Love Lies (Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery Book 3)

by Cynthia St. Aubin

But Allan was nowhere to be found.

  Come back. I willed the thought out to Abernathy.

  “I have to get this out,” I said, glancing at the dagger’s jeweled handle.

  “Sure thing, sis.” Steve’s chest rattled through a wet cough. “Unstick me.”

  I stood, positioning myself directly over him so I could withdraw the blade at the same angle it had gone in. “Ready?” I asked.

  He nodded, his good eye falling closed to join the one already swollen shut.

  Gripping the handle, I pulled with every ounce of my greatly waning strength. I felt it slide free, squeaking slightly when the blade cleared the bones of his sternum. Tossing it aside, I immediately pressing both palms over the wound and applying all my bodyweight.

  “You’re like King Arthur.” He grinned me again, a fresh stream of blood leaking from the side of his mouth.

  I felt a hot rush seeping through my fingers with every beat of his good, kind heart.

  “Rest, Steve. I need you to concentrate on healing.”

  “We’d just gotten to the hotel,” Steve said. “That honeymoon suite you booked for us at the Windsor. Shayla sent me out for ice.” His voice took on odd faraway quality, like he was talking to me from the other end of a tunnel.

  His pulse weakened beneath my palms, the beats coming farther and farther apart.

  “Steve?”

  Oh, please, God no. Not him. Not my brother.

  Powerful blood.

  Several times that night, I had startled myself and others with a show of unexplainable strength.

  The dagger glinted in the corner of my vision. Before I could lose my nerve, I picked it up and slashed my hand, pressing my wound to his.

  Closing my eyes, drawing a breath, I sank.

  Down. Down beneath my mind. Beneath my panicked, useless thoughts. Down to the foreign and familiar presence there.

  This time, I didn’t just feel her.

  I saw her.

  Her coat like burnished copper. Eyes of topaz and emerald. The creamy sleekness of her muzzle. Ageless and boundless. Wild and wise.

  Heal him. Please, please heal him.

  Fire kindled in my heart, burning its way through my chest, down my arm, into my palm.

  Into Steve.

  I felt it pouring into his chest. Felt it mending, binding, sealing.

  “But the ice machine was broken—” Steve said, taking up directly where he’d left off.

  With a whoop of joy, I gathered my brother’s bony torso to mine, sobbing and laughing, nearly sick with relief.

  Helping Steve to his feet, together we limp-walked side-by-side down the staircase and out to the hallway. Steve, who’d been brought in via vampire and not via demigod teleportation, steered us out to the main hall.

  In great contrast to the artificially archaic dungeon basement, it looked like nothing so much as a mountain lodge. Which, of course, it was. Deep leather couches. Woven rugs. Cathedral ceiling with exposed wooden beams.

  There, at it’s center, a sight that banished what feeble happiness had taken root in my heart.

  Abernathy, Crixus, and Wallis standing over the prone body of Detective James Morrison.

  “He’s not dead,” Crixus said, clearly seeing the naked panic on my face.

  Steve and I hobbled over to them where I slid Steve onto the couch and took in Morrison’s milk-pale skin and bloodless lips.

  With one finger, Crixus peeled back the collar of Morrison’s shirt. There, in the smooth patch of skin where his shoulder met his neck were two neat puncture wounds.

  I dropped to my knees, my palm against his cooling cheek. “We have to do something,” I said, glancing frantically from Abernathy to Crixus, to Wallis as I scrubbed spattered blood from Morrison’s neck with a scrap of the borrowed t-shirt that still carried his living scent. “He’s a detective. And he solves murders. And paints and he cooks wonderful food and he can’t be dead. He can’t.” Hot, salty tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, pooling in the corners of my mouth. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  Abernathy, still in wolf mode, aimed his muzzle toward Morrison and sniffed. When his golden eyes caught mine, the news I read in them wasn’t good.

  “But,” I sobbed. “Is there any way to—”

  Werewolf, demigod and unicorn all shook their heads.

