by Vivian Wood
“Fuck, I want you so badly, Cass,” Gabriel whispered in her ear.
“Take me,” she sighed. “I don’t care, I swear it.”
For the briefest moment, Gabriel considered it. Unzipping himself and fucking Cassie right here against the wall was one of the hottest things he could think of. It made his cock throb with need. But Cassie was going to be his mate one day, and he couldn’t have their first time happen in front of an audience. It was a tempting thought, but it wasn’t the right thing.
Instead he slid a second finger deep into her channel, turning his hand up so that he could use his thumb to massage her clit. He flexed and pumped his fingers, stroking her inner walls until her excitement covered his palm. Cassie panted and rocked into his touch.
“You’re going to come for me, Cass,” Gabriel coached, working her clit and her entrance, knowing that she was seconds from unraveling. “Aren’t you, darling? I know you’re so close…”
Gabriel dropped his head and gave her a long, sharp nip just where her neck met her shoulder. Cassie shuddered and cried out as her innermost muscles rippled, and then she exploded, convulsing tightly around his fingers.
“Jesus, Gabriel,” she whispered as he gently withdrew, righting her panties before letting the hem of her dress fall back to her feet.
He slipped his arms around Cassie’s waist, keeping her in their private bubble for a few more moments. Cassie sought his lips for a soft kiss, then let her head rest against his chest. Gabriel buried his nose in her brilliant red hair, avoiding the dainty gold adornment encircling her locks. He dragged in lungfuls of her intoxicating scent, feeling a sneaking suspicion that he’d just managed to change things between them drastically.
The urge to claim her was growing by the moment, the need strengthened by touching her, watching her cry out and release at his hand. His doing. His mate.
“Gabriel?” Cassie’s lips moved against his chest, her voice so quiet he could barely hear it over the sound of the music.
“Yes, darling?” The word slipped past his lips for the second time in mere minutes, and Gabriel found himself wincing.
“Take me home? To the Manor, I mean,” she said, letting her head fall to the side so that Gabriel could see her expression. It was different than what he’d seen on her before. Tired, but more than that… vulnerable.
A tiny part of Gabriel shouted that he should flee, run away before he managed to foul things up, before he could hurt such a perfect creature. But the bigger part of him, the selfish, hungry, lonely part, just gave her a brittle smile and a nod.
“Of course,” he said, lifting her up in his arms.
Cassie clung to him as he swept her from the club, not even pausing to find his fellow Guardians before he hailed their car. By the time he’d climbed into the back seat of the SUV, Cassie was dead asleep in his arms, a smile on her lips.
He was more torn than he’d ever been. Even in his lowest moment, signing away his life to Mere Marie in exchange for the life of his sister, he’d known what he must do. He’d been the one to kill his sister, playing with magic he couldn’t control; he would have given anything to save Caroline, and he’d paid for his foolishness in spades. His old life was gone, and now…
Now, he was not a free man. He was a Guardian first and foremost. Choosing or discarding Cassie should be simple enough, a well-considered decision made after he factored in his past mistakes and his loyalty to Mere Marie.
He shouldn’t have ever laid a finger on Cassie, mating call or no.
But then, he looked at her, and something in him refused to push her away. In the space of a few days, he’d started to lose his sense of self, his sense of anything but a bear shifter desiring his mate. He wanted her, all of her, but he’d already once proven he couldn’t be trusted to care for a woman, no matter how strongly he felt about her.
Gabriel had died, it seemed. That was the only way to explain the fact that he’d been given a mate, a rare enough thing in itself. But this mate, this delicate beauty, enough to tempt him to any level of sin -- death itself was the only explanation for the strange turn of events. The only problem was that, if he had indeed died, he wasn’t yet certain if he’d gone to Heaven or Hell.
Looking down at the woman sleeping in his arms, Gabriel couldn’t begin to decide.
“Look who’s finally up!” Echo’s teasing scold was the first thing Gabriel heard when he walked into the common room a day and a half later.
