by Dena Christy
Startled, she pivoted, bringing her hands up to cover her bare breasts. Her shoulders sagged, and she lowered her hands when Lee walked into the room.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes darting down to look at his raw and bleeding wrists.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. He placed a medical kit on the table by the door. With gentle hands, he turned her around.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“Bad enough to need stitches. I’m going to put a bandage on it. Then we can get the fuck out of here.”
The click of the medical kit opening was the only sound she heard as she stood patiently waiting for him to do what he needed. She didn’t want him to treat her wound, what she wanted was for him to hold her. It took all her will to stand there and hold herself together. He had other concerns, and he dressed her wound with a professional efficiency that made her heart sink. Perhaps it didn’t matter that they’d gone through a tremendous ordeal tonight, and that his father no longer stood between them. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to get past what had been said earlier that evening.
“You should finish getting dressed,” he said as he tidied up and closed the kit. “I’ll wait for you in the other room.”
Simone bit her lip as she scooped up her bra and put it on. She winced when the strap fell across the wound on her shoulder, and she eased it over. The pain of her wound was a nice distraction for her, a way to focus her thoughts away from the wound she carried in her heart. She gingerly pulled her shirt on, donned her socks and boots and left the room. One thing was certain, she was glad to get the hell away from this place. It would be the starring attraction in her nightmares for days to come.
“Ready,” Lee said as she joined him in the other room.
“Oh, God yes. Let’s get out of here,” Simone said as she walked toward the door. The light pressure of his hand on the small of her back comforted her. Although it was only the lightest of touches, it gave her hope that perhaps they could mend things between them.
Agents from the Order stood waiting for them, and as a group they left the cabin far behind. Simone cast a quick look at Dany, who was cuffed in silver and sandwiched between two burly agents. They half dragged, half carried him. The back of his pants on the left side hung in shredded tatters, along with the flesh of his calf underneath. Simone felt a small amount of satisfaction in making it so he couldn’t walk away from this unscathed. Dany turned his head and looked right at her, his lips curling up in a sneer.
Simone gasped and turned her head to stare straight ahead. Dany was defeated, and she wouldn’t feed his ego any longer.
“You okay?” Lee asked as he rubbed his hand on the middle of her back.
“Fine. I want this to be done,” she said. She glanced up at him and gave him a tired smile.
“It will be over soon. We need to go to headquarters for debriefing and to get your wound looked at.”
They arrived where the vehicles were parked, and Lee tried to steer her over to his vehicle.
“I want to make sure he’s taken care of,” she said as she refused to budge.
Lee grunted beside her, but didn’t move her again. As she watched, the agents opened the same van that had once transported her to headquarters, which seemed like forever ago. There was an odd sense of closure, seeing Dany put in the exact position she’d once been in. Everything was the same, even down to the same agent getting in the back with Dany that had ridden with her when she’d made the trip from Ottawa to Kingston. The agent in question turned his head and looked directly at her. She shivered and turned her head away.
“You're cold,” Lee said as he pulled her to his side, being careful to avoid her wounded shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
Simone followed him to his car. She got in the passenger side and sagged back into the seat. Closing her eyes, she wished they could go right home.
Lee got in beside her and patted her leg.
“It will be over soon,” he said softly as he turned on the engine.
She knew it would be and only hoped he meant this night's ordeal and not what they had together. Simone made a vow to herself that as soon as she got the opportunity she would tell him what was in her heart
Chapter 16
Dany sat on the bench in the van, disgust twisting his features into a snarling mask. He couldn’t believe that mutt, that bitch, had defeated him. This couldn’t be happening, not to him. He had the blood of generations of werewolves flowing through his veins, and for his life to end in an Order of Odin jail cell seemed like an abomination to him. He didn’t want to rot away while the disease he carried inside further ravaged his body. Why didn’t she kill him as he’d urged her to. That would have been a more fitting end.
“Tough luck, eh Dany?” his guard said as he smirked at him.
“Fuck off,” Dany said. The last thing he needed was to be taunted by this whelp.
His guard chuckled as he set his weapon aside and turned to face Dany fully. Dany’s sneer of distaste quickly turned into astonishment as the guard features twisted and morphed until it was Smith who was sitting across from him.
“What… how…”
“Please try to contain your astonishment. We don’t have a lot of time, and there is much work to do before we get to the Order’s headquarters,” Smith said as he stood and towered over Dany.
“My leg is ruined, I don’t know how quickly I can get away,” Dany said. The pain in said leg lanced through him and he winced. He wouldn’t get very far on it, but he had to try. He could only imagine the look on those Order bastards’ faces when they opened the back of the van and found him gone.
“Oh, perhaps I haven’t been clear. I apologize. You won’t be going anywhere.” Smith reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out Dany’s silver stiletto. “Do you remember when we first met, I said you would need to sacrifice something for my help?”
