by Red, Lynn
“Listen to your heart, Damon,” Poko’s voice fluttered back for one last gasp. “Listen to… yourself.”
Unleashing a roar so mighty that the whole world seemed to tremble around him, Damon gripped the rock as hard as he can.
A crack – the first one – split the air around him, and a shock of heat blasted through his arm. Damon howled in pain, but squeezed harder until another crack met his ears.
“What are you doing, idiot?” the succubus in his ears screeched, almost weeping in her desperation. “You stupid man, you’ll kill us both, you’ll—”
“Shut up,” Damon growled.
He shoved his hand forward, once again piercing the veil that separated he and Lily. Her hand fell on top of his.
Purple flames licked both of them, poured out of Lily’s mouth and through her eyes. She blinked twice, and grabbed Damon’s hand, getting his attention. She smiled and opened her gentle blue eyes.
“You can do it,” she whispered. “For the pack. To prevent the war. You can do it, Damon.”
Damon shook his head. The crystal started crumbling in his hand, and the demon’s shrieking grew louder and louder. Not even the sound of Damon’s ragged breathing was audible over the screaming succubus.
“No,” he said softly, staring into Lily’s eyes as flames consumed his arm up to the shoulder. “I’m doing it for the only thing in the world that matters more to me than the pack.”
She smiled again with tears in the corners of her eyes.
“Hold my hand,” she whispered.
Damon closed his fist, oblivious to the pain in his arm, and the agony in his ears. The crystal pendant burst.
“Hold… on…” she said, eyes fluttering and heart pounding against his chest. “Hold me, she’s coming out, she’s… I feel her…”
“Close your eyes! Damon, Lily, close your eyes!” Wilton ran to their side. “You mustn’t look into the abyss she opens, or you’ll be claimed!”
Damon clutched his love to his chest, greedily keeping her away from the sucking pull of whatever was yanking the demoness out of her body. With her last conscious effort, she laid her hand across his face, shielding him from whatever it was they weren’t supposed to see.
A half-second later, Damon opened his eyes to a peacefully unconscious Lily on his chest.
“Is… is it over?” Hunter said, stumbling toward him. “Carrell just kind of… I don’t know, man, he made this really weird noise and then…”
“I don’t think he hears you,” Wilton said, calming the young wolf with a hand on his shoulder. “He’s got his mind on other things.”
Just as suddenly as he’d opened them, Damon closed his eyes again, lost in a sea of Lily’s hair, holding her tight against his chest like he was trying to keep her from slipping away. His seared black arm began to swirl, to crackle and to heal, but he didn’t notice.
He didn’t notice the scars, or the cuts, or the shards of shattered crystal in his hand.
He didn’t notice anything.
The only thing in the world that mattered to Damon was right on top of him.
Damon took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
Fifteen
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I laughed and slid my arms tight around Damon’s waist and adjusted my weight in his motorcycle’s familiar seat. “We’ve been through worse.”
He grunted a laugh. “Yeah, maybe. Probably not.” Damon’s voice was somewhere distant. I knew he was worried about his brother and about Poko and everything else. But mostly I think he was just glad to be done with Scagg’s Valley, and done with the pack politics.
The two days since our run in with the demon and the vanished-but-presumed-dead-we-guess warlock rogue wolf were slow. Both Damon and I were in declining states of shock for most of it, but about the time night rolled around on the third day, both of us were patched up – or, I was patched up, and he was in perfect werewolf health, I guess is a better way to put it.
Earlier that morning, everyone had come by to wish the Alpha well and see us off. It was tiring and about four steps past awkward, but during the few hours where everyone from Wilton, to the ice cream parlor owner, Steve, came through, it became clear that something was different.
“You seem like you’ve made some decisions,” I said to Damon as Hunter opened the door, fumbled with something, and shouted that he’d be back in a second. “More focused, I guess?”
Damon responded by turning and staring into my eyes for a second, then smiling. “I’m just ready to go home,” he said.
