets a little pig-pen style
cloud floating around after me for the rest of my life so be it!” Casey threw her arms in the air in one of the dramatic gestures she was renowned for.
The room was quiet for a moment. Neve waited. She may have only known Casey for a couple of months now, but Neve knew she wasn’t done. “Besides,” Casey said haughtily. “You’re not the only one that can control an Element. If I’d ended up walking around as a constant walking wet t-shirt competition winner, you would have found it very difficult to walk through the quicksand that would appear before you with every step you tried to take.”
And there it was. Neve grinned.
“Well, thankfully we can put the war behind us then,” Neve said on a laugh. “I’ll grab the rest of my stuff before I head out tonight,” Liam said. Neve felt all the warmth drain from her body. Every single nerve and intuitive cell in her body screamed that something was wrong. She closed her eyes as she tried to pinpoint exactly what was wrong within her. Vaguely she was aware that the others around the table were calling to her, and asking questions but she ignored them.
She also ignored the crash of thunder in the distance. A sound of her making she was certain. Her emotions were riding high and she was reaching out to her elemental instinctively. Something had happened to Liam. Her eyes flew open and locked to Ariana’s.
“Call Ryan. Now. Call him and find out what the fuck just happened to Liam.” Neve’s voice was flat despite the energy surging through her body. She had no idea how she knew that Liam was in trouble, but she did. She watched as Ariana quickly pulled her cell phone from her pocket and made the call. Hearing one side of the phone conversation was almost killing her.
“Ryan, it’s me. Is Liam with you?...No?...Where did he go?...Are you able to call him on your radio?...Neve’s just had a similar reaction to the one Liam had the day she was shot for the first time.” Neve winced. “Okay.” Ariana placed her hand over the mouth piece and address the silent crows in the kitchen, all of whom were hanging on her every word. “Well? And that’s unusual?...Where was he heading when you last saw him?...Yeah, I reckon we’ll meet you there, love you.”
Ariana ended the call. “Ryan can’t get him on his radio. The last time he checked in he was out on the highway north, which is routine. The boys take turns driving the length of their jurisdiction each day just to do a visual check. When he tried to radio him, he got no answer.” Neve stood up so quickly the chair she sat on toppled to the floor with a crash. Liam was somewhere out on the northern motorway.
“We’ll all go!” Ariana called from just behind her and there was the sound of scraping chairs across the floor, curses as keys were located and then running footsteps. She reached her car, opened the door, but was pushed out of the way. She turned to curse out the person who bullied her out of the way and took the driver seat.
“Don’t even try it,” Kingi spoke before she could and continued into the driver’s seat. Deciding it would take too much time to press the issue, she flew around the hood as fast as she could and dove into the passenger seat. Kingi took off in a burst of dust as he tore out of their drive, turning the car to the north. “We’ll find him, little one. And when we do, I’m sure there will be a perfectly good explanation.”
“There had better be Kingi,” Neve snarled, desperately trying to reign in her control. Storm clouds were moving unnaturally fast in their direction. The last thing she needed to do was create a flash flood in the area. “And Liam had better be okay. If he has even so much as a paper cut, then there will be hell to pay. Hell hath no fury than a pissed off Elemental with the power to flood the whole valley!”
Chapter 6
Liam cursed his own stupidity as he hunkered down behind a fallen tree stump. He had fallen for a stupid trick that separated him from him and his vehicle. He had noticed there was blood on the side of the road during his routine drive through and had stopped to investigate. For some reason he hadn’t called it in, and that had to do with the scent he caught as he exited his squad car.
If he hadn’t known better, he would have said it was Agnes. Shocked, he had ran over to the blood stained road, and heard the whimper of a hurt animal, one he was fairly certain was a bear, coming from further within the forest. Again, another example of why he would now be considered for dumbass of the year, he hadn’t returned to his car, radioed in and grabbed his hand held as protocol would have dictated. No, he simply drew his service weapon and charged into the forest toward the sound.
He had been nearing the injured bear, when he had been shot. A direct hit to his right shoulder which had spun him around, but he had managed to remain on his feet. He had not, however, managed to keep a hold of his weapon. When a second round kicked up dirt at his feet as he went for his gun, he decided that retreat would be beneficial in this moment and had dived behind a fallen tree.
