Her laugh let him know she thought he was full of shit but didn’t care. The sun was shining, and for this moment, she was a kid learning to fly.
He smiled. Now if he could just get her mom out here, he might be able to clear up a few other misapprehensions.
17
It was too much to hope that he would be able to get back to Miranda without interference. These Reapers made the biddies at a church social look uninvolved. What was a surprise was who it was that accosted him halfway back to the house after dropping Wendy off at Addy’s.
Cole nodded to Blade. “Afternoon.”
The enforcer grunted and matched Cole stride for stride. The sheer nothingness of Blade’s energy told Cole whatever was on the man’s mind was weighing heavily.
“Word is that you’re planning on leaving?”
“You don’t strike me as the type to listen to gossip.”
“It wasn’t gossip.”
Cole tipped his hat back. “Just what exactly is your interest in my comings and goings?”
“Everything involving this set of Reapers involves me.”
“Really? Last I heard you weren’t even part of this pack.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You seem to be in a lot of places.” Cole folded his arms across his chest. “And from what I’m told, everyplace you show up, so does trouble.”
“You think I bring it?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Maybe I’m just warding it off.”
“Only God can tell what’s going to happen before it happens.”
“True, but a man with enough information can make an educated guess.”
This time there was no mistaking the touch of the enforcer’s mind. Cole slammed his shut. The enforcer smiled and cut through Cole’s defenses like a hot knife through butter. The touch was light, but it said all that Cole needed to know. There would be no secrets from this man. Cole growled under his breath.
Blade growled right back. “You need to make decisions, human.”
Cole stopped and faced Blade. “You say ‘human’ like it’s a bad thing.”
“Only because you’re mated to a Reaper capable of producing children. The mother of a child likely capable of breeding. Keeping them both yours, keeping them both safe, is going to be a full-time job.”
“And you don’t think I’m up to it?”
“I don’t think any human is up to it.”
“I’ve already taken out four of your Reapers at one time.”
“Then next time they’ll send six.”
“You’re saying the pack won’t protect Miranda?”
“I’m saying you need to make a choice, either pack or human, but you can’t live straddling both worlds.”
“Why not? Seems whatever I am now, it’s a nice compromise.”
Blade shook his head. “It’s not enough. Not in these times.”
Cole folded his arms across his chest. “So you’re saying they’ll no longer be pack if they’re with me?”
“I’m saying you’re going to have too many enemies from within the pack and out. It’s not like Clark’s going to disappear. He’s been ostracized but he’s still lurking around. Haven’t you felt his energy?”
Cole shook his head. Truth be told, he hadn’t felt much besides Miranda.
Blade snorted, “Young lust.”
“Young? You’re close to my age.”
Blade looked at him and smiled an enigmatic smile. “So you think.”
“You saying you’re older?”
“I’m saying there are a lot of things you haven’t considered. Like the fact that Reapers don’t age the same as humans, and if you stay human . . .”
Knowing he would age and Miranda wouldn’t tore him up, but it wasn’t something he was going to tell the enforcer. “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
Blade shook his head. “What I’m trying to make you understand is you’re already standing at the foot of it. You don’t have a choice anymore. You need to decide where your loyalties lie.”
“My loyalty is always Cameron.”
“And where does that leave Miranda and Wendy?”
“They’re Camerons, too.”
“You’re one stubborn son of a bitch.”
Cole smiled. “So I’m told.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed, and then what’s going to happened to them?”
“Again, are you telling me they are no longer pack if they are with me?”
“It’s more than pack. Mates are for life and then some. Miranda’s life is going to stretch a long time, and it’s tough to be lonely for a long time.”
Something flashed in the other man’s energy. Cole looked at Blade more closely, but it was gone as fast as it had appeared. There was nothing soft about Blade, dark eyes, dark hair, dark energy, and an expression as tough as rough-hewn steel. Had to be the human in Cole, but he had a nonsensical thought that maybe the man was lonely.
“Considering we don’t even know what I’m capable of now as this ‘something different,’ I’m not feeling a rush to go all in. This may be enough.”
“One more bite and all doubts go away.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It makes sense.”
It did, but making sense didn’t make it so.
“The Rogues won’t keep hunting Miranda and Wendy if I convert?”
“No, they’ll hunt them.”
“Pack won’t want to try to take them from me?”
“Yeah, they’ll want to.”
“Then how will my problems go away?”
“Because you’ll have the power to stomp them into the ground.”
“What makes you so sure I don’t have that power now?”
Blade smiles had a definite edge. “Ask me again when you’re Reaper.”
“I’ll never take that step. I’m a Cameron, I’m human, and that’s just how it is.”
