Lust

by Lana Pecherczyk

  Liza’s mouth parted. “What?”

  “Probably not the right time, but I figure if we’re waiting, you can open it. It’s silly, really.”

  Warmth bloomed in her chest. She glanced at the box, then met his eyes. “I had a present for you too, but... I lost it.”

  “Was it the baseball?” he asked. “Because I found that.”

  Relief washed over her. “You did? Where was it?”

  “Under my couch.”

  “Oh.” She had fond memories of his kitchen floor. Perhaps she’d knocked it from the boxes she’d brought in the previous night.

  “Open it,” Joe said, looking at the package.

  She ripped it open. Inside was a small packet of reusable metal straws. She laughed. “Okay. Straws.”

  His eyes lit up. “Perfect, right?”

  They locked eyes. “Yep. Perfect.”

  Double doors to the birthing suite opened, and Wyatt stalked out, his face a mixture of exhaustion and astonishment. He wore one of those disposable hospital gowns and had smears of pink over his chest.

  Shit.

  Liza’s heart thudded a million miles an hour. She couldn’t take any more bad news. Not tonight. Not when there had been so much already.

  He looked around, dazed.

  “Wyatt?” she stepped forward.

  Tony and Bailey slowly got to their feet. Everyone inched closer, holding their breaths.

  Wyatt blinked. “It’s a girl.”

  A unanimous roar burst out. The men clapped Wyatt on the back. The women hugged him. Liza was smiling so hard, her cheeks hurt.

  “Misha?” Lilo asked in the sudden silence.

  Wyatt nodded. “She’s okay. The baby was strong. Misha needed stitches and was taken to the operating room.”

  “She’s okay, though?” Lilo asked.

  He nodded. “She’s doing great.”

  “And the baby?” Liza asked.

  He grinned. Liza had never seen him so happy. Tears glistened in his eyes.

  “She’s with the nurses getting checked. I just wanted to come out quickly and—”

  The double doors opened again, but this time a nurse came out. In her arms was a swaddled baby girl, all wrinkled and sleeping. She handed the precious cargo to Wyatt, who froze, petrified.

  “You want me to take her?” he gaped.

  “You're the father, right?” the nurse smirked.

  He nodded.

  “Then she’s all yours.” The nurse handed her over.

  “Misha?” he asked. “Is she out?”

  “Doc said she’s fine. They had to put her under, so she’s in recovery. She’ll want to see you both when she’s out.”

  He nodded, then turned to everyone. “I better get back.”

  But no one was looking at him. They all had eyes for the wondrous new life in his arms.

  “What’s her name?” Liza asked.

  “Amari,” he replied. “It means a miracle.”

  As they all watched Wyatt disappear into the maternity ward, silence descended. Liza pondered the little miracle of life and was grateful that even in the darkest times, something wonderful could exist. That little girl would grow to be loved. She would have a full life, protected by so many loyal uncles and aunties. She was a miracle, Wyatt was right. She was hard evidence that miracles were possible, and the battle they fought had something worth it at the end. She was proof that sometimes the long road was worth it. They would need the reminder in times to come because Liza had a feeling life was about to get darker.

  “Who needs a fucking drink?” she asked.

  Around the room, voices raised in agreement. But it was another voice that grabbed her attention.

  “I’m down for that,” Evan said as he strolled in, Grace on his arm.

  Surgery must be over. They both looked shattered but in good spirits.

  “How is he?” Liza asked.

  Grace smiled gently. “He’s recovering as expected for an amputee.”

  “He doesn’t want to speak to anyone,” Evan said, heading off any further questions. “The baby?”

  Liza grinned. “It’s a girl.”

  “Shit.” Evan groaned and then dipped his hand into his pocket to pull out two twenty-dollar bills. He handed one to each, Liza and Sloan. “You win. It was a girl.”

  “Thank you, very much.” Sloan pocketed both bills.

  “Hey!” Liza said.

  “What?” Sloan shrugged innocently. “I’ll buy the first round.”

