by Livia Quinn
Afterwards, we lay on the grass nearby. I couldn't wait to tell Kat that we were snuggled up next to each other, spooning. Goddess, never in my life had a sound of contentment like the one I'd just uttered come from me.
His chest rose with a deep inhale and he gave a long sigh as well. His fingers stroked my hair and then in that beautiful baritone he began to hum. Conor loved his music. What would it be this time, Imagine Dragons? Aerosmith? Then he sang,
"Before gods hung stars in the heavens,
I searched for you.
Before I knew you would mean everything,
I dreamed of you.
I loved you even before I found you and
Now I'm yours, heart, body and soul."
I gulped.
He peered down at me sweetly, "I wrote that meself, ye ken? For you."
I'd been about to try to stop his descent into gushy love talk when the depth of his feelings hit me like a tide. Waves of love washed through me, wrenching my resistance loose from the crusted depths of the long held, self-imposed restraints on my emotions. Tears clogged my throat as I gripped his hands. He continued to hum to me until he sensed the storm had calmed then he made sweet, slow, tender love to me under the sinking moon.
I dozed in his arms after that but woke to the sound of waves lapping at the shore as shades of light from the approaching dawn brightened the edges of the horizon. I turned over so I could drink in the sight of my big gorgeous dragon as he stalked out of the waves toward me, a sly smile on his handsome, cocky face. Well, hell, he had good reason.
I scuttled back. "Oh, no. Enough distractions."
He stopped, smiling, "Distractions?"
I pointed at him. "You know you're distracting, don't act like you're clueless, you arrogant… dragon."
He laughed. "Ach, more compliments!"
"Enough! I enjoyed the interlude, really enjoyed it." I stroked his cheek with my palm, "but it's time to get serious."
"I've been as serious as I can in attending you, my love. I have not played with your—"
"I know. I love you, too. Now, how about some answers." Conor's brows rose and he smiled broadly.
"About… the Moat. Why were all those variants there?" The questions rolled out one after another. "And why weren't they in human form? That place is more than just a bar. Goddess, was that a magical beach or is there some kind of elevator system in the lake? And Dutch and River, I mean, what was River doing there… and Phoebe, I saw her on the beach as well, playing with waterspouts. River looked bad, Conor. And while I'm at it, who is Alejandro? No," I put a finger on the grin that was widening on his face. "What is Alejandro Obejoyo?" I took a breath.
"'er you done?"
"Probably not, but it'll do for a now. Start talking."
Chapter 23
"There's enough crap in your coat to start your own wildlife preserve."
Montana
Conor flopped down next to me and leaned back, his bulging biceps supporting his weight. Even that was distracting. "Fierce Winds Isle is the center of the leylines in this part of the world and as such has always been a source of magic for People of Power as Jack calls us. The Collecte agreed after the pact had been signed that outsiders could still enter under certain conditions."
"But doesn't it create a problem allowing creatures from outside the Collecte?"
"Sometimes, but the ancients were about peace, and felt that, as a place of healing and rejuvenation, it could be a bridge between species who were willing to follow the strict directives. First, no one may enter unless a member brings them, and even that provided they have not been guilty of violence on a prior visit. No use of deadly force, and all creatures must be easily recognizable, thus the—"
"Tails, whiskers and multiple appendages."
"Exactly!"
"You know you could have given me a heads up before we entered. What happens if someone uses deadly force?" I asked, suddenly glad the troll hadn't chosen to test me.
"There are consequences, aye, which have been forestalled for the most part by the possibility of being banished, or worse. This morning there was an incident…"
"What happened?"
"Dutch said a wind fae confronted him and River saying he'd been 'told' the Pomeroys stole his power." He looked off, his attention somewhere else.
"Conor, why did you take me there? I mean, I've been to the Isle once, many years ago but I never knew about the Moat of Morpheus—Goddess, what a name for a bar. So why now?"