Blade growled under his breath, “You don’t know what you are doing.”
“Maybe not, but I’m doing it anyway.”
“Stubborn fucker.”
“Takes one to know one.”
Another snarl.
Cole looked down the path toward his house, the little one-room shack he shared with his woman who made it feel like a palace. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her except this one thing.
“And that’s the only thing she needs from you.”
“Stay out of my head, Enforcer.”
“Wake up before that woman and that little girl pay the price.”
This time it was Cole who snarled. Why the hell did everything have to be so complicated?
Could you live without her? The thought entered his head.
Cole jammed his hat on his head, before sending back, No.
He was halfway to the house when Blade asked one more question.
Do you want her living without you?
He didn’t give an answer because he didn’t have one.
When he got to the house, Cole’s mood had definitely turned sour. He opened the door without preamble. The scents of venison stew and fresh-baked bread surrounded him. Even though he knew Miranda had heard him when he entered, she didn’t turn around. He wondered if the others had been working on her as hard as they’d been working on him. He wondered what effect they’d had. Their romance had been more like a tornado sweeping across the plains than a slow, steady affair. Nobody trusted a tornado. Maybe she didn’t trust him.
Setting his hand on the back of the chair he said without preamble, “I had a talk with Blade.”
The spoon banged on the side of the cauldron. Miranda’s shoulders tensed. “You’re leaving?”
Why the hell would she think that? “Turn around, and I’
ll answer that question.”
He wanted to see her eyes, feel her energy. Despite her promise, she still tried to hide from him sometimes, but she never could when he was looking into her eyes.
Miranda laid the spoon carefully on the shelf by the mantel and turned. She’d unbuttoned the first two buttons of her dress in deference to the heat, revealing the hollow of her throat. He could see her pulse pounding under the soft skin, a few beats too fast to be normal. She was nervous. He couldn’t blame her.
“I’m turned,” she said, arms folded under her breasts, boosting those delicious mounds into prominence. He wanted to unbutton each of the remaining buttons, one by one, tasting her skin as he did, until he hit the barrier of her arms. The nerves under his skin tingled.
“We can’t stand at war with each other.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware we were.”
“I know what you want.”
“You do?”
“You want me to take that third bite.”
Sighing, she brushed her hair off her forehead. “What I want to be is human, but I can’t be changed back.”
“Whatever I am now is as far as I’m going, Miranda.”
He wanted her to understand that.
She nodded. “I understand.” Rubbing her hands down her skirts, she repeated, “Believe me, I understand.”
She said that so fervently. So honestly. Which made what she’d done make no sense. Passion could account for some of it, but Miranda was a strong woman with strong convictions. And she didn’t believe in tricking someone without good cause, which could only mean one thing.
“There was another reason you bit me, wasn’t there?”
He could feel her building a lie, shielding her thoughts.
With a slice of his hand he cut through the pretense. “The fucking truth, Miranda, for once let’s just have it between us.”
There was a long pause in which her anger lashed at him and her fear.
He didn’t care anymore what had bound them together, but he wanted that bond set in the truth, not in some prettied-up farce. “Why?”
“Wendy’s human.”
“You said that before. Now, finish it.”
The words burst from her as if they’d been dammed up too long. “You’re human with family, a home. A future. If anything should happen to me, I want her to know what it’s like to go to a social. I want her to know what it’s like to play with little girls, to have hopes, to have dreams. I don’t want her growing up alone as a Reaper. I don’t want her facing men who think they can take her just because she has the potential to mate. I want her to know love. I want her to know happiness.”
It all made sense then. “You want her to have everything you lost.”
She nodded.
“One question.”
She looked at him.
“What makes you think I’m ever going to let you die?”
The smile she gave him was sad, as if she had knowledge she couldn’t share.
He took a step closer. “If push came to shove between the two of us, me being human, I’d be the one going first.”
She smiled again but didn’t respond, and he knew, son of a bitch, he knew what she thought, why she was holding him at a distance. Why she was all right with him not taking that third bite, and it had very little to do with his wishes.
“You think they are going to come for you, don’t you?”
“They will. If not Clark, somebody like him. Or a pack like him or one of the fanatical Rogues who believe that I’m unnatural and a temptation away from the path and need to be burned at the stake, like the witches of old.”
“There’re that many sons of bitches out there?”
She nodded. “This pack isn’t big enough to fight them all, and eventually they will have to make a choice.”
She’d thought it all out. “You or them?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to surrender, just like that?”
“No, but no matter how I fight, I’ll eventually lose.” She took a breath and added, “And die.”
The knowledge lay between them. Cole took a step forward; she stiffened. He took another. Two more was all it took to get to her side. Reaching out, he ran his fingers down the scars on her cheek.