Home.
The word stuck in my mind as my thoughts drifted back to Danness and her purple smoke in my brain. “I never thought I’d say this, but yeah, I’ve never wanted to be anywhere worse than I want to be in Fort Branch.”
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs.
“Are you gonna miss this place, Damon?” I ran a hand down his leather-covered leg, leaning my head against his back.
Damon looked past me. In the creeping twilight, his skin looked like a mixture of slate and silver. The green and gray streaks in his eyes captivated me for a second.
“No,” he said plainly, and with a shrug. “It never much felt like home, even when I lived here with my parents. This is going to sound stupid.”
He always laughs when he’s pretending he’s not about to say something really emotional. I found his hand on top of his leg, wrapped my fingers between his, and squeezed. “You can tell me anything. Except that you’re cheating on me.”
Damon quirked a little half-smile. “Never. But, no.” he shrugged again. “I don’t know. I never felt like it was where I belonged. You used to say the same thing about Fort Branch. How it always felt like you were trapped there and wanted out?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t really think that anymore, not since—”
“Were you about to say ‘since you showed up’?”
I blushed, smiling, and looked down. “Maybe so.”
In one quick, smooth motion, he spun to face me. Damon grabbed my legs and pulled me close, draping them over his. We were so close that I felt his heat in my deepest places. That got me blushing all over again.
He grabbed my head in his hands, rough palms scratching gently at my smooth skin.
“Are you going to kiss me,” I asked, craning my neck. “Or are you gonna wait until your friend comes back so you have an excuse—”
Hot, full lips interrupted me, and the heat I felt between my legs surged all the way up my neck. I was sure a red flush followed. Our mouths opened for one another, each inviting the other in deeper and deeper until our tongues swirled together.
Sucking a breath, inhaling the scent of his hair, for one blissed moment, I was completely lost inside Damon.
The door slammed, and bare feet patted down the sidewalk. Damon pulled back, sucking my bottom lip gently as we parted, pierced me with those eyes of his, and melted me with another little half-smile.
“Got you some things for the road, brother,” Hunter said as he jogged up.
My hand fell from Damon’s shoulder to his leg. The soft, supple leathers he wore warmed me palms.
“Let me guess,” Damon said with a grin. He took the sack from his friend and peered inside. “Yep. Jerky, cured sausages, and a… oh my God is this an entire chicken?”
Hunter beamed. “Made it for you guys last night! All that stuff came directly from the casa de Hunter kitchen. Fresh ground pork, an eight pound chicken – which, by the way, I didn’t even know was possible – and yeah, all that fresh jerky. That’ll hold you guys.”
Giggling, I turned to him. “You know the drive is about fourteen hours, right? This is like… I don’t know, maybe a week or so of food for me?”
He shrugged. “There’s two of you, and one of them is a young man just growing into his skin. Anyway, I wanted to give you guys something for the road. I gotta find someone to take care of.”
“Whoa,” I said. “That’s quite a conversational shift. You want t
o come back to Arizona with us? There are plenty of eligible mates. We can do you a personal ad and everything. I can see the title ‘Strapping Young Wolf Seeks Mate’ working really well back home.”
“I don’t know if I’m the desert type,” he said, massaging his bruised jaw. “But I guess it couldn’t hurt anything to strike out and see new things, all that. And anyway, it seemed to work out pretty well for you.”
Damon nodded. “Yeah, worked out pretty damn well.” He squeezed my hand. “If you decide to come, you can stay in one of three places… though I doubt you’d want to live on a straw mat in Poko’s cave.”
Hunter crinkled his tanned face. “Does he have a fridge?”
“He’s got his ways,” Damon said with a chuckle. “Doubt he has a fridge in there, though. You could meet him if you wanted to though. He’s really not as scary as everyone seems to think. Little bit strange, with the talking to spirits, but if you’ve ever seen anybody wander down the street with a bluetooth thing stuck in their ear and having an argument, it’s nothing surprising.”
