Whisper in the Dark

by Charlene Perry

  A fleeting smile crosses his face. “When I inquired about purchasing you, I discovered you were already headed for the Gliese shipment. I figured you were out of my reach at that point. But I got a call from a friend... a fellow unwilling accomplice in all of this. He said he didn’t have the heart to send you along. Asked if I’d take you instead.”

  Charles sent me here intentionally. I don’t know whether to be pissed off that he delayed my mission, or touched that he cared enough to send me somewhere safe.

  “I want on that shipment.”

  “Whisper, what we’re talking about is a one-way ticket. There’s no chance they will let you live.”

  “I know. When does it leave?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tobias!” Julie’s shrill voice precedes her panicked face as she rushes into the room. “There’s a... there’s a dragon outside. It’s asking for Whisper.”

  “Bring... me... Whisper.”

  Making my dragon’s tongue form human words is a challenging feat, but I think she gets the point. The terrified female scrambles to her feet the moment I release her from beneath my scaled foot. She trips over herself in her effort to get away from me and into the safety of the sprawling fortress in front of me.

  I’ll give her five minutes, then I’m burning this place to the ground.

  I’m not certain if I can actually breath fire, but I can sure as hell level any obstacle that stands between me and my Whisper. I claw at the ground, high on the raw power and wishing for a worthy opponent to try and stand in my way.

  That tiger. How good it would be to find him here. Let him try and outmuscle me now. I throw my head back and roar, the sound like fear and death as it erupts from deep in my chest. This strength, this power... it’s consuming me with the urge to fight. To dominate. To destroy...

  A scent invades my nose. Soft and subtle, yet it demands my full attention. I look toward the building and see my mate. Alive and whole and here. She stands at the doorway, her face twisted in confusion and concern.

  “Tarek?” She says the name as if I could actually be that green reptile. Does she not see me? I am far more powerful than his dragon. And my scales, black as night, just the color she likes.

  I flare my wings, swinging my long, spiked tail from side to side as a growl rumbles up from my throat. Still, she doesn’t recognize me. She backs up a half-step, as if she would retreat into the building rather than run into my arms.

  Maybe that’s it... human arms to hold my mate.

  I shift, and the earth tilts until I grip handfuls of grass to steady myself. Holy fuck. I thought taking human form for the first time had been a trip. Gideon hadn’t been exaggerating when he warned me about trying a dragon. That beast’s mind came with a temper I don’t care to experience again.

  I catch my breath, relieved when the world stops moving and I manage not to lose the contents of my stomach. I drop back onto my ass, not quite ready to stand.

  Whisper hasn’t moved. Her face is pale, her dark eyes fixed on mine with an emotion I can’t decipher. She’s thinner than when I last saw her, and my gut twists at the thought of all she’s gone through. I should have been by her side. I should have protected her.

  I push to my feet, ignoring the slight wobble in my vision. As I walk toward her, she stands absolutely still. Only her eyes change, widening as her expression melts into one of pure fear. What has happened that my Whisper could be so afraid of me?

  I reach up, brushing her soft cheek with the tips of my fingers, bracing myself for her rejection. I breathe in the scent of her, wanting desperately to hold her.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you.” The words don’t even come close to expressing the guilt that threatens to tear me apart.

  I cup her cheek with my palm, my gaze dropping from her eyes, down to her full lips. They part as she sucks in a breath, her chin trembling. I move my hand to tangle in her hair, which is a new, vibrant shade of red. I wonder what made her decide to change the color. Or if the decision was made for her.

  I press my mouth against hers, and the taste of her sends a shiver through my body. I kiss her, slowly at first until she begins to respond, leaning into me at last. Her hands slide along my stomach, and I groan as her touch makes me instantly, painfully hard. She responds by sucking my lower lip into her mouth, and I lose control.

  Whatever intentions I had of treating her softly are gone, as I back her into the stone wall and devour her mouth without reservation. My hands are desperate to touch every inch of her, gliding over and under the thin material of her clothing. I press the hard length of my erection against her belly, and a delicious moan escapes her as she grasps fistfuls of my shirt.

  I don’t care where we are. I don’t care who’s watching. My Whisper. My mate. I need her now. All of her.

  But she pushes against me.

  “Stop.”

  She can barely say the word, but I obey. I brace my hands against the cool stone on either side of her and search the depths of her brown eyes. Eyes brimming with tears.

  “Little one...” If I hurt her-

  “Damon.” She says my name like a prayer, and then the dam breaks. Tears stream down her perfect face as she buries herself in my chest. Her arms wrap around me as silent sobs make her body tremble and shake.

  I don’t know what to do. I’ve seen her angry and I’ve seen her sad. I’ve never seen her cry. I wrap my arms around her, kneading my hands along her spine, burying my face in her hair. I want to comfort her. Whatever she’s been through without me, I want her to know it’s over.

  I will never leave her side again.

  “I love you,” I say, because even though she doesn’t believe me, I still need her to hear it.

  “I love you, too.”

