by Pam Godwin
He laughed, eyes gleaming. “Now that you’ve turned all the hybrids into humans, maybe you can turn all aspects of life into sexual innuendos and earn a living as a roadside entertainer.”
“Maybe I will.” I trailed a finger down his shirt, relishing the hard indentations beneath. “Innuendos will always be appreciated, because life itself is sexually transmitted.”
“You’re on a roll.” He hooked a finger in the waistband of my pants and tugged me to him.
I circled my arms around his neck and kept an eye on the eastern ridge behind him. “For my next trick, I need a bed and a volunteer.”
“I like the sound of that.” He kissed my lips. “Where’s your bed?”
“Hmm.” I pretended to look around. “You’ll have to think outside the box.”
“All panties aside, I’d rather think inside your box.”
“Nice.” I nibbled along his jaw. “Maybe you can be the sidekick in my entertainment venture.”
“I’ll do anything you want as long as I’m with you.”
“You might change your mind. I’m kind of a pain in the ass.”
“I’ll go slow and use a lubricant.”
I burst into laughter. “I’m definitely keeping you.”
“Good, because I’ll never let you go again.”
I pressed against him in a satisfied catlike stretch, absorbing the feel of his strength and heat. Then a different kind of warmth spread over me, and my gaze lifted to the blush of orange above the cliff. “Dawn’s coming.”
His face cracked into a wide grin, and he opened his mouth.
“Don’t say it.” I touched a finger against his lips. “I walked right into that one.” Stepping back, I turned him toward the sunrise. “Look.”
Shoulders back, chest out, chin high, his beauty took up a lot of space. It wasn’t just his brawny physique. It was his sense of assurance, dominating presence, and larger-than-life aura. Just standing beside him filled me with a frisson of intense emotions. Excitement, longing, fear…
“I’m scared.” I stared unblinking at his profile, waiting for the first ray of light to touch his face. “I stole your superhuman strength. If I left you unprotected with your only weakness—”
“I have you, Dawn, and you’re all I need.” He wrapped an arm around my back, tucking me against his side. “If karma had its way, I wouldn’t even have that.”
“Karma is like sixty-nine. You get what you give.”
He chuckled, kissed my hair, and squinted at the glowing ridge.
“You gave me life.” I watched him closely, arms locked around his waist, breath suspended as sunlight bled into the canyon.
His chest rose with a heavy inhale, the flawless porcelain skin around his bruises resplendent in the fiery glow of dawn. He didn’t shield his eyes, didn’t sizzle or burn. He absorbed the full force of the sun with his head tilted back and lips parted.
I touched his neck. Smooth, warm, human skin. I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. “Say something.”
“It feels like you.” He closed his eyes, his timbre low and raspy. “Blinding. Extraordinary. Alive.”
I hugged him tighter and turned my gaze to the golden spears piercing the persimmon sky. “I was born right here. Right where we’re standing. This view was the last thing my mother saw.”
“You were part of the view, right?” He absently stroked my hair, eyes on the sky. “Didn’t she see you?”
“Yeah. She was holding me.”
“If the last time I closed my eyes was with you in my arms and the sun on my face…” He looked down at me, his voice gravelly. “I’d die a happy man.”
An overwhelming feeling of peace swept over me. “I love you.”
He framed my face in his hands, his eyes warm and bright with the depth of his love. “Thank you for giving me this.” He was quiet for a moment, his thumbs tracing the curves of my cheekbones. “I lived my entire life without love or light. Now I have both, and no matter what happens, I will never stop feeling them.”
I brushed my lips against his, and slowly, tenderly, the kiss deepened, wobbled with breathlessness, and moved to the bench beside my mother’s statue. For the next hour, we sat side by side, lost in the sun’s warmth and each other. I told him about my conversation with my mother, but all other events of the prior night were left where they belonged—in the past.
