by Thorne, Elle
The entrance of the ramp was half-buried in solid ground, extending over the swamp’s brownish water, eventually touching the porch.
Valencia perched against the hand railing on the porch. Half her body was against the wood, and the other half pressed against Rory, who’d almost seemed to have trapped her against the beam, as if he were worried she’d try to escape.
Theo leaned against the wall, while Leandra sat in the rocking chair in front of him, barefooted.
“Everything okay?” Theo asked Lézare.
“It’s decided. The guests are mostly gone. They understood there were matters to be taken care of. Ms. Claudette is settled in. She’s anxious to visit with Mae.”
“What did you tell her?” Natalya asked Lézare. “I knew Ms. Claudette when I volunteered…” She paused, held back a laugh. “It’s a long story. Let’s just say I’m close to her.”
Evie almost didn’t hide her double take. Natalya. Volunteer. Somehow the words didn’t seem to belong in the same sentence, but then again this seemed to be a very different Natalya from the one they’d first met months ago.
“I told her we’d make sure she got to visit Mae. Somehow. Maybe a road trip is in order, chère.”
“I’m up for another one!” Natalya’s smile reached her twinkling eyes.
Lézare kissed her temple tenderly and again, Evie found herself thankful her brother finally had someone.
“We need to take care of business at hand—” Lézare looked at Valencia pointedly. His gaze took in Rory as well. “Namely, Valencia. Hybrids will be hunted.”
“I go where she goes.” Rory’s tone was lined with steel resolve.
“I figured no less.”
“Leandra has a suggestion.” Theo’s eyes remained on Lézare as if to gauge what sort of reaction he’d have and how he’d treat Leandra.
“Glad to hear it,” Lézare’s tone was earnest.
Evie was proud of her brother for his behavior.
“Valencia, you have to go away.”
“I know.” Valencia’s irises had a crimson ring around the perimeter. “I’ve gotten better at containing the bloodlust. But so help me God—” Valencia interrupted herself with a mirthless irony at the idea of mentioning God in the same sentence as a vampire’s bloodlust.
Evie smiled, but knew it was tinged with sadness. Her tigress warned her there was a difference with her sister. The four Arceneaux siblings’ dynamics had changed.
“Anyway… so help me, I can’t always stop the lust to kill.” Valencia wrapped her arms around herself, leaned back against Rory.
Rory encircled her in his embrace, her back against his chest, his cheek against her hair. “So she wants to harness the power she has.”
“Harness?” Reese cocked his head and gave his brother an inquisitive look.
“And I will be with her.” Rory tightened his grip on Valencia. “Always.”
“I need you, dear family—” Valencia looked at each of them in turn. “I need you to help me make sure the vampire that did this to me doesn’t die. If he dies, I’ll die.”
“That’s a myth, isn’t it?” Evie found that hard to swallow. “How can you be sure?”
Valencia pulled free of Rory’s grasp and raised her black T-shirt in front, almost to her bra. An angry red line crossed the length of her torso. “This appeared on its own. Suddenly, I was losing blood before I could heal it with my shifter healing. Rory had me go into a hibernating heal, but what if he hadn’t? What if I were in the middle of something and couldn’t do that?” She shook her head, her gaze locked with Leandra’s.
“You would die.” Leandra finished Valencia’s train of thought.
“I would.” Valencia turned back to Lézare. “So please keep that bastard alive. Don’t kill him if you can avoid it.”
“I’ll make sure of that, little sister.”
“I’m leaving the territory. I can’t tell you where I’m going, but Leandra is making arrangements. Rory and I will be traveling and off the grid. I’ll get a disposable phone and call you. I’m sure sooner or later it will get out that Scanlon was killed by a hybrid. They’ll be after me.”
“I’ll make the arrangements,” Leandra said. “I know a place she can go where she will be safe and helped with managing her needs.”
Evie was filled with a sense of bittersweet sentiments. On one hand, she had Mason, and every one of her siblings were happily mated, and at the same time, she’d lose Valencia.
“Hey.” Valencia took Evie’s hand. “Stop that. It will blow over.”
“How can it?”
“At least now I have a chance at a life,” Valencia declared. “I spent too much time avoiding people and moonlight. Now I have something. And Rory. Mostly Rory. Be happy for me.”
Evie smiled, but tears of sadness filled her eyes at the same time. Her tigress howled.
Mason wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against his body. His lion comforted her tigress.
“We should get back to Arceneaux Point,” Lézare announced. “We need to make arrangements.” He turned to Leandra. “Would you be our guest and stay at Arceneaux Point?”
Leandra’s eyes gleamed silver. “Could I stay in one of the cabins?”
“Certainly.” Lézare smiled, though apprehension lurked in his eyes.
Evie knew he still hated staying in the cabins.
“I’d like to stay in the same one I stayed in before,” Evie said.
“You mean the time that Mason came down for Escape Weekend?”
Evie nodded, the heat of a blush crept its way upward. She turned to Mason. “Did you mean it? Will you stay a while?”
“As long as you want me.”
Forever.
