Caretaker

by Laken Cane

  Angus, too, watched me, fierce and impatient. We would need to consolidate our bond, as I had with Shane, Clayton, and Amias.

  We would need to have sex.

  Goosebumps popped out on my body, and I shivered as a wave of cold heat wafted over me. I couldn’t wait, but at the same time, I was strangely reluctant. Maybe because I was afraid of what I’d see when he bared himself to me.

  “Let’s go home,” I said.

  Shane nodded. “I need a bed.”

  “Where is home?” Angus asked. “My place?”

  “No,” Clayton said. “Home is the way station.” Then he blew out a harsh breath, a breath that was heavy with tears and joy and hope and disbelief. “She’s gone,” he whispered.

  “Forever,” I replied.

  Angus clapped Clayton on the back. “I can’t fully trust my freedom after only a few months of captivity. I imagine it’s going to take a little longer before you’ll trust yours. But you will.” He looked at me, then. “We all will.”

  Maybe my freedom was different.

  I would find my freedom in my captivity.

  I would find my freedom in immortality. In responsibility.

  But however I found it, I would embrace it.

  Eventually.

  “I’m going to Angus’s house to pack,” I told them. “Do I just walk into the way station and claim it?”

  Clayton looked surprised. “The way station has claimed you. It’s waiting for you. Can you feel it?”

  An invisible wind, full of portent and expectation, rushed through my body. I shuddered. “Yes, I can. I feel it.”

  Angus wrapped his hand around my upper arm. He said nothing, but the others seemed to understand.

  They all melted away, even Leo, leaving me to Angus. Or leaving Angus to me.

  We arrived at his house in minutes, but it seemed to take hours. We didn’t say a word all the way home, and after we slipped inside the dark and nearly silent house, we parted ways.

  We both needed to clean up.

  And then…

  I knew where to find him.

  My body was buzzing with energy, like the vampire’s blood was a potent drug I’d drunk. I reeled with everything that had happened, but there was simply too much. So in the shower, my muscles relaxing beneath the pounding water, I cried for Miriam, and then I let it all go.

  I’d deal with everything, but not all at once. And not alone.

  I would never be alone again.

  And in the distant darkness of my mind the way station called like a faraway, lonely train whistle. I put that away, too, because it made me sad. I didn’t know why, only that it did.

  I didn’t want to sink into despair. Angus was waiting for me, and I would go be with him before I went to be with the way station.

  So I hurried through my washing, because in the other room was a man who, for whatever reason, made me feel safe. And I needed the hell out of safe. Just for a little while.

  After my shower, I took a thin dress from the closet and pulled it on. I wore nothing else, but I gripped Silverlight and took her with me. I wasn’t ready to leave her behind. Not yet.

  And then I opened the door and padded down the hallway, my heart in my throat.

  I didn’t knock. When I slipped through the doorway and locked the door behind me, I turned to find Angus sitting in a chair across the room, watching me.

  “Red dress.” He kept his head resting back against the chair, but his stare traveled from my face to that red dress, the dress that I hoped would somehow make him okay.

  I’d bought it after he’d been taken away, because I knew someday he’d be back. I’d looked at that dress every day, and had imagined this night. I’d known all along it was coming.

  “I wore it for you,” I whispered, then dropped my gaze when he lifted his glittering eyes. “God, Angus.”

  “Trinity. Come here.” He didn’t move, just stayed sprawled in that chair, his long legs stretched out, one of his hands resting on his abdomen, the other on his leg.

  I went to him. I couldn’t do anything else. Didn’t want to.

  I’d have given anything at that moment for things to have gone back to the time before, when he’d bellowed and bossed and laughed and fought like he was invincible.

  He would probably never tell me everything that’d happened to him in prison, but I could see the horror of it stamped on his face. His body.

  Angus was strong. So strong.

  But his eyes were haunted.