Eventually, my fathers showed up, bringing breakfast and news of more cured humans. The five of us sprawled on the patch of grass beside my mother’s memorial, eating fried eggs, shredded potatoes, and jerky.
The garden used to hold a patina of gloom for me, a place haunted with the deaths of my mother and Darwin. But new memories, brighter moments, were quickly casting a great light of hope on my entire world.
“I love him,” I said around a mouthful of food.
“We know, lass.” Roark stretched out a leg in front of him and wiped his mouth.
I narrowed my eyes at three faces that had relaxed significantly since I first woke. “That means you have to love him, too.”
“Dawn.” Salem stiffened beside me.
Jesse draped an arm over his bent knee. “Now that the Resistance is obsolete, what are you planning?”
I swallowed. “We haven’t talked about—”
“I’m asking him.” Jesse looked at Salem.
When Salem didn’t answer, I peeked up at his face.
Thoughtful reflection glowed in his eyes as he held Jesse’s hard glare. “We’ll put down roots and build. Plant seeds and harvest crops. Work hard and sleep well. Pursue our dreams during the day and come home at night to dream some more.”
Good answer, beautiful man. I slid my hand in his and laced our fingers.
“Come home where?” Michio set his plate aside and clasped his hands in front of him.
“Wherever Dawn is,” Salem said without hesitation.
“That won’t be Canada.” I feigned a dramatic shiver. “Or underground…anywhere.”
Salem breathed deeply, his bruised face awash in sunlight. “I can live with that.” A smile stretched across his mouth. “Our home is out there waiting for us.”
“It’s the tallest building in the biggest city.” I rolled the idea around in my mouth, testing the flavor. “Surrounded by the bustle and rebuild of life.”
“It’s on a sandy beach with every window open to the ocean.” He grinned wider, squeezing my hand.
“Hard to plant and harvest food on a beach.” I rested my head on his shoulder, my mind spinning with dreams. “It’s on a grassy hillside, overlooking fertile acreage waiting to be planted.”
“Where are your oul fellas in these scenarios?” Roark arched a blond eyebrow.
“Someone has to tend the crops.” I bit down on a smile. “I hear the Irish know a thing or two about planting potatoes.”
“Ach, ye little harpy.” Roark reached across our spread of food in the grass, knocking over cups and bowls to muss my hair into a tangle on top of my head. Once he had me in reach, he cupped my face and deposited a kiss on my forehead. “You’re stuck with us.”
When he settled back beside Jesse, I looked each one of them in the eyes and asked, “You’ll leave the dam? You’ll leave…” I glanced around the garden and settled on the carved statue of my mother.
“Evie isn’t here.” Jesse twisted a blade of grass between his fingers, eyes on the statue. “She’s in our dreams, in your dreams, wherever that takes you.”
“And us.” Michio tilted his head, briefly glancing at Roark and Jesse. “We’ll be with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
My insides buzzed with hope and excitement as I approached my bedroom door and reached for the handle.
Salem hadn’t slept in two days, so after breakfast, I’d dropped him off at my room and left to shower in the bathroom down the hall. On my way there, I’d been stopped by Eddie, Shea, and a dozen others, smothering me with cheers and chatter and blinding smiles. Their happiness was infectious, and I carried it with
me through my shower and back to the room.
As I turned the handle on my door, Link rounded the corner and entered the hall, pointing his black eyes at me.
“You avoiding me, Mini Evie?”
“Doesn’t everyone, old man?” I grinned and released the handle, giving him my full attention. “Did you just return?”
He paused a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back and bald head glinting in the glow of the overhead bulbs. “Yeah.”
“And?”
A smile broke through his scruffy beard. “You put me out of work, little girl.”
“No hybrids?”
“Nope. We’ll keep looking, but you know as well as I do this was a worldwide cure.” His eyes crinkled. “Like mother, like daughter.”
“Was that a compliment?” I pretended to gasp.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “It was long overdue.”
With that, he turned back down the hall and vanished around the corner.