“Your help? You haven’t done fuck all to help me,” Dany sneered.
“I think you’ll find I’ve done a lot for you. I’ve made it so that you are placed in the perfect position to destroy Cadric and this branch of the Order of Odin. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Well yes, but I don’t understand how that can be accomplished now when I’m trussed up in silver cuffs.”
“It will cause an untold amount of havoc on the Order when they find you, cuffed with your hands behind your back and your throat slit,” Smith said as he used the stiletto to clean under his fingernails.
Dany swayed for a moment in his seat as he absorbed what the man standing over him said. His throat was to be cut with his own damn stiletto?
“Who are you really?” Dany asked.
“I suppose it won’t do any harm now for you to know who I really am,” Smith said as he smiled down at Dany. “I’m a god. An old one at that.”
“You don’t look like a god,” Dany said, and bit his lip, cursing his nerves for causing him to say the first thing that came to mind.
“That’s because I’m not in my true form,” Smith said as he shrugged his shoulders back. As Dany watched, Smith’s height grew to well over six feet, his body filled out with great muscularity and his face changed to become sharper and more striking than it had been before. His hair changed from the dull brown it had been, to the color of ripe wheat, and his eyes change from their nondescript hazel to a piercing ice blue. “I’m a shapeshifter. I can appear to be whatever I want, you needed to see someone who didn’t stand out. It was much less threatening that way for you.”
“What is your real name?”
“Loki,” he said and Dany stared at him in disbelief. If he hadn’t seen his companion’s transformation himself he would never have believed it possible.
“Why would you care about the Order?”
“We have little time left, and you really don’t need to concern yourself with it. You have a choice Dany, do you want to make the ultimate sacrifice to see the Cadric and the Order destroyed, or do you want to spend
the rest of your short life rotting in a cell. I would think confinement would be the worst punishment possible for a werewolf.”
Dany contemplated Loki’s words, and could not dispute what the other man had said. He’d begged Simone to kill him because he didn’t want to end up in a cell. He nodded his head at Loki and shivered when a smile of pure malice spread across the old god’s face.
“Get on your knees,” Loki instructed. Dany did as he was told, struggling for a moment as his bad leg and his cuffed hands hampered his movements. Loki took him by the shoulders and positioned him so he was on his knees facing away.
Dany took a deep breath and resigned himself to his death. It was better to go out this way as a tool for revenge then as a disease riddled wolf festering in a cell at the Order’s mercy.
“Now I have one more question to ask, and it’s important that you answer honestly.”
“What is it?” Dany asked, wishing that Loki would just get this all over with. The worst part of this whole thing was not meeting his death, but waiting for it to happen.
“Do you believe in me? Do you believe that I am Loki?”
“What…”
“Just answer the question,” Loki growled. “It’s important. The power of gods come from belief. And belief, coupled with a sacrifice, makes a god that much more potent.”
Dany didn’t really give a shit about his companion’s potency at this point. What did he care about gods, but if it brought his end to a swift conclusion he’d say whatever that hell the man standing behind him wanted.
“I believe that it’s you, Loki,” Dany said, and he waited for his moment to come.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the flash of the silver blade. He thought it was most appropriate to have his throat cut with his own blade, the one constant in his turbulent life. Then he thought nothing as pain seared across his throat.
* * *
Loki stood looking out the window at the top of the Tower House. Cadric had a sweet set up here, too bad it would soon all be taken from him.
He could see the agents milling around the back of the van, and an amused smile stretched across his face.
“Surprise,” he said chuckling as one agent entered the back of the van and just as quickly came back out again. His nemesis, Cadric approached and looked in the back of the van. “I believe that’s what’s called a cluster fuck.”
Loki laughed to himself as he turned away. He needed to get out of here before he was spotted. The agents wouldn’t know who he was, but Cadric would, since they went way back. All the way back to Asgard. Loki wondered if they Order’s employees realized that there was a demi god in their midst, giving them direction.
As he slipped away, Loki rubbed his hands together. He could hardly wait for the next phase of his plan. Cadric didn’t know it yet, but his days as head of this branch of the Order were finished.
“This will be fun,” Loki said as he walked away.
Chapter 17
Lee pulled up in front of his house just as dawn was lighting the sky. Could it have only been last night when he and Simone had said goodbye to each other? It seemed like decades had passed instead of a few hours.
“How are you holding up?” Simone asked as she glanced over at him and put her hand on his arm.
“I’m tired, mostly,” he replied.
“No, I mean about your father,” she said as she reached up to caress his face. He caught her hand, and pressed a kiss to her palm, which still showed marks from where she’d touch the silver cuffs that had held him.
“I lost my father a long time ago,” he said softly. He’d been surprised when Cadric had told him of the grisly discovery in the back of the Order’s van. And it was a little sad that his father had met such an end, but dwelling on it wouldn’t bring back the man Lee had known as a child. Nothing could do that, so it was best to just move on.