“So, uh, Lily,” Hunter said. “I kinda did mean what I said. I’m pretty damn alone here. All the wolves are either older or younger, but… that’s not really what I’m looking for, you know?”
I nodded. “I know a few people.”
Caitlyn might be a little wolf-shy after her run in with Devin, but if nothing else, at least she knows they exist. I shook my head. “I even know one who has some experience.”
“Cat?” Damon quirked an eyebrow at what I said. “Don’t you think…?”
“She’s a strong girl. Really strong, the way she got over what happened.”
“Okay, okay,” Hunter cut in. “The hushed tones make me think this is some kind of crazy plan that may or may not be a terrible idea. What are you guys talking about?”
“My friend Cat,” I said. “She’s the one who… er, well, Damon’s brother’s ex-girlfriend.”
Hunter opened his eyes wide and nodded. “Don’t you think she’d rather not… I mean, certainly she’s got some pretty bad impressions of us. Like, of wolves.”
“She’s a smart girl,” I said. “She’ll see you for who you are.” I was a little surprised at my own tenderness. “But it’s up to you. Offer is there for the taking if you want.”
We all three sat there for a moment, not sure what to say, but not wanting to part. Finally, Damon made the first move. He stood up and took Hunter’s hand in a shake that became a hug.
As I watched them embrace, I realized that no matter what happened with Damon’s murderous, blood-related brother, the man he was holding right then was the closest thing he had to a real brother.
After a moment, they parted. Hunter waved back to me as Damon swung his huge leg over the bike.
“What you asked earlier,” he said, turning back to me and kicking the engine to life. “About home?”
“Yeah?” I slid closer to him, my legs wrapped around his, my arms around his hard, muscled stomach. With every breath he took, every beat of his heart, and every throb of the motorcycle between my legs, I felt a little more alive. Then I thought about seeing Grandpa Joe again, I even thought about old Poko, and grinned. “What about it?”
“I think I finally decided on my real answer. No dumb jokes, either. I’ll tell you as soon as we’re back on the road. Until then, I want you to try and think of what I’m gonna say. All right?”
“Oh good, a guessing game,” I said with a smile. “Okay, fine. What do I win if I guess right?”
“Win?” he laughed. “Don’t you already have everything you could possibly want? I mean, you’ve got me, right?”
“I always wanted a Land Rover,” I said, totally ignoring his pseudo-smugness.
“How about a kiss?” he haggled.
It was so good… so good, to have my Damon back to his old self. “That is a lot cheaper than a giant SUV, isn’t it?”
We both fell silent for a second.
I was able to see Damon’s face if I looked in his rear view mirrors. He had this distant, distracted look that I wanted to try and help him ease away from, but I knew it was probably as hard for him to leave Hunter and Scagg’s Valley as it was for me to see the goodbye sign leaving Fort Branch.
No matter how much we may act like we don’t like wherever we’re from, it’s in us. Part of us is there, part of our souls stay back wherever it is we call home – even if we only say that with a little bit of reluctance.
Then again, once you leave, is it really home anymore? I seem to leave little pieces of me wherever I go. At some point, I’ll run out, right? That’ll be it, that’ll be the end of the parts of Lily I have to leave. What then?
He paused to turn the bike around and point it toward Arizona. Toward the only home I’d ever known. I didn’t know what to make of it, not really. Everything that happened in the last week felt like a blur punctuated at the end with a haze. A few seconds passed before I remembered he was going to say something.
The road rolled by under us, the brown and green landscape started to disappear by the time I remembered our guessing game.
I moved the microphone closer to my mouth and accidentally coughed.
“Jesus!” Damon said, snorting a laugh. “You trying to surprise me right off the road? All right, so, this is far enough.”
The brownish-red dirt looked almost purple as twilight turned to night and the moon started its slanted path along the horizon. Somewhere behind us, a howl broke the impending darkness, and was joined by another and then a third. Soon a chorus was going, howling away in a harmony that was at once haunting and strangely comforting.