  I choked on watery inhale. “But in the movies if—”

  “The whole killing the one who made him thing?” Crixus asked.

  “Yes!” I said hopefully.

  “Myth,” Crixus said. “Vampirism is a lot like herpes.”

  “You would know,” Wallis mumbled.

  Crixus pointed a warning finger at him. “You better shut your horse mouth before I shut it for you.”

  “What does this mean?” I asked, refocusing their attention. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  Crixus glanced at the ornate grandfather clock in the corner. “In about twenty-two hours, he’s going to wake up very confused and very hungry.”

  “I’ll call Akhenaten.” Abernathy settled himself on his haunches, his tail curling around his gigantic paws. “They’ll at least help him acclimate.”

  I pushed a lock of hair away from his waxy forehead. Never in a million years would I have predicted what strange roads we’d travel the day I rear-ended him. He loved me. He had died for me. And now he would live forever.

  I knew in that moment that whatever happened after this night, wherever my life took me, Morrison would always be part of it.

  “Klaud and Nero?” I asked, pushing myself to my feet. If the gore painting Abernathy and Crixus was any indication, they hadn’t faired well.

  “Dead,” Abernathy said.

  “Dead dead.” Crixus added. “Along with his followers.”

  “The ones who didn’t quit this bitch, anyway.” Wallis flicked his tail in a gesture reminiscent of a self-initiated back pat.

  “Speaking of not dead.” Steve peeled up his t-shirt to reveal his bony, fish-white, but perfectly intact sternum. “Check out the patch-up job Hanna did.”

  Wallis whistled through his teeth. Because who even knew unicorns could whistle. “His narrow ass looks showroom new.”

  “Right? And a good thing too. Because I,” Steve said, flexing his long, lean arms, “am a remarkable specimen.”

  Abernathy and I shared a look of pure, unfettered fondness.

  Hands on my knees and every part of my body screaming in protest, I got myself to my feet. “What will you do?” I asked Crixus. “Now that you’re free.”

  “Funny you should ask that.” Crixus grabbed one wrist with the opposite hand, reaching upward in a sympathetic stretch. Even smattered with gore, his tight black t-shirt managed to show off the abdominal perfection beneath. “Someone at the wedding was talking about this new program the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs is launching. Kind of like a bounty hunter gig for rogue paranormals. I thought I might check that out.”

  “Sounds promising,” I said.

  “How about you, Wallis?” I asked. “Back to Unicornland?”

  “Fuck that shit,” he said. “I’m going to Vegas.”

  Chapter 27

  With Steve restored to his honeymoon, Crixus off to explore his new career, Wallis off to annoy a new city, Morrison safely installed in his new vampire training academy, Allan on the mend, and Abernathy engaged in heavy vampire-related damage control, I returned home to my own little nest.

  I was met at the door by the warm, furry feline satellites of Stewie, Stella, and Gilbert, who were somehow more life affirming than the breath in my lungs.

  “Hi guys!” I greeted. “Mommy is going to snuggle the shit out of you just as soon as she gets the vampire guts out of her hair.”

  Three sets of eyes followed me as I cleaned out the overloaded food bowls I’d left them pre-wedding and replaced it with fresh—first things first—before peeling off my crusty clothes and dropping them directly in the trash.

  After about eleventy-seven ri
nse and repeats, I exited the shower in a cloud of steam, scrubbed, shiny, and almost human.

  Almost.

  No sooner had I belted my silky green robe when three short raps rattled my front door.

  My stomach flipped as my helpful brain spooled back to the final scene in a horror movie, where, inadvisably triumphant, our heroine discovers that dead is an extremely subjective state subject to much interpretation.

  Nero? Klaud? Joseph?

  On quiet feet, I tiptoed over to my door and applied my eye to the peephole.

  Mark. Andrew. Abernathy.

  Showered, shaved, and wearing his standard uniform of a button up shirt and illegally well-fitting trousers.

  I didn’t bother checking myself in the mirror as there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about my wet hair and scrubbed-shiny face. Also, he’d seen me looking worse.

  Much, much worse.

