by Caris Roane
He chuckled and slowly withdrew from her. For a split second she almost wished she could take the question back. She didn’t want him to leave her body. But there was always this moment during lovemaking, or rather right after, when the separation began.
Life had a way of severing what could be so beautiful then thrusting two people right back in the middle of the essential struggles of life: Earning an income, keeping up a house and vehicle, sustaining a social life, and raising a family. She’d always marveled how she and Aaron could get so caught up in the bliss of sex but be arguing about patio furniture-versus-buying-a-grill about ten minutes later. She thought it one of life’s less-poetic aspects. A real drag.
She didn’t want that with Grant. She wanted the bliss a little bit longer.
But if she couldn’t have that, she wanted to stay close. It would seem she wouldn’t get physical proximity either, since he left the bed.
She sighed. As tired as she was, she didn’t want to return to real life.
Grant wasn’t gone long, however. Instead, he returned with a washcloth and drew the comforter back. “Allow me?” It was a question.
“It took her a moment to understand what he was doing.” She spread her legs and he tucked the cloth between. She met his gaze. “Thank you.”
He then surprised her by returning to the bed, getting close and pulling her against him to recline on his chest.
Her heart melted and once more tears bit her eyes. Who was this man, this would-be astronaut, who was so tender with her?
“I suppose I have to blame Renee that I didn’t make it into space.”
She could tell by the tone of his voice that he wasn’t serious. He even chuckled. “Damn, I fell hard for her. But she was a surfer and I knew if I continued with my dreams, she’d leave me behind to chase the next set of waves, somewhere no doubt halfway around the world. I had a choice to make and I never regretted it. I shaped my life to hers, which I know is not the expected thing. But we were right together, and I had enough sense to see how rare that kind of relationship was.”
“I know what you mean. I experienced something similar with Aaron, though as far as I know neither of us gave up a dream for the other. But we got along so well. Our arguments lasted about the length of a song. Mostly, we laughed at the same jokes. That’s what drew me to him in the first place. We were at a party and somebody told the lamest joke, but we both laughed. And that cemented the deal. Okay, he was very handsome, too. And smart.”
She rubbed her fingers over his pecs recalling suddenly how his chest had been covered in his beautiful wolf’s fur when they’d made love. She leaned into him and smelled his skin, loving the lumber scent.
She shifted her hip trying to get comfortable. Something in the bed was bugging her.
She sat up suddenly and looked down. “Grant, why is there sand in the bed?”
Chapter Ten
Grant stared down at the long line of sand that had no doubt come from Natalie’s body. He smelled her hair then his own skin. They both smelled like the ocean.
She crawled backward off the bed. “I’ll get some fresh linens then we’d probably better shower.” She was frowning as she spoke the words.
He was already moving. “I’ll get the water warmed up.” He headed straight to the shower, turned it on and stepped in. He didn’t care that the water was cold to start. What the hell did it mean that their experience in Santa Cruz had followed them home? It had felt real to be in the water, to walk on the sand, to see the sunrise. Yet the entire time he’d known he’d been in the dreamglide and that his corporeal self had been back in bed.
He shampooed the salt water out of his hair. When Natalie didn’t come to the bathroom right away, he knew she’d set about changing the sheets instead. He would have helped her, but he needed time to think this through.
Something about his dreamglide allowed them to have a real, a very real, experience. He didn’t know what to make of it.
All kinds of possibities, however, began whipping through his mind. They could travel the world and actually be in the places they visited. They might not be able to sit in restaurants and order food, but they could walk all kinds of trails, thoroughfares and back streets. They could also enjoy the sun again, as long as they had the protection of the dreamglide.
The next question that rose, however, was a big why. Why was he able to do this?
More questions surfaced: How was is it even possible. Was it because they were together? Or could he do this on his own?
By the time Natalie joined him in the shower, he’d decided to forget about the unanswerable questions, at least for now. He could see that she was exhausted and after caressing her shoulder, he left to towel off. He took some time to blow most of the moisture from his long hair then padded off to bed.
He’d been right. The bed was freshly made.
He climbed into the far side away from the window and the cordoned off patio garden. He swore he fell asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.
He was awakened about two hours later with a jarring fist to his face. He sat up ready to do battle then realized it was Natalie. Something was wrong. She was almost thrashing in bed.
He turned on his side and reached for her. He pet her arm all the way to her wrist and squeezed her fingers. “Natalie, you’re dreaming.”
Natalie’s eyes popped wide. She stared at him for a moment then burst into tears. Few things were as hard for a man as a woman’s tears. These might have been worse because they took him by surprise.
He scooted close. “What’s wrong? What were you dreaming about?”
“It was the old days. I mean not with Aaron, but here. The first year I arrived. I didn’t know anyone, and my heart was broken. But I’d developed a friendship with a very gifted fae. Her name was Alexis. She’d been here awhile, maybe three years and knew the ropes. She helped me so much, but she died in the Fae-Wolf Wars.”
His heart sank. The Fae-Wolf Wars. Again. “Do you often have nightmares?”