Conor's eyes wandered over me like he was remembering our night, his declaration of his feelings. His big hands rose and he cupped my shoulders. "Just in case…"
Alarmed that he wasn't telling me everything, I demanded, "What do you mean?"
"There was no reason to reveal the Moat's secrets until there was a pressing reason…"
Goddess, Conor, come out with it.
"Dutch and I talked about it. With the loss of Dylan as a defender and until Jack develops into his full potential, Paramortals like you and Tempe will have to play a larger part in Destiny's protection, so we must inform ye both, ye ken?"
"Teach us the secret handshake?" I quipped. "I see." But I could tell he was holding something back.
"Come, I'll drop you back in town before the sun comes up," but he took the time to give me a deep kiss, closing his eyes and inhaling my scent as he released me. When he opened them, his expression was…untroubled, like he'd settled something once and for all. "I love you, Montana."
I placed my head on his powerful chest and allowed myself to absorb his strength, listening to the steady beat of his strong heart. "I—" but I was too late responding. He'd shifted settling me onto his back as he lifted into the sky and turned toward Destiny. I changed on the 'flee'.
Kat
Midnight… and no sign of Dylan. It had been a long day as I tried to work while my mind strayed to his whereabouts, his safety, whether he would come back. When he returned, what could I do differently? I sighed, resting my chin on my palm as a wave of longing rolled over me.
I'd never allowed myself to get close to anyone in Destiny but Tempe had been relentless in her attempts to become friends. I'd ignored her at first but really, have you ever tried to stop a storm? She was an irresistible force when she got something in her head. Montana was scary… but when you got to know her, no, she was still scary. I smiled thinking about the first time I'd seen her pull that sword and take out a bully the size of a pickup truck outside the UPak-It. Then she'd turned those compassionate, protective eyes on me.
She's amazing. I guess her Dinnshencha just "knows" when a woman is in trouble. I didn't have to tell her anything about my past, still hadn't in fact, but she'd been the one to invite me to SOAPS night, and my initiation into Destiny's inner club had begun.
The first time the SOAPS gathered for night class at the community college I met Aurora and Bailey in a class on stargazing. Someone else was there, not a SOAP, who'd been instrumental in my getting the archiving job with the Tribune—Jane Fortune. Jane wasn't a supernatural and in her self-appointed job as the town gossip it's a testament to how clueless she is that she hasn't figure out Destiny's secrets.
Gradually, I'd found a place with a job and friends I hadn't expected to find ever again, but the biggest surprise had been Dylan. When I met him he'd been doing this weird dance around Tempe as if they were still an item, though they hadn't been together in two years. I was drawn to him and then, just before the Para-moon we made love. Para-moons are the mothuhs of chaos. The next morning Tempe arrived after a shocking night of her own to find Dylan and me together.
A twinge in my chest reminded me of the look I'd seen in his eyes this morning. I couldn't shake the sense that our souls were trying to connect.
I leaned over the keyboard and resumed working, my emotions in turmoil. The sound of claws screeching across the metal door of the hearse made me leap up. I pushed my chair back, and pressed the latch to the screen door.
The door swung open
and Dylan nudged the screen open further with his nose. The mutt was matted with mud, slime, sticks and leaves, proof that he'd swum and slogged through the Forge to get home—the hard way, but nevertheless a shortcut. "Oh, Dylan, you can't come in here like this."
His wolfie brows angled and his eyes lost the optimistic spark I'd seen when I'd first seen him at the door wagging his tail. He closed his mouth. I recognized that hurt look. Before he could dart off into the night again, I said, "Come on. We have to clean you up." The huge head tilted and his ears jerked forward then he started circling at the prospect of a bath.
The night was clear, the moon nearly full as we walked around to my tiny backyard. The campground where the hearse was parked was empty, so there were no neighbors to witness a massive black wolf and a woman, getting naked for purely practical reasons.
