by Ann Gimpel
“That doesn’t exactly answer how my wolf found me.”
“In a way it does,” she replied. “Your need was great, and one of the unbound wolves heeded my wolf’s call. I’m looking forward to getting to know that side of you better.” A soft smile lifted some of the weariness from her features. “I already know your wolf is brave and selfless. It didn’t hesitate when it sensed your desperation.”
A shadow crossed his face, maybe because she’d just reminded him how close he came to being absorbed by the master vampire. His next words clinched her suspicions.
“I can’t think about that now. Not until I have more distance from it. Thanks for your explanation about my wolf, though. I’m going to collect some clothes from my chest. Back very soon.”
She wound her arms around his naked body, tracing the many cuts with her fingertips. Had the vampire made those wounds leaving? Her mind recoiled at the thought of how close she’d come to losing the man in her arms.
Elliott kissed her gently before disentangling himself from her embrace. “I love you, Tairin. Go get the bed warm for us. If I don’t leave now, I never will, and I’ll want clothes after we get up.”
She watched him walk away, his tread heavy and resolute, and crawled back inside her wagon. Dragging a rough, woolen blanket off a shelf, she wrapped it around herself and lay on a straw-filled pallet on the floor, making certain to leave space and part of the blanket for Elliott.
Weariness crashed over her as soon as she was prone. She tried to stay awake until Elliott got back, but the combination of stress and draining her magic to bedrock won. Sleep claimed her. She roused slightly when he settled next to her, but was asleep again before she could tell him she loved him.
Chapter 15
Elliott woke with a sleeping Tairin cradled in his arms. It was still dark outside, but chirping birds signaled morning wasn’t far off. He’d wanted to tell her so many things the previous evening. How much she meant to him, the life he hoped they’d share, but he’d been as tapped out as she. It hadn’t helped that Jamal waylaid him for a chat when he was pulling clothes out of his chest.
Mostly the shifter had wanted to reassure Elliott that he and Tairin would always have a place in shifter circles. He’d also extended an open offer of assistance as Elliott figured out his new magic. Though he didn’t say as much, he’d implied the Romani might be less willing to accept a mixed blood couple. And word about what happened to Elliott would spread like wildfire through the Rom caravans.
Tairin stirred and her eyes flickered open. A sleepy smile formed on her generous mouth. “Morning, handsome.”
“Morning, yourself.” He smiled back.
“How are you feeling?” She quirked a brow his way.
“Better than I have a right to.” He laced his fingers into her hair to move strands away from her face, loving the silky feel of her hair and skin beneath his fingers.
“None of us have a right to much of anything,” she said, and her tone turned serious. “Just getting up to fight another day might be the best we can hope for—until the Reich’s no longer in power.”
“If we can hold out long enough, we should have help.”
Tairin narrowed her eyes. “Your seer gift? You saw something?”
“Not really, but I can’t imagine the States not joining the Allies. And that pact between Germany and the USSR has more holes than Swiss cheese.”
The corners of her mouth twitched into a bigger smile, and she snuggled deeper into his embrace. “Why are we talking politics before the sun’s even up?”
“You tell me. What do you want to talk about?”
“Us. I never got a chance to tell you how much you mean to me.” She angled her head so she could look at his face. “When Jamal explained the vampire had found a way to keep on living—in your body—I was devastated. I would’ve done anything to save you. Anything. My wolf agreed.”
Elliott’s heart cracked wide open and spilled over. “Even though you put your own lives on the line. That was actually a tipping point for me. Meara had me buried in that vortex. I couldn’t see beyond it, but I could hear.”
“So you heard Jamal?”
He nodded. “Yes. When he said you and your wolf and the wolf I felt within me would be lost to darkness if I failed, that you’d absorbed some of the vampiric essence, I knew I had to try harder. Your wolf said the same thing earlier—and my wolf had been giving me nine kinds of hell—but none of it totally sank in. Your father’s words did. My death was one thing, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you succumbing because I’d been stupid enough to not pay attention to what looked like garden variety beetles.”