Lee got out of the car and went around to open Simone’s door. He could see the exhaustion stamped on her face. He led her into the house and opened his mouth to offer her the use of his guest room until she decided what to do next. He closed his mouth with a snap, realizing that wasn’t what he wanted at all.
“What is it?” she asked as she looked up at him. Having her standing in front of him was too much for him and he pulled her into his arms.
“What if I’d lost you,” he muttered into her hair as he pressed her body close to his. Seeing her fight his father as a wolf, he’d never been so proud and as scared in his entire life. He’d taken such a big risk with her, throwing her into his father’s path.
“You didn’t,” she said softly as she smoothed her hand down the back of his head. “I’m here and alive.”
He needed more than words as reassurance. He needed her, all of her, if he was going to get past the nightmare of seeing her hurt at the hands of his father.
He pulled back slightly and brought his mouth down on hers. He kissed her as if it was his last chance to prove to her how much he loved her. Her arms tightened around him, and it gave him hope that they might have a chance at a future together.
When he pulled his mouth away from hers, she cried out as if bereft. He soothed her as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom. Letting her go to stand by his bed, he looked at her bathed in the early morning sunlight streaming in his bedroom window. He brought his hands up to caress her face.
“Lee,” she said as she pulled his head down to hers.
He kissed her for long moments until his body craved more. They parted and quickly undressed silently as if by agreement that neither would speak lest they spoil this moment between them.
He eased her back on the bed and made it his mission to rediscover her. He kissed and caressed every inch of her skin as he relearned every hollow and curve. They’d been given so many chances already that he didn’t want to squander this moment. The outcome could so easily have been tragic that he sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that he could touch her, could pleasure her one more time.
“I need you inside me,” she whispered as she pulled his mouth down for a kiss. He guided himself inside the warm, moist folds of her body, and he closed his eyes. She felt so good, so right. It was as if they’d been made for each other, and he didn’t know how he could have thought he could be parted from her and survive with his sanity.
He moved inside her, and he looked into her eyes. She gazed back at him, and he could swear he saw love for him there. He kissed her, held her close as he brought pleasure to both of them. He scarcely dared to hope that she still loved him, and soon it didn’t matter as he heard her of cries of fulfillment. His movements grew harder and faster until he too finally joined her in the ultimate pleasure.
As he lay on top of her, spent from their love, a tiny kernel of hope blossomed inside him that maybe this was the start of their new beginning.
* * *
Simone stirred in bed, and stretched, wincing slightly when the stitches in the back of her shoulder pulled against her skin.
“You’re going to be sore for a while,” Lee said as he lay on his side, his head propped up on his hand as he watched her.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“It’s afternoon. Does it matter? After last night’s ordeal, we both needed the sleep.”
“So, what happens now?” Simone asked, feeling a little lost for the first time in a year. Her goal to see Dany pay for what he’d done had been achieved, although it hadn’t been at her hands. She didn’t know where to go from here, although she knew where she wanted her future to go, but a lot of it depended on the man lying beside her.
“I guess that all depends,” he said softly as he reached up to caress her face. “What do you want to happen?”
Simone swallowed hard, knowing that their entire future together rested on this conversation.
“Cadric offered me a job,” she said.
Lee drew back in surprise. “He did? He didn’t say anything to me about that.”
“It’s n
ot official yet, I haven’t given him my answer. Apparently the Order needs qualified nurses, but it would mean we would have to work together. I didn’t know if you’d want that, so I thought I’d talk to you about it first.”
“I want you to be happy. If you want to work for the Order, I won’t stop you,” he said as he drew back.
“Lee, what is it?”
“I don’t know if I can handle seeing you every day if we aren’t together anymore,” he said as he got out of the bed and stood at the window. Simone’s heart pounded in her chest, surely he didn’t mean that he didn’t want to be with her anymore. Taking a deep breath, she told him what was in her heart.
“I want us to be together,” she said, and he spun around to look at her.
“You do?” he asked, with a look of joy on his face.
“I love you,” she said, and he came back over to her and pulled her into his arms. “I was such a fool, Lee. I let my fear blind me to what was in front of me. I love you and I don’t want to be without you.”
“I love you too. I never stopped,” he said as he kissed her gently.
“I want us to be together,” she said as she pulled back and caressed his face. “I want to live with you, work with you and…”
“And what?” he asked as he looked deeply into her eyes.
“I want to raise babies with you,” she said and found herself crushed against him. He pulled back and looked deeply in her eyes.
“You don’t have to say that because you think it’s what I want to hear. When we were together before, when you were human, I knew that to be together I had to give up the notion of children, since it would be too dangerous for you to have my babies.”
“I know, but I’m not human anymore. I’m a werewolf, and while I haven’t really embraced it, I’m ready to now. I’m done being afraid. I want to embrace the chance I’ve been given to be with you. I love you and will love our children just as much.”