  Not even he could have emerged from the hell of the last few months unchanged. Unscathed. No, not even Angus could have done that.

  I clenched my fists. “I want to kill them,” I said suddenly, my voice cracking. “I want to find them and I want to kill them all, Angus.”

  And finally, he moved.

  He reached for me and pulled me onto his lap, and he held me against his chest as I sobbed. The wrongness, the injustice, the frustration…

  “I learned some disturbing details about what they did to him…” The captain had been about to tell me something horrendous, something I didn’t want to know then and didn’t want to know now. So I wouldn’t ask. I would do the only thing I could do. I’d let him know I loved him.

  But first, I needed to cry. I needed to curl up in his arms and let him hold and comfort me, as though I’d been the one they’d tormented. But I cried for him, and he knew it.

  At last, I turned to him and took his face between my palms, relishing the feel of his flesh against my skin. He was there.

  “You’re safe now,” I said.

  The old Angus would have laughed at me. He’d have slapped my ass and roared something stupid and I’d have called him an asshole.

  But now, he stared silently into my eyes and nodded. His voice was so low I almost couldn’t hear it. “Yes.” And maybe he wasn’t even talking to me. Maybe he was convincing himself. “I’m home.”

  “If anyone ever comes for you again, I will shoot them down,” I swore, savagely.

  He finally gave me a hint of a smile. “They’ll never take me again, sweetheart.”

  And of that, he was absolutely certain.

  For a second, a spark of something unrecognizable lit his gaze, and I recoiled in terror. “Angus!”

  The humans had effectively destroyed the man he’d once been, and this Angus, this dark, frightening thing, had taken his place.

  No. That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Angus was still Angus. He was just…changed.

  As we all were.

  He buried his fingers my hair and pulled me to him. “Shhh,” he murmured against my lips. “You don’t have to ever be afraid again, Trinity. Not of me. And not for me.”

  I’d seen the fires of hell in his eyes, and I wasn’t afraid for him.

  But maybe I was a little afraid of him.

  They’d turned Angus into something dark.

  I drew back, just a little. “Come back,” I whispered. “Come back to me.”

  His face softened. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

  “Just now—”

  He licked the tears from my face, gently, but with a restrained passion that made me shudder with desire even as I shivered with fear.

  Maybe Angus wasn’t different.

  Maybe he just wasn’t hiding anymore.

  His gaze was searching when he pulled back to look at me. And he must have seen something that made him uneasy because he relaxed his grip and his fierceness dimmed. “You did more than save my life. You rescued me. You didn’t give up on me. You didn’t quit until you brought me home. I’m yours, Trinity.”

  I took a shuddery breath. “Only mine.” And the possessiveness that rose up and grabbed me by the throat surprised me, though it wasn’t exactly new.

  He didn’t smile, just studied me with complete seriousness. “Only yours.”

  I wasn’t sure that meant the same thing to him that it did to me, but he stood and let me slide down his body. I held my arms up so he could pull the red dress ov
er my head.

  I forgot what we’d been talking about. I forgot what he’d been through.

  I forgot what I’d been through.

  “And you’re mine,” he said finally, hoarsely, when I stood before him, trembling and naked, hot with desire and need and expectation.

  “Only yours?” I asked.

  His laugh was soft. “No. You’re not only mine. You belong to…” He shook his head. “To more than just one man.” He traced my cheek with a calloused finger. “I’ve claimed you, but I’m not the only one.”

  I hesitated. “That doesn’t bother you?”

  He widened his smile. “So fucking much.”

  And he said it so boisterously, so like the Angus I knew and loved, that I laughed, delighted.

  He threw off the cloak of darkness at that moment, let it fly away on the wings of my laughter. Yeah, it’d be back to cover him again, but for that moment, it was gone and he was just…he was Angus Stark.

  And Angus Stark was exactly what I needed.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Something’s not right.” I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to figure out why I still felt unsettled, why I still felt that it was not the time to fall into Angus.