After his little tete-a-tete with Cassie at the club, Gabriel ended up tucking her into bed in the guest bedroom on his floor of the Manor. When Gabriel returned to his own bedroom, he’d only managed to remove his bowtie before Aeric sent him a text alerting him to a Kith emergency. All hands on deck, Guardian-wise.
Gabriel, Aeric, and Rhys were tied up with a Vampire attack, a report of suspicious activity in St. Louis Cemetery #1 that just turned out to be a bunch of human kids fooling around, and then they spent a good deal of time pursuing and containing an out-of-control werewolf on the loose near an elementary school. On top of all that, Gabriel only snatched a few hours before his patrol, so when he’d crawled into bed at dawn, he’d slept much later than usual.
Gabriel looked at his wristwatch.
“What, it’s only… two in the afternoon,” he told Echo as he walked into the kitchen area.
He nearly stopped short at the sight that met him. Echo and Aeric sat on stools at the kitchen island bar, eagerly watching Rhys and Cassie, who wore matching blue and white polka dot aprons. The apron looked appropriate on Cassie, cute even, but Rhys dwarfed it in a way that was indescribably funny. From the look on Echo’s face, Gabriel guessed that Echo had forced it on her mate, and was now admiring her own handiwork.
Cassie and Rhys stood over the stove facing the kitchen island, each stirring their own massive, fragrant pot of brown liquid. Duverjay hovered right behind them, watching anxiously. Whether he was afraid of the mess they’d make or afraid that someone might replace him as the Manor’s best cook, Gabriel couldn’t tell, but the butler looked entirely distressed.
“What ever are you all up to?” Gabriel asked, walking over and taking an empty seat at the bar.
“Yer lady’s teaching us to make gumbo,” Rhys said. Gabriel repressed a smirk at the Scot’s pronunciation of the Creole word, making it sound utterly foreign.
Cassie met Gabriel’s gaze and gave him the briefest of smiles, then looked back down at her pot.
“Whisk!” she chided Rhys. “Don’t let your roux burn.”
“Echo, you’re not getting in on the competition?” Gabriel asked. “You’re a local. Isn’t everyone from New Orleans born knowing all the Creole classics?”
Rhys let out a snort of laughter which he tried – and failed – to hide as a cough. Echo stuck out her tongue at him before responding.
“As it stands, I’m not much of a cook.”
“She burned soup last week,” Duverjay informed everyone, earning his own glare from Echo. “Canned soup.”
“Cream based soups require a high degree of attention, and I got distracted by a certain someone,” Echo protested, giving Rhys a resentful glare. “It wasn’t my fault.”
Aeric made an amused sound, which was about his usual level of interaction in social situations. Gabriel gave the blond Guardian a moment’s attention, wondering how he’d come to be so insular. Cassie grabbed his attention almost immediately, though.
“Okay, okay!” she cried, elbowing Rhys. “Whisk faster! Duverjay, bring the vegetables. It’s time for the holy trinity.”
“I’m sorry?” Gabriel asked, leaning forward to peer at the contents of Cassie’s pot. “Are you going to pray over soup, then?”
“First of all, gumbo is not soup,” Cassie fired off, whisking madly. She paused to let Duverjay dump a half a cutting board’s worth of chopped vegetables in the pot. “Duverjay, we’re going to need wooden spoons now. And Gabriel, the holy trinity is onion, bell pepper, and celery. It’s the base for every Creole rec
ipe.”
“No garlic?” Echo asked, watching as Rhys accepted a similar load of vegetables from Duverjay. The butler handed Cassie and Rhys each a spoon.
“Stir, but slowly,” Cassie instructed, showing Rhys how it was done. She glanced up at Echo with a soft smile. “Garlic can’t go in too early, or it overpowers everything else. We’re going to cook this for two hours, just like my mom used—”
Cassie stopped and cleared her throat, ending her sentence abruptly. Silence thickened in the room for long moments until Echo broke it.
“At least you can cook!” Echo said, her voice a hair too bright. “I am in awe of you right now.”
“It smells good,” Aeric added.
