“Dev—”
“He’s right,” Danial interrupted. “Your mom and dad should meet him.”
“You told him about this outing,” I rebuked, putting my hands on my hips. “Last night.”
“I may have let something slip,” Danial admitted slowly.
“He invited me,” Devlin purred.
Danial looked at the ground.
“Good going, Danial,” Theo said sarcastically. “You’re going to make her parents think Sar’s landed herself smack in the worst crowd possible. They’ve accepted a lot already with you and me. Now you’re going to announce that she’s having your brother’s baby, oh and by the way, he’s a vampire, too.”
“I’m just going to say I’m Danial’s brother, for now,” Devlin placated. “When they know me a little better, I’ll tell them I’m the father of one of her children and that we’re sort of married.”
“You will not!” Theo growled loudly. “Sar’s my wife, not yours—”
“She’s got on two pair of wedding rings, Theo,” Devlin said, folding his hands across his chest. “And you are not the only man wearing the matching partner.”
Devlin now wore a band on his right ring finger. It was the same kind of band with the metals swirled together that Danial and I still wore.
Theo’s eyes went wide. “You bas—”
I clapped my hand over his mouth. Theoron and Elle didn’t need to be taught yet another swear word. “Stop,” I said, then put down my hand. “He’s right, Theo. I’m bound to he and Danial almost in the same way I’m bound to you.”
I turned to Devlin. “But I’m not “sort of married” to you, Devlin. You could never be married to any one woman, as you’ve told me before. We are Oathed, and you are not going to say anything about it to my parents until I say it’s okay. Do you understand?”
Devlin looked at me defiantly, his eyes glowing, and didn’t answer.
“That’s not going to make it any easier,” Danial said, sighing. “Your mom will notice our bands, Sar. She’s sure to say something.”
“There is no easy way. We’ll try it Dev’s way. For now.” I turned to take in both Danial and Devlin. “But no innuendoes, nothing, from either of you,” I said, giving them the look of death. “My mom will pick up on anything, no matter how small. Don’t say anything.”
“All right,” Lash and Devlin assured.
They followed us to my parents’ house. My mother came out to meet us, the perplexed look on her face indicating she was curious as to who Lash and Devlin were. After Theo, Theoron, and Elle had hugged my mother, Theo took the two children inside. By that time, Danial was beside me.
“Tina, Chris, may I present my brother, Devlin, and his bodyguard, Lash?” Danial said courteously.
Devlin kissed my mother’s hand. “It’s good to meet you.”
Lash just nodded.
My stepfather shook their hands, eyeing Lash like he was bad news.
“Is he a vampire, too?” my mother asked. “He must be, if he’s your brother.”
Devlin whipped around and looked at Danial. “They know about you?”
“Yes,” Danial said. “Lash is a were too, as Theo is. But he is a snake, not a cougar.”
Lash looked over at Danial and said mockingly. “Thanks, Danny. Appreciate it.”
My mother nodded like this was all normal. “Come in,” she said, leading the way inside.
“You didn’t tell me her parents knew what you were!” Devlin hissed low to Danial.
“You wanted to come crash our visit,” Danial hissed back. “Part of crashing is not to know what to expect.”
“Thanks so much,” Devlin said sarcastically.
The kids and Theo were already having pie. I took an offered glass of wine from my mom.
“Want some scotch?” my stepfather said to Danial, Devlin, and Lash.
“I’m driving tonight,” Danial said, declining.
“I’ll have a small one,” Devlin said, smiling politely. “I’m used to drinking wine, but I like single malts, on occasion. Do you have any Laphroig?”
“Ten year or fifteen year?” my stepfather said imperiously. “Cask strength, quarter cask, or regular?”
“Sweet,” Lash hissed with a wide smile. “I’ll try the fifteen year and the cask strength. I’ve only ever had the ten.”
My stepfather widened his eyes at Lash’s snake fangs. Forcing a smile, he led them both over to the bar.
I took a long swallow of my wine. Please, God, let this evening go well.