  He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, silent, letting me work through what was bothering me. And finally, I did.

  “I need to take you to the way station.” I popped my eyes open and clutched his big arms. “We need to…” I grabbed my dress and dropped it back over my head, then grabbed Silverlight from the nightstand on which I’d placed her. “Break it in or something, I don’t know. But Angus, you’re part of that place too.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Himself,” I said, tugging him toward the door. “He’s the one who sent me to the island that night to bring you home. Nadine said he had a fondness for you. And we need to go there right now.”

  “I met him once,” he said slowly, but didn’t elaborate.

  Now that I understood and accepted it, urgency and eagerness overtook me. I could have Angus anywhere—but that first time, it had to be at the way station. I wasn’t the only one to need it, either. Angus needed it. More importantly, the way station needed it. Whatever got the magic going and woke the place up would happen when Angus and I made it happen.

  “Hurry,” I begged, as he floored the gas pedal and sped toward the way station. The closer we got to the land, to the house, the jumpier I became. My skin was so sensitive it hurt me to touch it. Hot blood rushed and crashed like ocean waves inside me, loud in my ears. My heart thundered, my breath whooshed, and lust rose up to claim me.

  My entire body throbbed with desire— a desire I hadn’t quite felt in the same way since Angus had been taken.

  But he was back.

  For whatever reason, we belonged together. We just did.

  I thought maybe my heart would explode before I got there. I squirmed on my seat, moaning.

  Angus drew my scent in, then nearly ran us off the road. “Fuck, Trinity.” His voice was strained, raw, and full of need.

  Unable to resist, I reached across the seat and squeezed his erection.

  “This,” I said. “This is how it should be.”

  He groaned, then drove a little faster. “Take your hand away, or I won’t make it to the way station.”

  I was the Lady of the Way Station, true enough. But I wasn’t the only master of the place. Angus was, as well. I felt it in my very bones.

  And finally, after a lifetime of waiting, we were there.

  Angus slammed on the breaks and slid into the driveway, the truck skidding too fast toward the other automobiles parked there. Both of us were out and running almost before the truck stopped rolling. He didn’t even shut off the engine, and neither of us took time to slam the doors shut after we exited.

  The others were there. Shane, Rhys, Amias, Clayton.

  Waiting for us.

  “I feel it, too,” Angus muttered. “What the hell is that?”

  I laughed and caught his hand as we strode toward the house, lacing my fingers with his. “Lust. Love. Need. Magic. Fate.”

  The men came out onto the porch to watch as we hurried toward them, but at the last second, Angus veered to the right and dragged me around to the side of the house. “Not in the house,” he said.

  I didn’t argue, because he was right. I felt the pull, too. It was in the land. I didn’t have to glance behind me to know the others followed.

  We stopped at the edge of an ancient cemetery. The moonlight glinted off a weathered old sign that had been nailed to a post, and I squinted to read the faint lettering.

  Willow-Wisp.

  That was all. There were no dates, no signatures, nothing. Just Willow-Wisp.

  I couldn’t stop shivering.

  “Wormwood.” The dark, lonely whisper slipped through the air on a warm breeze, and chills chased each other over my body. I turned to look at Angus.

  “What did you say?”

  He shook his head, his eyes full of something other than pain, finally. They held only awe. “I didn’t say anything.”

  And then we stepped over an invisible line, and into the graveyard. The world outside disappeared at that moment.

  The graveyard seemed to stretch on for miles, limitlessness, endless. The vast sky stretched overhead, full of tiny, bright stars, and it was like holes had been poked in the dark fabric and I could see into the brightness waiting behind it.

  The moon hung there, white and round and low, watching. Adding magic and mystery and shadows.

  Inside the graveyard was perfection. “We’re safe here,” I realized. “There is no pain. Not for us.”

  It was like a deep well holding the sweetest water into which we could submerge our weary spirits. It would renew us.