Such a strange man.
Smiling, I quietly entered my bedroom and closed the door. A single candle illuminated the most gorgeous eyes and muscular body I’d ever seen. He sat on the edge of my bed, shirtless and bent forward, with his elbows on his spread knees. His head lifted, and the impact of his smile weakened my legs and kicked up my pulse.
“You’re supposed to be asleep.” I stepped toward him, tempted to remove my shorts and tank top and give him another reason to stay awake.
“I can’t sleep without you.” He straightened and opened his arms.
The darklight that burned between us sparked anew. I climbed on to his lap, straddled his hips, and melted against him. The kiss that followed wasn’t tentative or coaxing. It began with a savage snarl on his lips that thrust us straight into the future. And south. Way down south where our bodies ground together in hard unapologetic hunger.
“You should sleep.” I panted into his mouth.
“You should be naked.” He tore off my top.
My fingers dug into his back, and my hips rocked with the roll of his. The mattress squeaked to the rhythm of our need, and the room vibrated with the sounds of our impassioned kisses.
His stubble scraped down my jaw as he slid his mouth to my throat, licking and nibbling the spot that had been ripped open only one night ago.
My head fell back beneath the tingling caress of his tongue. “Do you miss your teeth?”
With a toe-curling growl, he stood, lifting me with him. “Sweetheart, I still have teeth.”
He tossed me on the bed and yanked off my shorts, leaving me completely bare beneath his burning gaze. My heart couldn’t race fast enough as he prowled up my legs and buried his face between my thighs.
I writhed beneath his diabolical mouth with neither grace nor breath. The closer I approached combustion, the hungrier he became, working his tongue in and around my folds until I came with a howling scream.
He caught my hips and continued to kiss me in the most intimate way possible. Evidently, he wasn’t tired, and I couldn’t fight. I didn’t want to. I came when he sank his fingers inside me. I came when he sucked on my clit. I came every time he made me, cursing and bucking and pulling his hair.
I’d been lost and found, claimed and conquered, and just when I thought I had nothing left to give, he showed me exactly how he could use those human teeth. Biting my clit with the right amount of pressure, I came again with a hoarse cry.
As I caught my breath, he removed his pants and kissed his way up my body, covering every inch of hypersensitive skin in his path. When he reached my face, I cupped his jaw and brushed my lips over the swelling around his eye, down the crooked break in his nose, and across his tangy-wet mouth.
“You’re a wicked man.” I licked his lips. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve come?”
He slid his hands in my hair and nudged his hard length between my legs. “Forty-four days.”
He’d fucked me a month ago in his attempt to pull me out of my terrible desolation, but neither of us had found release during those miserable two weeks. Excluding last night, it’d been forty-four days since his last orgasm, too.
“Your turn.” I wriggled beneath him, pushing at his chest. “Now that I don’t have fangs, I can put my mouth on you.”
He pressed his face against my neck and groaned. “I’d never last.”
“Are you worried about your stamina now?”
“Admits no man ever.” He playfully bit the juncture between my neck and shoulder. “But my recovery time is probably going to be…human.”
“The horror.” I reached down between us, wrapped my fingers around his thick cock, and stroked. “I might actually be able to walk when we finish.”
“Don’t count on it.” He caught my hand around his length and positioned himself at my opening.
“Wait.” I clenched my fingers around him, eliciting a sexy-as-hell growl from his lips. “Given all the changes your body has gone through, it’s possible you’re fertile now. Do you want to get tested first?”
“No more tests. No more science.”
“What happens happens?”
“Absolutely.” He thrust hard and vigorously, instantly setting a pace that owned me from the inside out.
My hands flew to the muscled flanks of his ass. “Fuuuck!”
“You feel so damn good.” His lips captured mine, and all thought evaporated. “Tight and perfect and mine.”
He filled me up and stretched me out, pounding me into the mattress and grunting against my mouth.