“I don’t need any of that,” he whispered. “I’ll miss it, I guess. Miss being around others of my kind, around my pack… it might surprise you, but there are such things as lone wolves. Even lone Alphas, I guess.” He grinned back at me in the mirror. “So, you gonna guess?”
I thought for another second. “I’ll go with what I need, and just hope it’s the same thing. I just need you. You make me feel safe. Loved. Like I’m at home.”
Suddenly, Damon killed the throttle and pulled the bike off the shoulder. The front tire crunched some dirt as the huge motorcycle slowed to a stop. Damon whipped the helmet off my head, and the one off his, then forced my head back with a kiss so deep and so urgent that I almost fell over backwards.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, when our lips parted and I had a second to catch my breath. “What was that for?”
Wordlessly, Damon grabbed my hand and swung his leg off the motorcycle, then pulled me to my feet. “This is crazy,” he said. “This is absolutely nuts, but I’m going to do it anyway.”
“Huh?” I said. “What are you talking about? Damon, what’s going on?”
His leather squeaked and then the dirt crunched under his knee. Immediately, I sprung a leak and a sniff at the exact same time.
“Lily,” he said, “we’re joined by fate, made one by prophecy, but that’s not good enough for me. I can’t live without you. I don’t want to live without you. I don’t just want you to be my mate. I want you to be my,” he swallowed. “I want you to be wife.”
From his breast pocket, Damon produced a ring.
The ring.
I sucked a breath into my lungs. “Damon, it’s… I… saw this… no way,” I said. “No way, I thought this was just something Hunter’s mom… I don’t…” My first instinct was to grab the fang that hung around my throat and hold onto it for dear life. I tried to speak more, but all that came out was a vaguely embarrassing squeak.
He watched me, studying my face, for just long enough that I started squirming.
When Damon finally said something, it was like a pressure valve letting go with how hard the breath came out of my lungs.
Taking my hand he said, “I knew from the second I laid eyes on you that we were meant to be together. I screwed it all up and then I managed to get you back. You saved my life more than once. You’ve kept me from going insane. We’ve been through more
in a few months than most people go through in their whole lives.”
I was already nodding by the time he got the question out.
Damon slid the ring on my finger, and as soon as the perfectly fitting hoop went over my knuckle, I swear there was a fire in the middle of the diamond. A surge of heat crept through me, radiating through every inch of my being.
“Lily,” he said, throwing a quick glance at the moon. “Here, in the desert where we met, underneath the moon that made it all real, will you make me the happiest man on earth?”
“I,” I started, but he cut me off.
“Lily, will you marry me?” Damon held my hand and kissed the back of it, then my fingers one at a time. “Will you be my home? Will you be my everything?”
I nodded again, my eyes open so wide my eyelids started to hurt. “Yes!” I whispered. “Yes, yes, yes, I can’t believe this is happening, I—”
He stood up and crushed me against his body. There, in the pool of silver light that the moon dripped down onto us, Damon kissed me, again and again, down my neck and up my jaw. He pressed his lips to mine, taking my breath and filling me with his.
“I’m yours,” I said when I got a second to breath. “I’m yours now, I’m yours forever. How did you ever afford this thing?” I turned the ring back and forth, the diamond flickering with a fire deep in its center. The moon worked off it just perfectly.
“It’s my mothers. Or was.”
I grabbed his shoulder, opened my mouth and started to speak, but another lupine choir interrupted me.
Off in the distance, the pack howled.
“Listen,” Damon whispered between kisses. “There’s something behind the wolves. A sound that only I can hear, apparently. The same spirits Poko hears, I can hear them too. And they can hear me – they can sense when something is wrong, or…”
“When something is right?” I breathed, pulling Damon’s face back to mine to taste his lips once again.
Damon pushed my hair out of my eyes and arched my back with another kiss that plunged deep. He studied my face for a moment, and I felt a shudder go through him.