“It takes a heck of a lot to kill a Reaper.”
She nodded. “But you need to promise me something.”
“I’m not making blanket promises.”
“This you need to promise me.”
“What?”
“If we’re in a spot and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get out, you take Wendy, and you run with everything in you, and you take her home and give her what I can’t.”
“Normal.”
“Yes, normal.”
Son of a bitch, just the thought of her in a fight made his gut twist. Leaving her behind to face rape or death? It would never happen. “China doll, there is no way on God’s green earth that I could ever walk away and leave you to fight my battles.”
Her fingers circled his wrist, and her eyes sought his. There was passion in her touch, but there was also desperation, a mother’s love for her daughter. Her belief that this could work. Her need for him to believe it, too.
“I’ve had my life.”
“Your life is just beginning.”
She shook her head and repeated, “I’ve had my life, and if my dying means that Wendy gets hers, then that’s a choice we have to make.”
“Like hell.”
“Promise me.”
He couldn’t promise that. “Fuck.”
“Promise me.”
“I can’t make that promise.”
She didn’t let go. Wouldn’t let it go. Her nails dug into the back of his hand. “Promise me.”
He growled at her as the scent of his blood tinged the air. “I promise you I’ll make sure she is safe.”
She growled right back. “Even if it means you leave me behind.”
“Fuck.” He didn’t have any choice. She was right. He had to promise. If he was the only hope, he had to save Wendy. The words came out harsh and angry. “Even if it means I leave you behind, if there’s no other choice, I’ll save our daughter.”
But he would never allow it to come to that. He would never, ever let her make that choice.
Miranda rested her forehead against his chest. “Thank you.”
They weren’t done. With a finger under her chin he lifted her face to his. “Now you make a promise to me.”
She nodded.
“It’s my choice to stay human, or whatever the hell I am now, no matter what.”
She nodded.
“If I’m down and I can’t speak for myself, I want you to make me a promise. No matter what, you don’t change me.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked. “I won’t.”
He wanted her to understand he understood. “Blade went into deep detail to explain to me the difference between Reapers and humans. He’s a persuasive S.O.B., but I’ve thought this through.”
“I promise. I won’t let anyone take your humanity from you.”
“Thank you.”
He slid his fingers across her cheek, hooking them behind her head, pulling her closer.
“Where’s Wendy?” he asked.
“She’s with Addy.”
“They’re going to start thinking she’s theirs.”
“You know Addy loves kids.”
“I know.”
“And having Wendy around makes her smile.”
“I know.”
Cole pulled Miranda closer, until her toes touched his and her breasts grazed his chest. “And having you in my arms makes me smile.”
He ran his finger down her throat, chuckling when she swallowed hard.
<
br /> “What makes you smile, china doll?”
Her hands locked behind his neck. “You.”
“Good answer.” With his thumb he tipped her chin up. When he lowered his head, she was ready for him, her lips parting, her breath mingling with his. She accepted his dominance and his desire with a shuddering sigh, taking his next breath as hers.
“It drives me crazy when you do that,” he told her.
“Do what?” she whispered against his lips.
“Go all soft and compliant in my arms. You give me that silent permission to do anything I want to you.”
“I’m your mate.”
“That just makes it sweeter.” He looked over to the fire. “How long has that stew got to cook?”
“About an hour.”
“More than enough time.”
She shook her head with a smile. “You made love to me this morning.”
“That was this morning. I find I’m hungry all over again.”
“You’ll create a scandal.” Despite the words she was rubbing her hips across his.
“Don’t tell anybody.”
“But how will I brag if I don’t tell?”
He stopped midkiss. “You brag on me?”
She smiled softly. “Just a little.”
He decided he liked that.
“What do you go telling the women?”
“I just let them judge how happy you make me by the width of my smile.”
“That’s why you’ve been grinning ear to ear?”
She nodded. “That and because I’ve been happy.”
He stroked his fingers from her temple to her chin. She was smiling at him now, lips slightly swollen from his kiss. His china doll, all happy and soft and warm and teasing. Such a big change from the woman he’d met just a few days before, the one who’d looked at him with fear and trepidation.
As natural as breathing, his hands went to the buttons on her dress, and as they slid free, one by one, he followed his fingers with little kisses, until the depth of her cleavage was displayed in a sultry invitation. In a moment of silliness, he buried his face between and blew a raspberry. He felt stupid as soon as he did it. She laughed and clutched his head, and when he looked up, he realized stupid was the right thing to do. Because now she looked as carefree as he wanted her to feel. Like the girl he wished he had had a chance to know before life had scarred her.
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