Tairin snaked a hand out from beneath the blanket and cupped the side of his face. “That part is behind us. If you ever want to talk about any of it, I’ll be here. Goodness and evil, dark and light, waged a battle in your body. It must’ve been hell playing host to something like that.”
“Doesn’t matter. The important thing is you’re here in my arms. I’m the luckiest man alive.”
Tairin scrunched her face into a wistful expression, her eyes reflecting a complex array of emotion. “Let’s hope you’re still saying that a year from now.”
“I’ll be saying it a hundred years from now. Or I think I will. One of the sideline benefits of my new shifter status has to be an enhanced lifespan.”
“Indeed it is. Look at the positives, eh?”
“Always. Even if most Romani bar us from their caravans, having you by my side is a more than even trade.”
Pale, gray light seeped through cracks between the wagon’s boards. Morning would be upon them soon. He had no idea what the day would bring, but it would be chockful of things to do. If he left the caravan, he’d need to gather all his things. He and Tairin—and perhaps Jamal and Meara—would have to find a place to stay for at least a few days until they could craft longer-term plans.
Before the day with all its problems rose to meet them, Elliott cradled Tairin’s neck in one hand and kissed her gently. He wanted to claim her, make her his, but the choice was hers to make. If it hadn’t been wartime, he’d have taken her to the fanciest hotel in Munich and requested the bridal suite. She deserved rose petals and soft linens, not a dusty wagon bed for their first lovemaking.
She also deserved the formality of being his wife. Before he could pull away, ask her to marry him, she wove her arms around his body and kissed him back, opening her mouth to his tongue. His body responded instantly, cock hardening where it pressed against her belly. He nibbled and sucked and bit her lips. She bit back, making little, mewling sounds as she explored his mouth with her tongue and lips.
Her hips bucked against his, and she sandwiched one of his legs between hers, rocking against him. The need to see her naked rushed through him, hot and primitive, but it was nippy inside the wagon. Easy to fix. Magic simmered through him until it enclosed them in warmth. Moving a hand between them, he teased the nearest breast. Delighted by how peaked her nipple was, he rolled it between his fingers, tugging gently.
Elliott didn’t want to stop kissing her lush lips, but he had other tasks for his mouth. He licked his way down her chin and neck, pushing her tunic out of the way so he could suckle the breast he’d been toying with. She arched her back, pressing her nipple into his mouth.
He took the other breast in his hand, twirling and teasing the nipple. Because he wanted both breasts, he moved them together and lashed his tongue from one to the other. She raked her nails up his back and tangled her hands in the trailing ends of his hair.
Breath coming fast, throat thick with desire, he let go of her breasts and tugged her tunic over her head. For long moments he gazed at her breasts. They were high and full and perfect. While he was lost in admiring her, she reached between his legs and curved her fingers around his rigid flesh.
“Convenient one of us is naked.” She grinned coquettishly. “I got cheated the other night when I didn’t get to see your body, but you got an eyeful of mine.”
/>
“I plan on an even bigger eyeful. Why do you think I made the space around us warm?” he joked back and unfastened the ties holding her skirt together.
She shimmied out of it and lay beneath his gaze, all flat stomach and long, shapely legs. Tawny curls beaded with moisture framed the vee between her legs. The musk of her arousal made it almost impossible not to plunge between them, but he needed to take this slow. She was a virgin, and he wanted today to be exceptional for her. His cock ached with yearning. So did his heart and mind, but he ignored his body’s pleas to hurry.
Tairin ran her fingertips the length of his shaft, and he shuddered, perilously close to release. “I love you touching me,” he managed between panting breaths, “but you have to stop or I’ll spend.”
“This way, I’ll get to watch.”
Raw hunger in her voice excited him, made him want her eyes on him when semen juddered from his cock. “I’d like that sometime, but not today.”