* * * *
“I think it went well,” Danial ventured to me hours later, as we sat on my couch, Ghost and Darkness sleeping at our feet. “I’m sorry if you were ill at ease.”
“Dev was right to come. My mother will tolerate him once she knows everything, even if she’s irritated with me for having his child. She’ll love my babies, of course.”
“I’m glad there wasn’t a scene. I was sure your mom would find out about ‘everything,’ as you put it so well.”
“She confronted me in the kitchen,” I admitted. “She was curious about why they came tonight, but never before now.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That we couldn’t bring Lash before because he can’t hide what he is. That he was Dev’s best friend, and we were waiting until they accepted Danial and Theo to have your family visit.”
Danial nodded. “Well done, even if Lash isn’t what I consider family. What did Devlin want? He followed us to your house to kiss you goodnight.”
“To assure me that he would behave himself, that he liked my parents, and that he was looking forward to them becoming part of his family. Nothing bad.”
“Good. Rest,” Danial said, holding me close. “You need to keep up your strength, Sar.”
“I’m just glad we got a vacation before you got so busy.”
“Me, too,” he said, satisfied. He hugged me close. “Me, too.”
* * * *
Two more weeks passed quickly.
On the last day in March, I put the finishing touches on the final guest room at Hayden. Putting down the brush, I surveyed the room.
Pride washed through me. I’d taken my time doing the guest bedrooms, and all had come out gorgeously. Each room had patterns on the ceilings, done with rollers. While none of them were as elaborate as Danial’s night sky ceiling with all of its constellations, each one was eye-catching. The purple room had blue, blue-violet, and light gray on the ceiling in swirls. The orange room, a.k.a, the flames room, had a similar one with red, yellow, and light orange on the ceiling. I’d done others as well: green with a gold and shades of brown and tan ceiling, and dark gray, with a blue sky and clouds on the ceiling, similar to the one painted on Elle’s ceiling years ago. At Devlin’s request, I’d done the last four rooms in shades of gray, with glazed ceilings all in white and gold and silver.
That had left one final room, this one. For my finale, I had gone all out, doing the walls in metallic silver, with glitter all over the ceiling. When the overheard light was lit, the entire room shone. Today, I’d finished up the last of the pearl trim.
Congratulating myself on a job well done, I washed my brush in the adjoining bathroom. This afternoon, after lunch, I’d get started on Hayden’s gardens. There wasn’t too much time left before spring. And being pregnant, the more time went by, the less and less I’d be able to do. Thankfully that restriction wouldn’t apply to baking and sewing.
Serena and I had become good friends in the few weeks I’d known her. She was a decent baker now, so it was on to a new skill. To my dismay, no one had eaten the baked goods she left out for general consumption. I guessed that the other women who lived at Hayden had told their mates not to, and consoled myself with her assurances that some of her patrons who had been privately gifted with her creations had given her a lot of praise for her efforts.
Our first sewing project was going to be making catnip cat toys for Phantom, not that he needed more spoiling. Having neve
r visited a grocery store, Devlin had not known there were such things as cat treats. Now Phantom had a row of treats in a special plastic case.
I smiled. Phantom was an odd cat. He curled at the bottom of Devlin’s bed each day, but spent his nights someplace else. Though he’d always been sweet and loving with me, he was destructive, destroying the cat treat bags, chewing them apart to get at the treats, prompting the special plastic case. His temperament was similar to Dev’s. Maybe that was why Dev loved him so much.
I packed up the painting paraphernalia, and put it to the side. I’d carry it down to one of the storage rooms tomorrow. Taking my cell phone out of my pocket, I dialed Lash.
As usual, he answered right away. “Lunch?” he hissed querulously.
“Lunch,” I affirmed. “You ready?”
“I’ll meet you there. Don’t hurry; I’ll be a second or two finishing up.”
“Okay. Five minutes?”
“More like two,” he hissed.
“Sure. Bye.”
I hung up, then caught sight of myself in the mirror. I had paint in my hair, a few silver streaks near one ear and also at the crown of my head. I put my fingertips to the paint, which was dry.