I missed this. The shocking drive of his hips, the sinful friction of our grinding bodies, the feverish way he possessed my lips. I missed every touch, every response, so fucking much.
His hands swept over my pleasure-soaked skin, triggering a rush of sensations that took me to the pinnacle of bliss. He stared directly in my eyes, and the fervency of his love blazed through our connection, fighting my body for possession of my soul.
He was my heaven and hell, my death and rebirth, and every vibrant heartbeat in between.
“I’m yours.” I came in an explosion of heat and friction, screaming Yours until my voice was raw
His pupils widened, and his thrusts became erratic, his heavy breaths tumbling into husky groans. When he came, it was all there in his gaze, his wonderment and pleasure and eternal devotion.
If he didn’t have the same stamina as before, I didn’t notice. He was Salem in every way that mattered.
He was my forever.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Five years later
The scent of fresh earth filled my lungs as I hurried down the grassy hillside, shielding my eyes from the eastern sky. The soft amber glow kissed the smile I couldn’t stifle. The sun itself had barely risen, and already the surrounding farmland stirred with harvesters, all of them too busy to lift their heads and notice my excitement.
Twenty-seven years ago, my mother had lived on this land, smack in the middle of old-world America, with her husband, Joel, and my siblings, Annie and Aaron. Her neighborhood was long gone, but I hoped she’d be proud of the village we’d erected in its place.
Building where my mother had once called home made this location special, but it wasn’t the only reason we’d chosen it. The winters here reminded us of Canada. The summers were reminiscent of Hoover Dam. The in-between seasons were mild and peaceful, the best foundation for new memories.
Most of the homes gathered around the main road, encircled by swaths of crops and pastures dotted with horses and cattle. There were no ugly walls to keep out hybrids. There were no more hybrids. The infection had died worldwide the moment my heart had stopped.
Of course, there would always be threats. Wolves and wild cats and the random armed asshole who thought he could steal happiness from those who had earned it. But those predators were trappable—and easy to kill if it came to that. I ran the security, trained the guards, and maintained order among our ninety-two townspeople. My fathers called me the town sheriff.
/> My feet hit the dirt road, and I raced past the huge oak tree at the center of town. A dozen small buildings lined the main path. Soon there would be more. So much more.
I approached the one room hospital. Michio would already be inside, preparing for his day as the resident doctor. But I didn’t stop.
My fathers lived just outside of the village, a five-minute ride by horseback. They’d built a log home on the other side of the lake, claiming they wanted peace and quiet. As quickly as our community was growing, I suspected their location would be surrounded by homes and more farmland within a few years.
I passed the town’s only church—a tiny thing with a triangular roof. Roark might’ve been the resident priest, but he counseled and married folks of all faiths and beliefs. He also liked to sleep in, so I didn’t bother peeking through the shutters.
When I reached the largest building, my legs burned and my lungs labored for air. I skidded through the doorway and found the front room of the town hall empty. I ran security out of the space on the right, but the building was primarily used for meetings.
Jesse’s timbre drifted from the back room, followed by a feminine voice I didn’t recognize. I strode across the wood floors, down a short hall, and around the corner.
A dozen heads turned in my direction. Most of the faces I didn’t recognize. Three wore familiar smiles.
Jesse, Erebus, and Salem sat around a large table with men and women from… another village?
With the help of Erebus and Jesse, Salem had found great success in governing our town, from organizing an efficient structure of engineers, carpenters, and farmers to ensuring plans ran smoothly and timely. Towns like ours sprouted up everywhere. Many struggled to keep up with population growth and reached out to Salem for advice. I suspected this was another one of those meetings.
The strangers in the room bowed their heads and didn’t meet my eyes. A common reaction, one that made me feel awkward and isolated. It was probable that some of these men and women had been hybrids and saw me as some kind of savior. But I was just a woman, a human with fears and dreams just like them. Though I’d freed them, it was up to them to build a future for mankind.