Gabriel had to agree. He’d only had gumbo once since his arrival, but it hadn’t been nearly as good as Cassie’s unfinished concoction smelled.
“Two hours before it’s ready, huh?” he said, disappointed.
“I think Duverjay has some charcuterie set up for us,” Echo told Gabriel. Everyone stared at her in confusion, and she clarified, “Meat and cheese and crackers and stuff. Olives and jam and grapes and stuff… Look, I don’t know, I didn’t name it!”
“I think we can add some chicken stock and let everything cook down now,” Cassie said. “My arms are getting tired anyway. I should make gumbo every day, keep my arms toned.”
“If you guys are done, maybe let Duverjay take over stirring and stuff. He looks like he wants to help,” Echo said, earning a grateful glance from the silent butler. “We should move into the living area.”
After Cassie and Rhys surrendered their wooden spoons to Duverjay, the group moved to the sprawling couches in the living room. An ottoman made a good place to lay out the massive charcuterie tray and several plates, so they gathered around it and chose seats accordingly. Aeric grabbed the only solo seat, and Echo and Rhys claimed the larger couch, cuddling closely together without a hint of remorse.
After a moment of intense eye contact and a brief pause, Gabriel and Cassie ended up on a love seat together. Cassie’s wide hips and full skirt combined with Gabriel’s brawny frame meant that they were nearly plastered to one another. The second their thighs touched, Gabriel sucked in a deep pull of Cassie’s sweet scent, and he lost the thread of the conversation entirely.
“Did you try this one?” Cassie asked, nudging Gabriel’s knee with her own and pointing to a crumbling piece of cheese on her plate.
“No. Should I?” Gabriel asked, raising a brow.
Cassie pulled a comical sour face and shook her head.
“It’s reallllly strong,” she said. “The candied pecans are good, though.”
“This reminds me a little of London when I was growing up,” he said, pointing to a sharp English cheddar. “Farmer’s breakfast, they called it. A piece of bread, a piece of cheese, and a pint of ale.”
“I didn’t realize that everyone was so well fed,” Cassie said. She froze a second after she said it, clearly realizing how bad it sounded, but Gabriel just chuckled.
“We weren’t, believe me. But my sister had a way about her…”
Duverjay brought a tray of wine glasses, and Cassie and Gabriel each accepted one. Duverjay poured them a dry red wine, but neither sipped it right away.
“People just gave her food?” Cassie asked, looking surprised.
“Ah, no. She was a lightfinger. She could steal almost anything that wasn’t bolted to the floor,” Gabriel reminisced with a smile.
“That’s amazing. I mean, not amazing, but… I’m glad she provided for you both. What did you say your sister’s name was?” Cassie asked.
“Caroline,” Gabriel said, the name sticking in his throat a bit.
“Well, here’s to Caroline,” Cassie said, clinking her wine glass against Gabriel’s. “She sounds awesome. Family is… well, I don’t have one of my own yet, but it’s the most important thing in the world.”
“I lost my parents at a young age, and Caroline was all I had. She was amazing, but I always wished…” Gabriel couldn’t quite finish his statement, unsure where he was headed.
“I didn’t have much in the way of parents, either,” Cassie said with a sympathetic glance. “I’ve always thought… I don’t know. I’ll do better with my own family, you know? That’s all I can do.”
“Indeed,” Gabriel said, shifting in place. Talking to his supposed fated mate about the family she wanted to have one day was uncomfortable, mostly because Gabriel himself desperately desired the same thing. Still, they were too new, too uncertain, for this particular talk. One day, perhaps…
Gabriel nearly groaned at his own indecisiveness. He wanted her, he didn’t want her. He wanted to fuck her, then he was thinking about his future children… It was ridiculous. He needed to get his act together and stop behaving like a lovesick boy.
Cassie was just a girl, like any other girl. Perhaps she was more beautiful, more beguiling than most. And the way she smelled… yeah, Gabriel was hard for her every moment of the day.
But that didn’t mean a lifetime of commitment, did it? That didn’t mean he could let Cassie rely on him, when he’d only eventually let her down.