Epilogue
Evie rolled over in her bed, relishing the sounds of Arceneaux Point, the scent of Arceneaux Point. And everything was made perfect because Mason was here with her.
“Mason.” His name slid off her lips with ease, as if years had not passed without each other.
His teeth nipped at her jaw line, traveling downward, and his tongue trailed hotness down her neck to the neckline of her sleep T-shirt.
“I want you,” he snarled as his fingers played with the fabric.
Evie’s breath escaped her quickly with each movement as he traced patterns into the cotton material. Each motion his fingers made, teased and tortured her. She craved him.
His lips landed on hers in a kiss that was tender. And then, just as quickly, his fingers turned into claws and shredded the fabric.
He leaned back, studying the creamy tops of her breasts, ivory swells rising above her ribcage.
“Beautiful.” Mason’s fingertips traced her skin, teasing her in the most delicious of ways that culminated in a buzzing that ran the length of her body. His fingertips tiptoed their way down the middle of her sternum, over her abdomen. “I need you,” he rumbled, touching the hem on her panties.
The sound of the panting coming from her mouth was the only thing Evie could hear.
“I want you, too.” She wanted everything he was, and everything they had been. She wanted his strength, his easy smile, the intensity behind his dark eyes, and his love to be for her.
She couldn’t stop her hands from drifting to his shoulders. His muscles flexed beneath her hands. She forked her fingers through his hair.
His tongue followed the path his fingers had created, leaving a hot trail from the top of her breasts to the center of her stomach, drifting down to her panties. He ran the course of her panties, tracing the elastic from hip to hip.
“Jesus,” he groaned, pushing at her hips and thighs.
Evie raised her lower body while he pulled her panties down.
Mason’s breath was hot, warming her, a forerunner of the heat and pleasure he would deliver between her legs.
She released a groan and it pushed him further. He continued to travel downward, every gust of his breath warmed her body. He licked his way lower.
Her clit throbbed.
He nipped at the tender skin.
She closed her eyes, expecting him to lick her slowly.
Evie jumped when his entire face dove into her with a ferocity that revealed his hunger. Her body ached with desire for him—too much time apart. Her breath rushed in and out, lungs burning with a need for air.
Mason’s lips sucked on her, teasing, then releasing with a popping sound that drove her desire. He devoured her repeatedly, mercilessly, until finally he thrust his tongue into her, going in, then out, pleasing her.
Her hands grabbed the sheets, gripping tightly. She bit down on her lip to keep from begging.
The moan that came made his tongue move faster. “Please,” she whispered. Electricity flowed through her blood. Her toes curled. “Mason.” Her pitch and tone were almost a scream.
“What?” Mason’s voice was more of a growl.
“I need you.” Her impatient fingers traveled to his hair, pushing his face closer to her desire, taking his tongue deeper.
She flinched in surprise and pleasure when he slipped a finger in and moved his mouth to her clit and began sucking while his finger pleasured her.
A low moan began and rose to a crescendo, as she climaxed swiftly and brutally, clamping her thighs around his head.
Evie’s body trembled. An occasional aftershock ripped through her, making her flinch and jerk in his arms.
* * *
The lion in Mason pulled at him to take her to make her his.
Forever.
Also to give her what she needed. No-- What they both needed. He wanted to be so deep inside her that she’d pulse against his cock when she climaxed. Each of her peaks would create a tightening that pressed him to a climax of his own.
He’d never forgotten that. He wanted that back.
He groaned against her mouth.
“Are you ready to be mine?”
“Yes.”
With a thrust that spoke of his urgent need for this woman, for her tigress, for their ultimate bonding, he dropped his boxers and with one smooth motion, slid inside, all the way.
He fit in her just as he always had—perfectly. They were made for each other.
A deep sigh slipped out in a whoosh at his imminent homecoming to the woman he’d never stopped loving.
He paused, relishing her body, her tightness, and the way her muscles gripped him.
He started slow and intense, with a rhythm that matched the passion he’d kept penned up all this time. Each time his cock slipped out, his lion growled to be back inside her.
His lion didn’t let Mason keep a slow pace. He began to stroke, powerfully and vigorously, his body tight like an elastic band ready to snap any moment.
He pushed into her, his eyes locked with hers. Her tigress growled and his lion picked it up, roaring in return. His rhythm became quicker and built to a frantic pace, each thrust resulting in an exhaled breath.
Sheer primal lust and a need to have his mate with him without interference pushed him faster and faster, as he began to lose control. His body traveled toward the point of no return as the volcano within him began to careen.
A light sheen of perspiration made Evie’s face glisten. He studied her features while he lowered his face to hers, kissing her lips, tasting the very essence of her on her mouth.
He felt her orgasm begin as she tightened around him and tried to scream. He drank her scream in while he grunted as a pulse of his release began to come undone.
Dropping his head, Mason sank his teeth into the tender spot at the corner of her shoulder and neck. He bit fiercely, taking no prisoners—except Evie, and in return giving her himself.
He licked the spot, tasting the metallic flavor of her blood, sealing an irreversible covenant between them with a couplebond.
Her hands rose and buried themselves in his hair. She brought his head to hers for a kiss, her tongue tasting his, yielding to his, and at the same time, taking charge.