  They laughed, and one by one, each couple filtered out of the room. Liza and Joe were the last to leave. She hesitated at the threshold, looking back in the direction of the maternity ward.

  “You think they’ll be okay?” she asked.

  “Nope,” Joe laughed. “Wyatt’s not going to know what hit him. A girl.” He whistled through his teeth. “She’s going to have him wrapped around her little fingers.”

  Liza smiled but thwacked Joe on the chest. “I meant... you know, will they be safe here?”

  Joe schooled his expression to serious. “Yeah. We did everything right this time. We called it in. The Feds and local law enforcement were all over it, and you’re not even a suspect. You’re a law-abiding officer who got the wrong end of the stick. Smith is in jail, waiting on sentencing. We’re all good.”

  “Well, not all of us.”

  Daisy’s last words had tattooed on Liza’s heart.

  “This is me catching you.”

  Her sister hadn’t known what Liza was capable of. Hell, Liza hadn’t been sure herself. But ripping through fifty-odd replicates was a surprise to her too. Maybe if Daisy had trusted her more, she wouldn’t have sacrificed herself. Maybe if she’d waited just a little longer, Liza could have caught her as she’d promised.

  “Come on,” Joe said, giving Liza a gentle tug. “Let’s go get that drink. Take that straw for a test drive.”

  She forced herself to relax and give a smile because a drink did sound nice. For once she’d be able to go out to a bar and not feel the slimy sense of lust oozing off the walls. As long as she had Joe, she had a future. A long one.

  And as long as they had each other, anything was possible.

  Even saving Daisy.

  Epilogue

  The passage of time had become irrelevant to Despair as she huddled in a fetal position on a medical gurney in some dank, dark place. Something inside her had broken. Snapped. She was no longer Despair. She was no longer Daisy. She had no name, no past, no present, no future. She floated in a sea of emptiness, a vast expanse of existence.

  All she had was never ending pain and small moments of reprieve between scientific procedures.

  The door opened behind her. Light washed the filthy wall ahead and brightened the small green stain that had become her only companion. She clutched her fists to her chest. She rolled in on herself—he liked it better that way, so her spine was open. The scientist said nothing as he brushed aside the opening of her medical gown to press something cold between her vertebrae.

  She tensed in preparation for what inevitably came next, for what always came next. They wanted her to scream, to cry, to shudder. But she gave them nothing. They’d taken everything… except… she glanced down, opened her trembling fist—just a little, a crack—and locked eyes on the crushed daisy bud she’d picked from the bonsai plant.

  When the needle pierced her spine, agony paralyzed her. Just as well, because if she blinked, then the daisy would disappear and take with it the last of her hope.

  Thank you for reading Liza’s and Joe’s story.

  If you loved reading their story, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Other readers will thank you, and the author will be eternally grateful.

  Click here to go to Amazon.

  WHAT’S NEXT?

  a note from Lana

  Parker, the arrogant tech genius, will have his comeuppance. You’re going to want to read his redemption story as he risks life and limb to bring the last member of the Lazarus
family home… and of course eat some humble pie courtesy of his mate, Alice.

  Subscribe.LanaPecherczyk.com to stay in the release day loop.

  Can’t wait until 2021?

  Try Fae Guardians. If you love The Witcher, Beauty and the Beast, and steamy romance, then you’ll love this. The Longing of Lone Wolves features wolf shifters, fated mates, fae warriors, monsters, and a dash of time travel.

  Read on for a sample.

  Sample of The Longing of Lone Wolves

  1

  Clarke O’Leary woke up yawning. Then the tang of sulfur burned her nose and she sneezed, jolting with a splash.

  A splash?

  She opened her eyes and blinked until everything came into focus. She lay in shallow warm water. Icy air bit her nose. Tall snow-tipped fir trees crowded her on one side, and on the other, clear blue sky. Blue sky. The shock of it slammed through her.

  Where the hell am I?

  Because it wasn’t Vegas. At least not the one she knew with the scorched sky and nuclear winter. That Vegas had been quarantined, half-underground and isolated in the futile hope of avoiding radiation drifting across the continent.