The conversation swirled and shifted around him, and he took a few moments to soak it all in. He had a beautiful redhead at his side, pressed so close he could feel her warmth. He had his fellow Guardians to watch his back. He had a job, and a home. He had a butler, for God’s sake. He should feel like the luckiest man in the world, especially considering his humble beginnings.
So why did he feel so lacking, so unfinished? And why, oh why, did the very thought of being incomplete draw his gaze straight to Cassie?
Sipping his wine, Gabriel forced himself back to the conversation, unwilling to consider the topic for even a moment more. Cassie was beautiful and entertaining and kind, but she was nothing more. Not for him.
Gabriel would never take a mate, for her sake as much as his own.
Chapter Seven
“If I can just… find…” Cassie mumbled to herself, gently spreading a crumbling map out across the massive library table in Gabriel’s study.
Over the last week, she’d started to make herself at home in Gabriel’s guest bedroom and his sprawling living area. It consisted of a couple of desks crammed up against the window, a pair of dusty armchairs, and a labyrinthine collection of research materials. Gabriel had filled almost every usable inch of the room with wall-to-ceiling bookshelves, racks of maps and scrolls, and tables cluttered with every type of magical instrument known to man and Kith alike. The massive window was covered with blackout curtains, making it nearly impossible to find anything; it took Cassie over an hour to find the document she was currently examining, and that was after days of learning Gabriel’s “system” of organization.
“Aha!” Cassie said, picking out a tiny point on the map and tapping it with a fingertip.
“What’ve you found?”
Cassie whirled around at the sound of Gabriel’s deep, warm voice. He was leaning up against a bookshelf as he watched her, wearing a tight white t-shirt and a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants. His shirt was damp in places from perspiration, clinging to every defined inch of Gabriel’s arms, shoulders, and torso. The barest bit of skin was exposed between the hem of his shirt and his sweats, and Cassie had to fight to keep from staring at it.
No man should ever look so good or smell so good fresh from a workout, but Gabriel did. Damn him.
“Ohhh…” she said, giving herself time to recover and not drool like an idiot. “I was researching the Gates of Guinee, the supposed portal into the spirit realm. Pere Mal is obsessed with the Gates, and I started to think… If they were real, maybe they correspond with some other places of power.”
“Like where?” Gabriel asked, crossing his arms. The hem of his shirt hitched up another fraction of an inch. A very noticeable fraction.
Cassie took a moment to smooth down her brightly-patterned Alice + Olivia sundress and tug at her arm-length white lace gloves, wondering if
she’d ever be able to dress casually again. Gabriel was just too hot in any kind of clothing, and Cassie couldn’t stand the thought of being less put-together than him. Of course, that meant that she spent a lot of time primping… but then again, she also liked primping and feeling girly.
“Cass?” Gabriel prompted.
“Hm? Oh, uh… I pulled up a bunch of different maps of New Orleans online. Crime maps, cemetery maps, old riverboat maps that show how the city used to be set up. Here, look,” she said, reaching for a sheaf of papers she’d printed from the internet. She spread them out for Gabriel to see. “I’ve made marks here on the crime map where paranormal crimes are the most frequent. On this map, I marked where the Kith first settled, around the French Quarter and along the river. And here, on the cemetery map, you see where some of the most prominent Barons and priests and priestesses were supposedly buried.”
“These points are the same on every map,” Gabriel said, his brow hunching as he absorbed her findings.
“Yeah. So look at this one,” she said, moving to the big map she’d examined earlier. “This one shows where the old money families settled here, when New Orleans was still surrounded by plantations.”
“How do these fit together?” Gabriel asked.
“Well, I did a little research about Pere Mal. He’s obsessed with his personal history and that of his ancestors. So I dug a little, nudged a couple of Gray Market vendors I know, asked around for whispers about where his people are from. I cross-checked some of the older plantations with the places he and his family were rumored to have lived and worked, then I compared that to the list of properties Ciprian gave us.”