He pulled away slightly. “It’s done.”
She smiled. “It’s very done. And it’s just starting.”
He collapsed next to her, his head resting on her breast, listening to her heartbeat, listening to his own sync with hers.
“Mason?”
“Mmm?” He’d almost drifted to sleep.
“What would you think about traveling?”
The oddness of her question made the drowsiness diminish. “Traveling’s fine. Why?”
“I thought maybe we could visit Valencia and Rory sometime.” Her voice became sleepy.
He kissed her shoulder.
“Anything you want. Anywhere you want.”
“Mmmhmmm.” She drew the sound of agreement out as her eyelids began to close.
He kissed the tender spot that had already healed where he’d marked her as his.
Forever.
“I love you.”
“Me too.” Her response was murmured while a smile drifted to her lips.
Inevitable
He’s Theo, head of security for Lézare Arceneaux.
He’s also Theodoros Ricoletti, son of an Italian lion shifter and his Greek servant woman, raised by the servants in secret until the lion shifter learned he had a son. Theodoros Ricoletti, stolen by his lion shifter father from his servant woman mother, reared by governesses and nannies, sent off to a boarding school, only to run away and join a group of roving shifters. He’s only loved one woman, ever. A beautiful, dark-skinned, glowing-eyed barefooted beauty from the bayou. She betrayed him by casting a spell on him to make him fall in love with another. Just because the spell’s been broken doesn’t mean that all is healed.
She’s Leandra, swamp witch of New Orleans.
She’s also Leandra Mathieu, one of the most powerful witches in the surrounding New Orleans. Her ancestors have saved the ass of the Arceneaux Clan more than once. Now, so has she. But she bears secrets. And blood ties.
She shouldn’t have fallen for a shifter. She shouldn’t have cast the spell on him to make him fall in love with another, either. She has paid enough. Or has she?
Foreword
Leandra and Theo are one of those couples that grab you by the heartstrings and don’t let go. This is their story.
Scenes from their youth will help you understand why they are the way they are.
I hope you love this couple as much as I do.
It’s tough to present a book like this, where part of their life has been in prior stories. I didn’t want to fill pages up with history we already know, but I had to summarize the happenings.
If you’ve forgotten any of the parts, do what I did. Read the Only After Dark books for reminders. Helped me in a big way.
And oh my goodness, I fell in love with this series all over again. I know now why you emailed me about this series. This one has me in its spell, too. I can’t wait until we can expand on so much of it too! (Lucia, Quake, and so much more!)
Thank you!
—Elle
PS This book is absolutely not a standalone. Please read the first four books in the series because there are things that happened in those books that will merely be glossed over in this one.
The Beginnings
Almost Two Decades Ago
Chapter One
Outside the boundaries of Black Glade Bayou, Louisiana
“Mémé, I don’t want to go to New Orleans to see her.” Leandra told her grandmother, Latrice Mathieu.
“She’s your mother, chère.”
“Then why did she drop me off with you and never comes to see me? Why does it feel like she can’t wait to leave when we go meet her in the café?”
Mémé shook her head, braids secured to her head, her dark skin glowing in the sunlight, her profile majestic.
Leandra glanced in the mirror, and studied her pre-teen features. The dark skin. Her full lips, her eyes—eerie and glowing.
She cast her gaze down. The mirror was her enemy. It reminded her of everything she was that she didn’t want to be: The light glowing eyes t
hat betrayed her witch heritage—a sign of the Mathieu witches. The dark skin that boasted of her slave heritage—and the reason her mother rejected her.
Mémé ran her fingertips over Leandra’s loose hair. “Let me put this up for you.”
“Why? To make her happy? To appease her? In case her gentleman or one of his friends might see us?”
Mémé tsked. “You’re too wise for one so young.”
Too wise.
When Leandra wasn’t much older than a toddler, Rochelle, Leandra’s mother, had left her with Latrice, her own mother, the one Leandra called Mémé. She’d left her, and yet she’d stayed in town—in New Orleans, living with the gentleman who wouldn’t give her his name, but was more than happy to provide Rochelle with the trimmings of a high society life.
This was provisional of course. It depended on Rochelle not flaunting her roots.
It wasn’t her witch roots that worried him as much as it was her slave roots. No, the gentleman never said as much, but Rochelle knew he prized her for her lighter skin.
Oh, yes, even as a child, Leandra knew. She knew what it was her mother did. She knew why her mother did it. She was no stranger to life, the impact of skin color, and even the carnal nature of mankind.
Though thanks to Mémé’s security, Leandra had never been exposed to the ugly side of carnality. She’d been sheltered from the decisions her mother had made at fourteen, leading her to a life far from their home in the bayou, far from the coven she should have been a part of, far from Mémé’s protectiveness.
“Ouch.”
Mémé was running a brush through Leandra’s unruly curls. “One moment more.” She gave it a final swipe. “Now. Let me style this into something that doesn’t make you look like a swamp rat.”
Leandra was torn between giggling at Mémé’s terminology, or snarling at her grandmother for making her more presentable for Rochelle.