The air had reeked with sulfur which told him that whatever was happening, Aeron and his fucking butt monkey followers had something to do with it. Liam had reached for his own bear at that moment. His cursing had turned the air around him blue when he realized that his bear had been caged within him. And the roaring and pacing of his bear behind that telepathic cage that held him from turning, told Liam that he was un-fucking-happy about the whole thing.
“L-liam, h-help me p-please.” A soft feminine voice pleaded from somewhere in front of him and Liam felt his blood turn to ice within him. Agnes. His mind hadn’t been playing tricks on him when he stepped from his car, he had scented his mate. His bear roared a denial within him at his thoughts, and that just confused the shit out of Liam even further.
“Agnes?” He called out, the shock clear in his voice.
“Yes, i-it’s me. Please, Liam.” Her voice weakened and Liam forced himself to his knees so that he could look up and over the log he was hidden behind. His heart stopped at what he saw. Agnes was on all fours on the forest floor, naked and bleeding from wounds down one side of her body. A large man stood over her menacingly, holding what looked like an HK45 to her head. A deep dread descended over him when he realized it was in fact his HK45.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath he brought Neve’s beautiful face to the forefront of his mind. He was quite possibly about to his life ended by his own fucking service weapon and if that was the case, then he was going to make damn sure Neve’s face was the last thing he saw. Concentrating on her face, and her voice and her spirit calmed him better than any prescribed barbiturate on the market. He was suddenly flooded with strength and warmth. It was almost as if he could actually feel Neve with him, which was impossible, but he took the feeling and held it close to his heart anyway.
Growling at the injustice of it all, he stood up. It just wasn’t right. First of all the Fates fucked him over by mating his bear to a woman the man could never love, and that was very clear to Liam now. Since he had met Neve, he knew the man had been meant for her. There was no doubt that she was the other half of him, heart, mind, and soul. Then, he had been thrown into a battle to save the world, beside the very woman he loved more than anything else in the world. And now, he would be shot for being the stupidest fucking deputy sheriff in history and he wouldn’t have the chance to have the life he had hoped to have. With Neve by his side.
Climbing up and over the tree stump, he ignored the sharp pain that rocked through the gunshot wound in his shoulder. Maintaining eye contact with the fucker who had his gun, he raised his hands and walked toward the two of them. A constant growl had settled in his chest. His bear was confused, pissed off and just as frustrated as he was by the fact that they were about to be killed.
“Why don’t you take that gun off the woman’s head, and point it at me?” Liam’s voice was garbled. His bear might not be able to break free from whatever the fuck was holding of his shift, but he was definitely just below the surface. “After all, that’s my weapon, it seems only fair.”
“Nah, I don’t think so, dude.” The man grinned and Liam’s eyes narrowed at the light of insanity that shone in his eyes. Liam ha
d dealt with killers who were high on substances he couldn’t even name, as well as people who were just basically insane fuckers. But this bastard was something else. There was no one behind that stare. Just an emptiness that had Liam stopping further from him than he had thought he would. Something was definitely off, and every instinct in him told him to be on alert. No shit instincts!
“Liam, please,” Agnes sobbed from her position on the forest floor. Liam took his eyes of the man with the gun for a second and looked at the woman mated to his bear. Again his bear roared a denial within him.
Fuck up, you great big hairy pain in my ass! Mating this woman was your fucking idea, and I wanted nothing to do with it! Liam yelled back at his bear, but was confused when his bear bellowed in denial for the third time.
“It’s alright, Agnes. I called for help. The sheriff will be here soon.” Liam tried to put as much calming reassurance in his tone as possible, which proved difficult as his bear still pushed against the chains that held him in place and made his voice sound gruff and pissed.
“Now, why would lie about something like that,” the guy asked and Liam shifted his attention back to him. “I watched you at the road, and you never radioed anyone. You are talking a huge pile of shit, my man, and if you keep going, you may just end up drowning in it.”
Liam tried to send thoughts to the woman that cowered on the forest floor. With the gunman’s attention firmly on him, she had a chance to scuttle away toward the safety of the forest. “You’re a funny guy for a man who thought it was okay to shoot a woman, asshole. Did you make her strip off before or after you shot her? Is that how you get your jollies, you sick fuck? You gotta have the woman naked and kneeling at your feet bleeding just to get it up?”