  Clarke jackknifed up and grasped her head at the giddy onslaught. Her stomach revolted and she leaned to the side to vomit something thick, dark and sluggish. Gross. Moving her eyes hurt. God, everything hurt.

  Shifting away from her mess, her fingers hit something rough underwater. Smooth and curved. She pulled out an oxidized Coke can. The letter “C” had been carved into the aluminum. It was just like the can she had drunk from last night… but old. And in water. In the middle of nowhere.

  A growing sense of doom settled in her stomach. She noticed more odd things. The metal on her watch had deteriorated and a network of rust covered her bracelet’s brittle charms. She fumbled about the shore, searching for more evidence of… of what, she wasn’t sure… but all she came across was more mud, more strange sulfur smelling water, and more throat-tightening panic.

  Where was she?

  Why was she there?

  She jammed the heels of her palms into her eye sockets.

  Calm down, Clarke. Think.

  Scrambling back in time, she tried to conjure the last thing she remembered—the long sleep, waking in water—but her brain was as sluggish as the surrounding lake. Tiny warm waves lapped against her legs in a soothing way, as if to say, “It’s okay. Don’t stress. You are where you’re meant to be.”

  Think.

  She had to reach further back than that. Back to before the sleep. To yesterday. To the end of the world.

  She had been in a one room apartment, watching apocalyptic news on a tiny television, drinking soda with two girlfriends—Ada and Laurel—wondering if it would be her last. Knowing it would be her last. The memory solidified in her mind. Laurel wouldn’t stop switching channels, looking for more up-to-date news. Ada had paced beside the couch. And Clarke had scratched her initials into the Coke can. But that was yesterday… wasn’t it?

  Chilly air brushed her face and nipped at her skin. This wasn’t her apartment. And she wasn’t in war-torn Vegas. But she was alive.

  Clarke checked down the shore. The lake stretched for miles. She glimpsed a cabin hiding in the snow-capped fir trees some distance away. Smoke curled from the chimney until it disappeared in a lazy dance. It looked like something out of a fairytale.

  But this was real. Down in the water, her reflection still belonged to the same freckle-faced redheaded grifter. Flushed cheeks. Fever-bright blue eyes. Purple lips and chattering teeth despite the warm water. It was her, Clarke O’Leary, petty thief. Sometimes psychic, sometimes fake. Always a dreamer.

  Think, Clarke. Breathe. Remember.

  The world had gone crazy. She’d just come home from the casino. With her precognition skills, she could usually feel out when the cards would play her way. Usually. But this particular night, she’d gone home early. The casino had been closed.

  Why had the casino been closed?

  Because of the war. They’d thought they were safe, that the bombs hadn’t hit Vegas, but it was the fallout they should have worried about. The war came for everyone, and for those it missed, the scorched sky took care of them. Weather patterns changed. Crops wouldn’t grow. Nuclear plants went into meltdown. Around the world tectonic plate movements tore buildings down as the land shifted. They’d tried to continue with normal life for as long as possible, hoping they’d be safe. Until they weren’t.

  A wave drew back from her legs like a blanket, exposing threadbare jeans and previously white tennis shoes, now brown and full of holes. She tapped her watch. Dead. Her rusty charm bracelet tinkled, and the matching earrings rocked at her ears. Her father had given her the jewelry. A gift for every important event in her life. A candle charm for her sweet sixteenth. An ice-cream charm for her graduation. The watch when her mother walked out on them. Her father had died just before her eighteenth birthday. Heart attack.

  But that was years ago. She shook off the memories and picked at her disintegrating clothes. If this was the outfit she wore yesterday, then why was it falling apart? Why was her bracelet so rusted? And the weird vomit…

  Something landed on her lashes and she blinked. Another thing got in her eye. She pushed wet hair from her cheek and trapped it around her ear. The unmistakable flurry of snow floated down to dust her face. Wonder warmed her, and then the memory hit.