“Sometimes. I think I keep trying to bring her back. I feel responsible for her death even though I know I wasn’t. She was the most wonderful person. But never mind. It’s old business. I’m so tired.” She patted his hand. “I’ll be okay. Go back to sleep.”
He cradled her and caressed her back in gentle strokes.
“Mm, that’s nice.”
The patio drew his gaze and the morning glories that needed clipping. There were several evergreens. At the top of the tall wood ceiling were several spotlights, maybe grow-lights.
He sighed. He was tired, and his mind was already wandering. He needed his sleep. He realized Natalie was breathing evenly so he closed his eyes and once more drifted off.
When he awoke, the room was quiet and empty. Natalie was already up. So were the shutters.
He knew the hour. 7:33. It was full dark. He’d slept all that time. Truth? He felt wonderful. After escaping Kryder and his minions at The Sapphire Club and after several bouts of extraordinary sex, he’d had hours of good sleep.
Renewed. That was the word for what he felt.
He smelled something. His nostrils flared, and his chin jerked up and down a few times.
“Bacon.” He spoke the word aloud and hopped from bed.
He could hear laughter as well. Another aroma reached him.
“Coffee.”
Oh, yeah.
He took another shower, though avoided getting his hair wet, then dressed in his usual black tank and leathers like the rest of the wolves. He braided his hair as most of the wolves did, though he preferred his in a single down his back. A lot of wolves left some of their hair hanging free. He stared at himself in the mirror, but his mind suddenly took a profound detour.
His thoughts became fixed on Kryder and seeing him at The Sapphire Club. His movements had been erratic, his manner almost impulsive. He hadn’t looked like a wolf in control. In fact, he’d been the opposite.
He shook his head. What did that mean? Was there
a crack in the man’s armor that Grant could penetrate?
In the end, it hadn’t been Natalie’s futurist gift that had gotten them out of the club but his own speed. He’d never flown that fast before. His skills were improving, a circumstance he set down to Natalie’s presence in his life.
He pressed his fists into the marble sink and leaned over. He had to figure this out. Something was there he needed to understand. Yes, his speed had saved them in the end. But if Natalie hadn’t played cat-and-mouse with the future, they would have been caught, tortured and no doubt killed. Or at least, Kryder would have killed him. He felt certain Natalie’s fate would have been a lot less certain.
To some degree, though, he believed they’d gotten lucky. This was their first encounter with Kryder. Maybe they’d caught him off-guard, but Grant didn’t believe for a second the alpha wasn’t already planning his next move.
He returned to the bedroom and found Natalie straightening the sheets. For a moment, he watched her. He became acutely aware that he’d marked her as a wolf. From this point forward, all male wolves would know to keep their distance from her. She was his woman. It wasn’t a full bond, but it held a lot of weight in Savage.
He went to the opposite side of the bed and pitched in. The job was done in less than fifteen seconds.
“I brought you coffee,” she said, nodding toward the side table on his side of the bed. She picked up her own cup but turned toward the patio. She opened the door and stepped through.
The air was still warm this early in the evening. September in the desert still had them in triple digits, which would continue well into October. Eventually the Desert Southwest would cool down, but it usually took until December for any kind of consistently cool weather.
He followed her out as a burst of laughter flowed from the kitchen area.
She turned back to him. “Your wolves are cooking up a whole bunch of eggs and bacon. Someone was jugging three loaves of bread and two sticks of butter when I fetched the coffee. Hence the laughter. You sleep well?”
“Haven’t slept like that in years.” He joined her on the patio.
“You were dead to the world when I woke up.”
He turned to her. “How did you sleep, I mean after—”
Her brows rose as she took another sip. “After what?”
He took a swig of his coffee as well but watched her over the rim. She seemed oblivious to what had happened during the night. He felt he had to address it because of what she’d told him. “You had a nightmare last night.”
“I did? I don’t remember.”
“You told me about a fae friend you’d lost during the wars. You said you blamed yourself.”
She pivoted to face him fully. “I don’t remember waking up at all and I said that?”
“You were thrashing in your sleep and I reached for you, held you. Then you told me about your friend.”
“What was her name? Did I say her name?”
“Yes, Alexis.”
She sighed heavily. “Right. She disappeared during the Fae-Wolf Wars, presumed cremated at the Savage morgue. Your side was doing that back then, getting rid of some of the bodies. I guess we were as well, not reporting all the casualties.” She frowned heavily.
“It was a brutal time.” He drew a heavy breath. He didn’t want to do this, but it had to be done at some point. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “It was a terrible time. You and I both lost people, but what good would it do to hash things over now?” She held her mug with both hands. “This is so new between us, I guess I’m afraid what happened during those years, since we were both involved, might come between us.”
“I’ve let those tragedies go, or at least tried to. The Tribunal was right to intervene. It became a Hatfield-McCoy situation where the pain of loss began to drive the conflict. I also know there were rogue wolves inciting both sides. It wouldn’t surprise me if Kryder was somehow involved as well.”
She released a sigh. “I’ve tried to adopt a similar attitude through the years. But what if this becomes an issue between us?”
He shrugged. “Then we’ll deal with it. For now, I just wanted to make sure you were okay this morning.”
At that, her brow lightened. “I am.”