  With trembling hands, I slid open the chain, flipped the deadlock, and opened the door.

  “I thought you were—” was all I had time to get out.

  Abernathy pulled me to his chest, his arms wrapping around me so completely that his hands rested on his own biceps. His chin rested on the crown of my head. With my ear to his chest I witnessed the unseen drama of his wrestling for control of his own breathing, the thunderous rhythm of his heart.

  We stayed like that for an immeasurable space of time, breathing each other in in total silence. Then his fingers migrated to my neck, his thumbs on the upward thrust of my jaw as he slowly, deliberately rested his forehead against mine.

  He pulled away from me then, his whiskey-colored eyes burning down into mine as the words escaped him on panting breaths. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  For perhaps the very first time in my life, I didn’t feel the need to drag more words out of him, or add a stream of my own. I only waited.

  His hands tightened on either side of my face.

  “What you did…charging Nero’s house like that…it was absolutely insane,” he said.

  Shoulders sinking, my eyes sank to the planks of my hardwood floor as I prepared myself for the imminent lecture. About how I put myself and him, and pretty much the whole human and paranormal world at risk with my poor life decisions.

  “I owe you my life, Hanna,” Abernathy said.

  I glanced abruptly up at him, finding his eyes glowing with unshed tears.

  “I was in the dark, and you found me. You found me, and I love you. I love you, Hannelore Harvey. Every moment. Every day. Since the first time I saw you. I loved you then. I love you now. I’ll love you always.”

  I opened my mouth, but he pressed the pads of his fingers over my lips, effectively ending the possibility of my ruining the moment with a joke.

  “Ruith ri mo thaobh.” The syllables sounded silk over stone.

  Cocking my head at him, I moved his hand away from my mouth. “Are you sure you didn’t sustain some sort of head injury?” I asked. “Because you are making zero sense right now.”

  “It’s Gaelic,” he said, his hand closing over mine and pressing it to his heart.

  “What does it mean?” The rushing, primal pulse thundered in my ears with my heart’s every stunned and wondrous beat.

  “Run by my side.” His fingers stroked my temples, his gentle grip making it impossible for me to look away.

  The image came to me at once and complete. Wolves in a pack, running together. Neither owning or being owned. Free but choosing the same course, each finding a common speed. A common purpose. A common life.

  “If this is about protection—” I began.

  “It is,” he said. “My protection. I need you, Hanna. You’re everything good, and light and true. You’re my breath, and my life. Be my mate, Hanna. For now and for always, run by my side.”

  We stared at each other then, our breaths the only measure of time’s passage in this uncharted space.

  “Mark Andrew Abernathy,” I said, reaching up to place my hands over his. “I would run by your side to the very ends of the earth.”

  With these words, it was decided.

  A thousand times I had imagined what would happen in the moments after I made my choice. A thousand times I had been wrong.

  In my imagination, he had been hot, hungry, and demanding.

  The man standing before me now looked ready to collapse with relief. Relief, yes, and wonder too. Uncertainty still haunting the edges of a face so hopeful it nearly broke my heart.

  “I’m sure,” I said, answering the question writ large on his face.

  We had in our history an entire galaxy of kisses. Some tender. Some urgent. Some passionate. Some painful.

  This one was different.

  Me, tasting him with my already blooming powers. Drowning in the pure, chemical loveliness of him. And his scent. His scent. Like wind. Like earth. Like rain. Like air. Like every single thing on this planet that causes life to be. I drank him in deep greedy gulps with each one of my now heightened senses.

  Mouths fused and hands busy, we freed each other from the layers separating our bodies. Him, pulling the tie on my robe and letting it fall from my shoulders. Me, unbuttoning his shirt, his belt, his pants.

  We fell to the bed together, skin on skin, writhing and grinding as if every cell in our bodies could merge in perfect fusion.

  He left my stinging mouth to drag his lips down my neck, my collarbone, my nipples, stopping to taste every part with quick, feathery flicks of his tongue.

  Ready, so much more than ready, my body jerked when his hand slid between my legs. The slippery warmth he found there eliciting a groan as I came violently against his palm.