  She’d stepped outside the apartment because it had been snowing. In Vegas. That was the last thing she remembered.

  2

  Fifty years of hunting rogue humans had brought Rush to this—peeping at a woman while she bathed in the hot springs of a lake. His lake. He scrubbed his face at the absurdity and stepped out of the forest to see better, but couldn’t keep the scorn from his mind. Him, an ex-Guardian, leering like a teenager.

  “What do you think,” he grumbled to the gray wolf next to him. “Does she look good enough to eat?”

  For much of the past decade, the scrappy old wolf had been Rush’s constant companion. Him and his pack of snow wolves currently hunting in the surrounding forest. Even though Rush had not shifted into wolf form for decades, the locals still scented him as a kindred spirit and bowed to his energy.

  Rush winced. He may not be with the original Nightstalk family, but he’d made a new family. A new pack.

  Gray growled and licked his teeth, eyes never leaving the woman, his prize. Their prize. Rush’s curse forbade him to touch another living being, but the wolf at his side was free. The pack helped Rush hunt wayward humans roving into their territory. They were how Rush continued to keep the realm of Elphyne safe, even if his job as a Guardian was finished.

  The woman had overlong russet hair. Pale, creamy skin. A delicate neck that drew the eye down to plump breasts stretching her top. She was a beauty like no other, but she would forever be out of reach for someone like him. He tugged at the neck of his fur-lined cape. Despite the snow surrounding him, he cooked.

  “Possibly a nymph, playing in the water?” he murmured.

  Gray snorted.

  Maybe.

  She couldn’t see Rush. No one could. The curse took care of that too. So he studied her openly.

  She wore strange tattered clothes in a fashion he’d not seen before. Rush had traveled all over Elphyne, even beyond into the forbidden Crystal City where humans killed fae on sight… if they’d been able to see him. But this woman, her clothes were strange. She tugged at her shoes.

  A snarl ripped from his throat as a shard of light hit his eyes.

  “Metal,” he hissed to Gray. “She’s wearing metal on her wrist.”

  His hand moved to his belt and hovered over the bone knife, still bloody from his recent hunt. The knife almost sang as his palm hit the hilt. It wanted out again, and when the woman tucked long red hair behind a small round ear, Rush gave the knife what it wanted. He pulled it out.

  She’s human.

  Through clenched teeth, he ordered Gray, “Go back to the pa
ck. Wait for the word.”

  Gray snuffled in protest.

  Damn it. He should have brought his sword Starcleaver. At least with that, he’d have less of a chance at touching her and triggering the pain that came with the curse. Another order was on the tip of his tongue, and then movement near the lake caught his attention. Multiple bodies crept toward the woman from the sides. Two, three… six. Six fae. And—Rush sniffed the air with a throaty snarl—someone he hated more than anything in the world. Thaddeus. His uncle. And now alpha of the Crescent Hollow wolf-shifter pack.

  3

  The howl of a wolf snapped Clarke’s attention to the shadows of the woods. The hairs on her arms lifted. She crawled out further onto the bank, leaving the warm water behind. A feeling wrapped around her chest. The familiar buzzing of premonition. And then… caution. Someone or something watched from the darkness of the woods. The sense of it creeped up her spine and then she knew. Something was hunting her. It was the same as all her premonitions. Good or bad, the sensation she felt in the square of her chest predicted her own future when she saw everyone else’s in full color motion pictures.

  Another howl.

  Breath caught in her throat, her pulse picked up speed, and she squinted to scan the area for the source of danger.

  She found it.

  But not in the woods as she’d thought. Crouching, hostile shadows closed in on her. Two, maybe three from each side. To the right, muscular men with white long hair crept toward her. Others encroached from the left. The buzzing in her chest grated with slick bad vibes, just like it had every time Clarke had been around an evil person in her past. These men fit the mold. All of them held weapons—swords, axes, hammers. None were metal, but still looked dangerously fierce. Wooden handles with creamy white blades. She swallowed. Bone. They were made from bone.