He whined as I pulled my leotard over my head and this time I felt, dare I say, appreciation in the wolf's eyes. Dylan's eyes had been so dark a green as to seem almost black, and they glimmered like chocolate diamonds. He licked my hand and waited until I acknowledged his gesture and stroked his muddy sticky head. His muzzle left a long muddy streak along my leg.
"Okay, let's get started, unless you think you can clean yourself up." Another whine. "Right, that's what I thought."
I pointed to the rubber mat near the hose. He sat in the center like a good dog as I reached for the detergent and turned the faucet on. Working my fingers down into his coat I said, "There's enough crap in your coat to start your own wildlife preserve." He groaned with pleasure. Was that just a doggy sound?
As I poured some of the liquid soap down his long wide back, he tilted his head up and licked my chin. "Like that, huh? What man doesn't?" Shaking, he slung mud and soap everywhere, drenching me and making it a moot point to try to stay dry. I dug in to the soap suds and massaged his ears, covering each eye with my hand to protect it. He was thoroughly enjoying himself if his sighs and kisses were any indication and he placed his paw in my hand so I could dig out the gumbo between the massive tendons that had dried like wet concrete.
The next time the clouds rolled across the moon he whimpered and looked up at me. "What is it?" I asked, frowning. He tilted his head, bumped my dirty thigh then sat down, all clean spiky fur and stared at me. I looked down at my naked form. "What?" Being a panther shifter I had a tautly muscled body and my dark complexion gave me an exotic look. Like most supernatural beings I was comfortable in my natural state and it irritated me that we had to conform to human norms.
He looked me up and down, tilted his head. I got the point. "Yeah, I'm a mess. I should clean up." His body language said clearly, he would watch. I laughed. Winking at him, I held the bottle of soap above me and drizzled it across my chest, letting it slide down my stomach and thighs just as the clouds cleared the moon once again, and the bubbles caught the light.
But as I rubbed my hands over my skin my actions changed to something more than cleansing. The look in the wolf's eyes had me mesmerized and enjoying my own pleasure, fingers gliding over my breasts, pinching my slippery nipples. Then wandering to my sex, they played at the dark vee between my legs and I moaned.
Dylan whined, standing on all fours, staring intently while I brought myself to a climax. I sank to a crouch beside him as he butted me with his hindquarters and nuzzled my jaw. Then, he licked my ear and I shivered. A deep unexplainable bond still existed between us. When had it happened, that one time we'd made love or had it deepened in the last several months?
As soon as I'd come back to my senses after the Para-moon I'd gone looking for him, wondering if he would ever speak to me again. I'd had no idea what he'd been through until I recognized him at the derby. He'd known me, even as a mere wolf puppy.
A sad lurch of my heart made me wonder if this was all we were meant to have—this weird wolf/wolf-caretaker relationship with some kind of kinky voyeur aspect to it. I sighed. "Come on, let's dry you off." He circled twice more as I reached for the towel.
Chapter 24
Right, I was so not going to worry now.
Tempe
On the twelfth chime from my hundred-year-old grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs, I got out of bed. Not bothering with coffee, I went outside to sit on the lounge on the back porch and listen to the night chirping of rain frogs and crickets. The clouds drifted across the moon setting up an empathetic trill in my veins. My Tempestaerie wanted to soar with the clouds, ride the wind—play a little. On another night I might have followed that urge, but tonight I was fighting inertia as depression settled inside me.
The last six months had been a roller coaster of emotion, surprises, gifts that came in many forms like finding out my father was alive and that someone could love me even though I was kind of a freak. But the hope of something lasting between me and Jack was diminishing.
He'd had finally shaken the apathy that gripped him when his world was turned upside down, not that I didn't understand his reaction. After all, I'd watched him take every blow from the time I'd met him, absorb each one and move forward but those shocks hadn't driven him away from me, just helped him understand me. I guess I'd thought this would be the same… he would eventually accept his new nature and turn to me. Instead, this morning, he'd turned away.