  He brought his hand to his mouth licking his fingers. “Gods, how you taste.” Kneeling before me, he pushed my knees apart, appreciative fingers trailing down the insides of my thighs before gripping my hips. “Please Hanna,” he said, that one word unstitching me at once and forever. “I can’t wait any longer.”

  “Don’t,” I panted. “I need to feel you. All of you.”

  But he did wait.

  He hesitated there, on the threshold that would divide the life I had known from the life I would yet live. My past and our future.

  Abernathy tilted my chin up to face a gaze of such intensity, I might have burst into flames had I endured it on our first meeting. Eyes that had seen death, had known life, had killed and nearly died for me, now anchoring me as he pushed into me for the very first time.

  He came to rest fully within me, the pressure of him like a discovery. A previously unknown place where we were possible.

  He began to move. Slowly at first, acquainting himself. Acquainting me.

  With each stroke, the delicious friction seemed to build on itself, multiplying within me until, half mad with the need for more, I began arching my hips up to meet him.

  “Oh, God, Hanna.” Abernathy’s voice seemed to dissolve with the same pleasure turning my insides into molten sugar.

  Sounds came from me. Unfamiliar, animalistic, hedonistic sounds. They found their answering call in Mark, matching me cry for cry.

  Profane, holy, primal and perfect were the words we spoke to each other.

  When I thought I might die from the incomprehensible intensity, Mark scooped a hand under my thigh, turning me over. With one hand buried in my hair, he angled my face to retain eye contact as he drove into me from behind.

  And what a vision he was. Savage and beautiful in equal measure. His abdominals flexing, chest tensing, dark locks of hair falling in his smoldering eyes. Each increasingly desperate thrust rode in like a wave, breaking over me, breaking in me, until I broke with it.

  Bucking and shuddering, I screamed his name as I came utterly undone.

  His teeth bared, Abernathy buried his face in my neck, his teeth gently nipping the skin in mutual conquest as he lost himself within me. Those quick, hot pulses which forever marked me his.

  Which marked us mated.

  Abernathy’s face rolled toward mine on the pillow. He p
atted his chest, and obediently, I snuggled into it, smelling the living salt of him.

  “So what happens now?” I asked.

  “We sleep,” he said in a voice already drugged with satiated pleasure.

  “I mean, how does this whole werewolf thing happen? Am I just going to like sprout a tail one of these days? Should I invest in elastic clothing? Oh! And what about babies? Do werewolves have litters?”

  “Are you that eager to bear my loin-fruit?”

  I could literally hear the smile in his voice.

  “No,” I said. “Especially since you just called it loin-fruit.”

  “Transformations usually happen with the onset of an emotionally inciting incident.” Abernathy repeated this with the patience of a man who had clearly said it many times before. “Litters are unusual but not unheard of.”

  “You know,” I said, my breathing having returned to something like a normal pattern. “You never finished telling me about Lily.”

  “Must we always have these conversations when I’m naked and just had my mind blown?” Abernathy flopped an arm over his eyes.

  “I mean we’re mated now so you probably should be able to tell me about your long dead love.” With lazy fingers, I traced the sloping line of his clavicle.

  “Hanna,” he sighed. “You are my long dead love.”

  In the silence that followed, a choir of crickets broke into spontaneous chorus.

  “Come again?” I pushed myself up on my elbows, gazing down into his passion-slackened face.

  “Some heirs are more powerful than others. They can accept the responsibility of that power, or can turn away from it and live a normal life.” To my great alarm Abernathy’s sleepiness was increasing in direct proportion to my curiosity.

  “And if they elect to live a normal life?”

  “They eventually die and the cycle begins again. Just as it did with you.” In silence thick with meaning, I let this sink it. “You were born a warrior,” Abernathy said around a cavernous yawn. “But tonight you chose to accept that destiny. And I will always fight at your side.”

  Nuzzling my face into his neck, I breathed him in. This man, this being who I had alternately feared, and wanted and loved.