“Nice. I’ll have to scrub it out later.” Wincing, I shook out my hair from its clip and rubbed my scalp. It hurt from having my hair up so long. “I need a hair appointment, too,” I added under my breath, then headed for the door.
Just as I grasped the knob, The Lust reared up within me.
Chapter Three
Lash.
I wanted Lash.
Devlin was sleeping upstairs, but I didn’t want him. He wouldn’t drink me down like water. He hadn’t taken any of my blood for weeks now. But Lash likely didn’t know that he shouldn’t. If I told him to, he would.
I threw open the door, and bolted into Kev in the hallway, knocking him off balance. “Sorry,” he said, then did a double take at my wanton expression.
“Where is Lash?” I drawled, giving him a smoldering look.
His eyes widened. “I’ll take you to him,” he said, grabbing my hand.
He walked fast down the hallway toward the ballroom, pulling me along after him. Pushing through the doors with a shove of his hand, he started across the wide hardwood floor.
I registered my surroundings, scanning eagerly for Lash. The cracks in the walls had been fixed. Scaffolding had been erected to reach the ceiling cracks, but it was empty. There was no one here, least of all the person I was looking for. Fury rose up in me in an all-encompassing wave.
“Where is he?” I snarled.
“Lash is upstairs,” Kev said quickly, dropping my hand. He turned and ran for the door.
I ascended the stairs, and began looking around. There were a lot of supplies up here, but no Lash.
God damn it, I need him! He must have left for the kitchen. I would have to go after him. When I found him…
“Sarelle,” a voice called teasingly.
I turned around. Kev and Vince were there at the top of the stairs, blocking them.
“Where is Lash?” I hissed angrily. “He’s not up here, like you said!”
Vince and Kev didn’t reply. They spread out, and began to advance toward me slowly. Both of them were big men, burly and muscular, and the way they moved was meant to be menacing. If I had been in my right mind, I would’ve been afraid, would have known immediately what they were planning.
Instead, I was pissed off. “Get out of my way!” I shouted, grabbing a claw hammer from the stack of tools beside me. “Now!”
“We just want to give you what you need, Baby,” Vince growled eagerly. “We won’t hurt you, if you let us have you—”
I dashed between them. They lunged for me as one. I hit Vince solidly in the teeth with my hammer. The entire front five caught the impact, breaking several as he let out a scream more surprise than pain.
Kev grabbed me around the waist. I kicked him hard in the balls. He groaned and went down hard, holding himself.
I sauntered down the stairs in search of Lash, full of myself. I held tightly to the hammer, liking the weight of it in my hard. Hitting Vince had felt good. I liked the shriek he’d made when I hit him. Maybe I would get a chance to swing my hammer again on the way to the kitchen. If Lash didn’t behave, he could have some of this, too…
I’d forgotten there were two sets of stairs, that the men I’d hurt were werebear, not human. As I reached the last five stairs, Vince was suddenly there before me, his partly healed teeth bared.
“I want Lash, not you!” I snarled at him, and swung.
He evaded me easily. “Grab her!” Vince hissed.
Kev, who had come down silently behind me, grabbed hold of me.
I kicked him, but he was ready, turning his body to protect himself even as he tore the hammer out of my grasp.
“You Fuck!” I hissed. “Release me!”
“No more,” Kev ordered, tossing the hammer away. “Now behave—”
“What a joke!” I laughed. “As if either of you could satisfy me—”
Vince slapped me hard. The blow rocked my head backward, the force of it enough to break The Lust’s hold over me.
Instantly recognizing the danger I was in, my fear crashed down over me like ice water. I went still in Kev’s arms. “Let me go. I’m okay now. I’m sorry about hitting you.”
“Not a chance,” Vince said, growling. “We’ve waited a long time for this, Sar. Hold her.”
Vince began fumbling with my pants, growling softly in anticipation. I screamed. Kev put his hand over my mouth, stifling me, as Vince tried to slide my jeans over my hips. Lucky for me, I’d squeezed my vain ass into my skintight stretch jeans. They clung to me like a second skin as he tried to pull them off.