My mind kept going back over everything I'd done for the last several months. Maybe I shouldn't have left him alone for so long. What if his withdrawal from me was permanent? A sob caught in my throat. I just wish my little brother would show up so I could see for myself that he was healthy. I'd have been able to talk to him about Jack.
As the children of a Tempestaerie mother and djinn father, River and I experienced a lively upbringing of weather picnics. Weather Chaos was our parents' casual way of training us to command our elements—fire, air, and water as well as an introduction to our individual natures.
Would things ever get back to normal?
The old floorboards in the slave quarters upstairs creaked. River's apartment had been empty since February when he'd gone missing. My head snapped upward as a deeper groan came from the apartment floor above me. And another—footsteps. I was out of my chair, through the screen door and flying up the oak stairway in a heartbeat. River's door hung open. Excited, but cautious, I stopped there and soaked in the sight of him, standing in the middle of the room, a djinni in truth and a giant compared to the young man who'd been kidnapped six months earlier. His growth was expected.
Everything else was not.
"River, I—" I moved, intending to throw my arms around him but his cold eyes and the way he crossed his muscular forearms over his chest threw up an instant barrier. River's eyes simmered in a kind of neutral power mode, not copper or the beautiful verdigris color of vibrant life I was used to, but a pale bluish gray. "Are you okay? I've been worried about—"
"I'm fine," he grated. "You can stop wishing me up now and let me get on with my life."
I felt like I'd been slapped. Wait. I wished him up? My eyes narrowed as I took in the full measure of the change in him. I barely recognized him. There'd been no dark corners in his personality or his background before. People trusted him with their money and their dreams. The man before me was…darkness personified… I shivered, realizing even I wouldn't trust him.
"Something's wrong. What is it?"
He sighed, a heavy exaggerated sound meant to make me feel like a worrisome female. But I'd raised him and he must have forgotten, grown djinni or not, I knew him. "Are you here to get back to work?" I asked, holding out a very faint hope.
"No, I just came to let you know you can stop asking father about me. Stop acting like my mother and get on with your life." He spread his massive arms and cocked his head. "As you can see, I'm healthy and whole, there's no reason for you to be concerned anymore."
Okay, right, I was so not going to worry now. "Where have you been?"
He shrugged. "Around." His eyes glittered but not with good energy.
"Where are you planning to stay? What about the bu
siness?" I asked, thinking surely the business was important to him.
"I've turned the jobs over to Max and I'm… rethinking my future." I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as he finished, "I just wanted you to know I won't be back to the house; you can have your space."
He was edgy, ready, but for what? Did he expect me to react physically? Surely not. Sorrow hit me like a sledgehammer, for while Dutch was scary and dangerous and could be, well… abrupt, he'd never looked at me like this, as if I were a stranger and not the sister he'd loved for the last twenty-four years.
"Where did you go? I mean, where did Dutch take you?"
"I was with a healer until about a month ago but I'm whole now."
Not well…whole. Maybe it was just semantics but djinn can't lie so it might be a clue.
I got the sense from the rigid muscles in his arms, his clenched jaw and the stirring fire in his coppery eyes that he was barely holding onto control, as if… he wanted revenge and couldn't take it. But revenge on whom?
His aura went from gray to a pluming red and black like the dark edges of a volcanic storm. He growled, "I'm outta here. I'm done with your manipulations." He pushed past me, his shoulder thrusting me back against the door of his room and when I regained my balance and got to the hallway, he was gone.
Reeling from his accusation…manipulations?…I stumbled down the stairs. If the house had felt wrong before—after River's visit, the air took on a heavy quality. It fairly reeked with sinister intent.
For the next several hours I cleaned every surface, every nook and cranny, burned white scented candles and sage but by five-thirty I was anxious to leave for work, even though I'd be too early to enter the mail facility. When I walked out of Harmony, I felt like I'd been kicked out of my own home.