He wasn’t sure where he got the discipline, but he uncurled her fingers from him and knelt between her legs. Bending low, he kissed her stomach and then moved his mouth lower still until he fastened it over the sensitive nub between her legs. She writhed beneath him, her back bent like a bow. He slid first one and then two fingers into the tight hotness between her legs, feeling her muscles clench around him.
He nipped and sucked her nub, feeling her arousal build. When she was as close as she could get to release without tumbling over the edge, he withdrew his hand and straightened. Kneeling over her, he seated his harder than hard cock at her entrance and pushed inside, but very slowly.
Her nipples were puckered buds of need, and a beautiful rose color splotched her chest and face. She raised her legs and wrapped them around his hips, drawing him inside her scorching core. She curled her hands around his buttocks and pulled hard until his shaft was fully encased in her body. The sensation was exquisite, unbelievable. The feel of her tantalized him, making it excruciatingly difficult to keep to the slow pace he’d planned.
She thrust her hips upward, rocking her sensitive center against the base of his cock. “Move,” she exhorted. “You didn’t hurt me. Move. I’m so close.”
Elliott didn’t recognize the tortured moan that tore out of him as his voice. He withdrew and drove himself back inside, pounding into her as need overcame him. This was his woman. His. Lovemaking would seal their bond for now and always.
Her muscles clenched around him as release took her. He tried, but holding his climax in was as futile as controlling the tides or the rising sun. Semen boiled from him, hot, viscous, as his balls drained themselves. Panting and moaning, they ground their bodies against each other while their passion played itself out.
He let himself down atop her and wove his hands into her hair, cradling her head between his hands as he kissed her mouth, forehead, chin, and eyelids. Words felt inadequate after the wonder they’d shared, so he didn’t search for any.
Tairin splayed her hands across his back, holding him tight against her. “That was wonderful,” she murmured. “I want to stay here and make love all day, but I suppose we should get moving.”
He rolled them onto their sides and tucked her head into the hollow between his neck and shoulder. “Task mistress. In truth, I’ve been half expecting Jamal to roust us.”
She grinned. “He wouldn’t have. Shifters have good noses, and he’d know what we were up to.”
Elliott thought about his newly acquired magic. “So am I all shifter now? Or is part of me still Romani? How does that work?”
“I’m not certain. If you’d been human, and a wolf shifter bit you, you’d have become a shifter. Not been human at all anymore. That’s probably a question for Jamal.”
Elliott stumbled over his next question, but he wanted to know. “Our wolves. Will they make love too?”
“No. I had sex with regular wolves during that century I lived with them, but it filled a need for contact. My human side was so deeply buried, my wolf was afraid I’d lose it altogether, so it pushed me to be intimate with some of the wolves in the packs we ran with.”
Elliott was heartened by how much her wolf saw and understood. “Your wolf loves you.”
“Yes, and I love it. You’ll develop the same relationship with yours, but it will take time. Our bondmates are more spirit and mind than physical creatures. They’ll talk and play and take comfort from being together, but they won’t make love. I believe it has something to do with children. When we have them, they’ll be from my human body, not my wolf form.”
Children.
Elliott winced. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come inside you. I was so swept away by desire, I wasn’t thinking. I’ll have better control next time.”
“It’s all right.” She shot a pointed glance his way. “You wouldn’t know this because we never tell the men. One of the reasons human women visit Romani caravans is to get herbal remedies to eliminate pregnancies. And shifters control when we produce offspring.”
“So we’re taken care of on all fronts?” He furled his brows. At her nod, he went on. “I do want children with you—”
“—but not until we’re out of the middle of a war. I understand. It would be very difficult to have a baby right now. We’ll just have to make certain we live through this, so those children waiting in the wings get a chance to grace our lives.”
He gathered her close. “I like the sound of that. Tairin. Darling, Tairin. I do love you. Tell me you’ll marry me. I wanted to propose after we first woke up, but once you kissed me, you forced everything but loving you out of my mind.”
“Of course I’ll marry you. I love you too, you know.” Her words were garbled against his shoulder.