  And still, my body’s need grew stronger, irresistible, undeniable.

  Once the awe inspired by the graveyard faded just slightly, the lust took control once again. I didn’t question it.

  Silverlight buzzed gently and I drew her from her sheath, then let the leather case fall to the ground. It hit the dirt and disappeared. Just disappeared.

  It didn’t belong there.

  The sword expanded, lighting up with something different than her killing light. It was a paler, gentler version of her usual cold, silver fire. I pushed her blade into the ground, just a little, and she stood tall and quivering and bright. And she didn’t disappear. Silverlight belonged.

  She created a circle around the werebull and me, bathing us in the perfection of her glowing halo.

  Angus turned to me and with no warning, gripped the front of my dress and ripped the fabric apart. He tossed the tattered cloth away, growling as he looked at me.

  Danger poured from him, but it didn’t scare me. It got me hot.

  Hotter.

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but oh, was it possible.

  He reached out to touch me, to run his fingertips over my face, then wrapped his fingers around my upper arms and pulled me to him.

  My body was more sensitive than it’d ever been. I felt everything a thousand times more intensely. His clothes rubbed against my bare skin and I cried out, unsure, for a moment, if I were feeling pleasure or pain.

  He buried his fingers in my hair and lowered his mouth to mine, and I swear the world tilted. I put my palms on either side of his face and held him to me, kissing him as he kissed me, with a hunger so intense it hurt.

  I’d been waiting my entire life for that moment. That was how big that moment was. How consuming.

  I panted as he pulled his mouth from mine and ran his teeth down the side of my neck. If there had ever been a time I’d felt so alive, so greedy, so excited, I couldn’t remember it.

  I wanted everything. And I wanted him. All of him.

  Even his darkness, though I hadn’t realized it.

  Especially his darkness.

  My men were a crush of heat pressing in on us, and I felt their need as strongly as
I felt my own. They surged against Silverlight’s circle but didn’t enter it. Not yet.

  But they would.

  Angus returned his lips to mine and I opened my mouth as he deepened the kiss, and I knew, I knew, there would never be another kiss like that one. Never.

  He pulled his mouth from mine, finally, and smiled down at me, and there was fierce satisfaction in his smile. And something else…primal, animal lust.

  Would he hurt me with his raw, rough passion? Maybe.

  And something about his uncontrollable need for me made me clench my thighs together and hope he would.

  The men entered the circle then, and I caught glimpses of wild eyes and bare flesh, and flashes of quick hands that divested Angus of his clothes until finally, he was all hot skin and bulging muscle under my fingertips, my lips, my teeth.

  He grasped me under my thighs and lifted me against him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, crying out as my center slid against his hard, heated flesh. I pushed my face against his throat, inhaling his irresistible, familiar, beautiful scent, a scent that couldn’t stay buried though it’d been covered with layer upon layer of horror, and before I knew I was about to, I bit him.

  He groaned, his fingers hard on my thighs, and I felt the tip of his erection pushing against me, so huge, so hard, but I didn’t wonder if I could take him. I was slick and wet and pulsing with desire, with need, and what I needed was Angus inside me.

  Yes, I could take him.

  The other men pressed against us, and I felt their lips and hands on my body, caressing, touching, kissing, part of us, part of me.

  Then Angus shoved himself into my opening, just a little, easing his way inside, stretching me, his body trembling with the effort of holding back.

  I bit him again.

  When I did, he lost what little control he’d had and rode me to the ground. His big body forced my legs wide, painfully wide, and he shoved himself inside.

  I screamed, but Clayton covered my mouth with his, swallowing my voice, devouring my ecstasy, and my body remembered what it had been like to fuck him in the cabin, when he’d been free with an incubus inside him.

  Angus plunged into me, hard, and Clayton was suddenly gone and someone—Amias, of course it was Amias—plunged his teeth into the side of my neck.