He lifted his cup. “This is good coffee, by the way. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She gestured to a pair of nearby patio chairs then sat down. He joined her.
She continued, “Ryan said they’ll bring breakfast over here when it’s ready. For now, though, I’ve been thinking, how would you feel about taking the party to Kryder.”
“You mean you want to take him on?” He confessed he was shocked.
“I’ve thought of nothing else since I woke up.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “What do you have in mind?”
~ ~ ~
Natalie crossed her legs at the knee but kept her cup in both hands. She wondered if her body-language made her look closed-up to Grant, which she wasn’t.
When she’d awakened, she’d spent twenty minutes just staring at him. He’d been on his back with one arm slung over his forehead. He was a beautiful man. She realized she loved his looks, even though he was very different from Aaron.
As she’d watched him, she kept thinking about their adventure the night before at The Sapphire Club. She’d barely been one-step ahead of the gifted fae in Kryder’s employ and ultimately, the fae had cornered her. She honestly didn’t know what she could have done differently.
Ryan approached with two plates, both piled high. Natalie smiled, but raised her brows.
Ryan chuckled. “I know. You’re not a wolf. But the cook insisted. Just in case.”
She took the plate that bore at least four scrambled eggs, eight slices of bacon and three pieces of toast. What she would have preferred was some melon and a muffin. Maybe some yogurt. “Thank him for me,” she said.
She set the plate on the small table between herself and Grant. He’d already dug into the eggs and stopped only long enough to grab a couple of slices of bacon and chomp down. She watched him for a moment. Wolf metabolism was quite different from fae. He was a very physical man besides being a Border Patrol officer.
“You were starving.”
He glanced at her. “I’m wolfing this down, pun intended, aren’t I? But yes. Starving. We were busy last night, especially there at the end.”
“We definitely were.” She chuckled and nibbled on the toast.
Her mind, however, took off sideways as she pondered the conundrum of Kryder and the fae working with him. She’d been very serious when she said she would do anything it took to take Kryder down. Her goal hadn’t changed a bit, even if they’d had a harrowing escape the night before.
Last night, however, they’d been on the defensive as they effected Alanna’s rescue. Tonight, she wanted something very different to happen.
Her gaze flitted from the tall Italian cypresses, to the morning glories, then to the lawn. The warriors were scattered everywhere, some of them moving over the property as they had the night before, others eating. She was reminded of the importance of her own role. She called her wolf forward and set her to patrolling the property as well.
Suddenly, she was hungry, too. She picked up her plate and began eating some of the eggs. A slice of bacon was next, more eggs, then toast. Pretty soon, she’d consumed over half the vast quantity of food but there was no way she’d be able to eat the rest.
She glanced at Grant. He was eyeing her plate.
She held it up for him to get a good look. “Any chance you’d like this, wolf?” She didn’t wait for an answer but handed the plate to him.
He took it and with a crooked smile began to eat. Yup, starved. And who knows what tonight will bring.
One of the wolves brought over fresh coffee and refilled their mugs. She stared out at her garden, letting her gaze follow the tall Italian Cypresses up to the clear night sky. She stayed with telepathy. We should go on
the attack.
He glanced at her and she met his gaze. What do you mean? He asked. Do you have something specific in mind?
All these wolves are loyal to you, right?
Yes. Without a doubt.
Does Kryder know you have a following?
He has spies, but I’ve always been discreet.
She thought about this. Yet, if he’s been invisible, then he might know things you’ve discussed with Ryan or the others, wouldn’t he?
He finished the last bite of egg and set the plate atop the empty one on the table they shared. I’ve been thinking about that and I suppose it’s possible. But he’s arrogant enough to believe he’s untouchable because of his sheer size and The Sapphire Club is massive. I’m sure it accounts for his long absences from the Meldorin Compound. I’d be surprised if he spent much of his time or energy following after me or the others.
Natalie had thought something similar. You’re probably right. So, here’s my suggestion. What if the pack challenged him to a dominance fight?
What do you mean? He shifted in his seat to face her more fully, but her gaze once more turned to her garden.
As she sipped her coffee, she said, Pretend we’re not conversing in case we’re being watched.
He turned away from her, picked up his own mug and followed suit.
Natalie explained what she meant. I realize I don’t know the details of pack structure, but there must be some way to remove an alpha like Kryder. My impression has always been that dominance fights were honorable affairs. Yet from what you’ve told me, he’s killed most of the wolves who’ve challenged him. Where is the honor in that?
There is no honor in Kryder.
So, why not fight fire with fire. He will never play by the rules and I doubt there’s a wolf, with alpha potential, in your entire pack that would ever be able to take him down through the traditional method.
Not one. He leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair then stroked a finger along his jaw.
She made a point of not looking at him and took a swig of her coffee. She then set her mug on the table, rose and picked up her hose. She turned the water on and made her way slowly around the different pots in the patio garden outside her bedroom sliding doors. She continued with telepathy. I think you need a coup. Is there a way to break the pack bond if, say, Kryder is held down by ropes in the sandpit and you plant your foot on his chest? I guess what I’m asking is have you ever considered doing it illegally?