“I have to approve,” Elliott’s wolf spoke up.
Elliott waited. When the wolf didn’t say anything further, he asked, “Do you? This is the woman we almost gave up everything for. She means everything to me.”
Whuffling lupine laugher filled his mind. “Of course I do. Be happy together. You’ve earned it.”
Elliott gazed at Tairin. “How about your wolf? Is it in agreement?”
She smiled. “Oh my yes. It told me as much days ago.”
“So we’re covered on all fronts?”
“You bet.” She kissed him lightly, and twin howls cascaded through his mind from his wolf and hers.
Footsteps pattered their way along with the feel of Jamal’s magic. He tapped softly on the wagon’s door. “I know you two are up. I didn’t want to disturb you, but Michael and Stewart are on their way here, and I thought you’d want to be up and dressed for them. Meara’s back too. She arrived last night.”
“Out in a few minutes,” Elliott called.
He brushed his lips over hers in one last kiss and then dismantled the magic keeping a hive of warm air around them. “Knew I’d want these clothes.” He reached for the pile he’d left the night before and dressed quickly.
Tairin put her skirt and tunic back on. Getting to her feet, she dug a black woolen cloak out of a box and snugged it around herself. “What did you do with my shoes? Last I saw, they were dangling from your hand.”
Elliott thought about it for a minute and crawled to the far side of the wagon near the door to retrieve them. He stood, but had to bend his head because of the wagon’s low roofline. Tairin could stand, but the top of her head touched the ceiling.
His shoes must still be in Jamal’s car. “Meet you in the grotto or wherever Jamal and Meara are,” he said. Stockings in hand, he let himself out the door and went in search of the two shifters.
Jamal and Meara stood by the Mercedes. They looked up at his approach wearing worried expressions. Elliott opened one of the car’s back doors, rescued his shoes, and balanced from foot to foot as he slid first his stockings and then his shoes on. No one said anything.
“Looks like bad news,” he ventured. “Are either of you going to tell me?”
“No worse than we’d imagined,” Meara replied tightlipped. “I
did a spot of aerial reconnaissance after I left all of you. Convenient being a bird, particularly a vulture when bodies are burning. No one looks twice at you.”
“Or checks to see if you’re not what you appear,” Jamal cut in.
Meara made a chopping motion with one hand. “You already know about Hitler’s motorcade. Jamal told me it passed you. And you guessed correctly it was heading for the vampire nest.”
“How many more of those bastards are there?” Elliott’s muscles clenched into rocks.
“Four,” Meara replied. “Furious is an understated word for their reaction to finding the nest gone and their sire and compatriots dead. They ran about like a pack of truffle-sniffing pigs.” She shut her jaws with a clack. “It’ll be a miracle if they didn’t catch all of our scents from that killing field.”
“Vampires are exceptional hunters,” Jamal said. “They’re tireless and will track a scent for years if they’re bent on revenge. And they will be. Make no mistake about it.”
A deeply sinking sensation cut into Elliott’s earlier joy. “Someone has to tell the caravans.”
“I already did,” Meara snarled. “For all the bonhomie they welcomed me with. You’d think they’d have been grateful. Ach. It doesn’t matter. What does is you’ll have to go to ground. All of you.”
Tairin joined the group. “I heard most of that. It’s not any different from what we figured would happen yesterday. We extrapolated at least one vampire was in the motorcade. Four isn’t that many more.”
“Four now,” Jamal corrected. “They can make more far faster than we can reproduce, but I grant you that newly made ones aren’t much of a threat. Not for a good ten years or so.”
Elliott exhaled sharply and focused his next words on Jamal. “You said Michael and Stewart were on their way here. Why aren’t they seeing to getting their caravans moving?”
“Sorry. I wasn’t clear,” Jamal replied. “Their caravans are with them, and they’ll only stop here long enough to let us know roughly where they’ll be. After that, they’ll go to ground. I hope to hell Hitler keeps those vampires busy enough they won’t have time on their hands to go hunting.”