“We were all told to stay away from you,” Kev growled furiously in my ear. “Dev decided he loved you, so we were just supposed to forget how you shot six of us dead, how your boyfriends killed another eight of us over at Danial’s house that same night. But that doesn’t fly with me.”
I struggled, frantic.
“Devlin may have forgiven you, but we haven’t. I’d rather snap your neck here and now, but raping you is the only payback I’m going to be allowed to have. Get ready for a wild ride, Sar.”
Vince gave up trying to shove down my pants, and instead turned them inside out, peeling them off me like a skin, even as I thrashed.
“Everyone knows you get horny,” Kev continued, his hate palpable. “We’ve all been briefed. If you asked, we were supposed do whatever you asked, so long as it didn’t threaten your life or the fetus.” Kev leaned in closer. “That gives us all kinds of leeway. Dalcon’s a big believer in rough trade anyway—”
I bit Kev’s right hand hard. He jerked back from me, gritting his teeth, blood oozing from his hand.
“Stop it! Don’t do this!” I got out.
He slapped his hand over my mouth again. “Shut up! No one will believe you didn’t ask for it! You’ve fucked Lash! If you’d let that snake have you, you’d let anyone have you!”
I closed my teeth on his hand again, biting deep. But this time he didn’t let go.
Kev hissed, “You bite me again, and we’ll fuck you until we can’t get it up anymore. You bed a were regularly. You know how long we can make this last. Now hold still.”
I stopped trying to bite him as tears slid down my face. Kev eased down on the stairs with me, so I was lying on his legs and his body. I struggled harder, trying to get up.
“The best part of this won’t be doing you,” Kev hissed in my ear. “It will be seeing you for months afterward, years, us both knowing what really happened and that no one believed you didn’t want it. I’ll cherish your screams, Sar. They won’t bring my best friend back, but it’s something.”
I flailed hysterically, frantically, moving desperately, trying to get free of him as Vince unzipped his fly, and dropped his pants.
“Hurry up,” Kev said, his breath hot on my neck. “After you have
her the first time, she’ll settle down. Then you can hold her for me. We’ll trade off after that.”
Vince stepped out of his pants, his penis already erect, a drop of semen glistening on the tip. I began to whimper with fear. What Devlin had done to me hadn’t been this. Dev had been gentle, even considerate. These men just wanted to hurt me. I kicked harder at Vince, thrashing.
“Hold her still,” Vince said roughly, as he began to ease his body down on mine.
There was a hiss of air. Vince fell forward onto me, shrieking in pain, a huge hole in his right shoulder, the edges bloody hamburger.
Kev sprang to his feet, and pulled out a knife, holding it against my throat. “Stay back!”
Lash stood there near the ballroom door, his eyes flat and cold, a silenced gun smoking in his hand. “Kevin,” he hissed. “You know better than this, to think you can fight me. Drop her.”
“Stay back!” Kev said, digging the knife into my neck. I let out a cry. “I can knife her before you can shoot me.”
Lash stopped and holstered his gun. Then he uncoiled his whip, pulled his knife in the other hand, and began advancing.
“Want to share her, Lash?” Kevin called out.
Lash moved closer. With the speed of a striking snake, he curled the end of the whip around Vince’s right arm, and jerked him off of me. With a flick of his wrist, he loosened the whip from him, and began closing the twenty-five feet that separated us.
Kevin began to back up the stairs, still holding me. “Stop!”
I felt the point of a knife again against my throat. Lash stopped where he was, but didn’t put down his whip or his knife.
“I know how good you are!” Kevin called. “But you can’t get this out of my hand before I cut her artery. Titus is off with Leri. She’ll bleed to death in moments. Now be reasonable.”
Lash didn’t reply.
“We’ll share her with you, Lash. I know you haven’t been with anyone since her. That was months ago! I just had some last night, and I’m already horny just from feeling Sar struggling against me. You must be in agony, going that long without any—”
Was that true? Shit, I hoped not.
Lost Paradise Page 4