  She says it back without hesitation, through her tears and with a shaking voice. But she says it. I grasp her shoulders, pushing her back so I can see her face. It’s puffy, and red, and wet with tears... but she’s smiling like a child. Pure happiness.

  “I love you, Damon.” She says it again as she looks me straight in the eyes. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t... I didn’t... when I thought you were dead...”

  The realization of how my absence has affected her hits me like a kick in the gut. Never again.

  “It’s over now. I found a safe place. We can be safe, together. No more fighting. No more hiding.”

  She takes my face in both her hands, looking up into my eyes with a fierce intensity. “Nothing would make me happier,” she says, but her eyes hold only sadness.

  Can’t

  I’m a babbling mess, and I don’t even care. He’s here. Really here. I can see him. Touch his solid warmth. Hear his voice as it rumbles in his chest and across my skin. I can smell that fresh, crisp scent that always follows a shift. Like the air after an electrical storm.

  He’s really here.

  I move my hands from his face, down over his chest, his stomach. Sweet fuck, he’s hard as steel. I want to take him down right here in the front yard. I don’t even care that eight pairs of eyes are likely on us right now. I need more of him. All of him.

  He growls low in his chest, a dark rumble that’s nearly a moan. “Let me fly you out of here,” he says against my neck, and I shiver at the delicious promise within his words.

  Yes, please, yes. There is nothing I want more than to fly away with him. To get lost with him, anywhere. Always.

  “I can’t. Damon, I thought you were gone.” I swipe the tears from my face, stepping back and filling my lungs with air in an attempt to regain some control. “I was so cruel to you. I didn’t understand. I didn’t trust you. I am so sorry.”

  “Hey, easy, it’s okay now.” He steps forward, cupping my cheek again in his big hand, brushing his thumb across my lower lip. “We’re together now. I’ll never leave you.” His chocolate eyes look deep into mine, with such love and concern it makes my heart hurt.

  How could I have ever thought he was less than human? He’s so, so much m
ore. I cover his hand with mine. How can I leave him? I want to be selfish. I want to forget everything I’ve learned, everything I’ve seen. Let Horizon Zero be someone else’s problem. I can go with Damon and have everything I never knew I needed.

  But I’ve been selfish for too long.

  As he paces the floor in front of the glass wall, with a pink sky bathing everything in its fading light, Damon is every bit the panther. His body is all strength and feline grace. Black pants sit low on his hips, his grey t-shirt clinging to his biceps and broad chest. The conversation is deadly serious, but I can’t stop staring at him, watching him move… imagining all the things I want to do to his body.

  The image of his dragon form flashes in my mind. I hadn’t thought for a second that the massive, beautiful creature had been him. But now it seems so obvious. He was barely in control, but he managed to take on the near impossible to save me.

  An image flashes in my mind, of me in a dragon’s saddle, flying alongside Gideon and Tarek as we patrol the Solars. Not long ago that would have been a dream come true. The ultimate goal realized. But nothing about that system or that life appeals to me now. Certainly not the idea of Damon being in service to me. I don’t want a dragon, I want him. Just as he is now.

  “No.” Damon shakes his head for emphasis. “Just no.”

  Tobias invited him in, once we could keep our hands off each other long enough for me to open the door and introduce him. He quickly sent the rest of the household out of earshot despite their curious questions.

  I filled him in on who Damon is, and we filled Damon in on the plan to take down Horizon Zero. The plan where I hop a one-way ticket to assassinate an off-world deity. Damon took to the idea about as well as I would have if the roles were reversed.

  And I agree with him. Every cell in my body is screaming no. I can’t leave him. I can’t lose him again.

  “It’s the right thing to do.” I say the words, because I know they’re true.

  Damon halts his pacing, baring his teeth in a growl. “The hell it is!” He snarls the words with such pure anger that both Tobias and I back up a step. I could never fear Damon, but he’s never argued with me so vehemently.

  “I thought he was bonded to you, as your Shifter. Shouldn’t that make him more agreeable?”

  I smirk at Tobias’s question, but Damon doesn’t quite see the same humor in it. He stalks toward the Elder, who somehow manages to hold his ground. Quite an impressive display of nerves, considering the man staring him down was a hulking dragon not thirty minutes ago.

  “I am not bonded to anyone. Not anymore.” His eyes flick to mine as he says it, and I know for certain that all Tanikka said was true. “I met others like me, far from here. There’s a whole community, just living their lives. Real lives. Not accelerated versions of lives to suit a human master.”

  Heat rises in my cheeks. Shame. Shame at my part in keeping him from being his full self.

  “I’m so sorry, Damon.”

  He abandons his attempt to intimidate Tobias, and in two long strides he’s pulling me into his arms. “We can join them. We can help them. We can be apart from all of this human cruelty, together.” His voice is pleading, and it breaks my heart.

  I push away, wiping tears from my cheeks. Tobias has moved to sit on the couch, averting his gaze to give us a little privacy.

  “I’ve seen what these girls are living through. I’ve only seen the holding houses, and that’s bad enough. But the next phases, and after they’re sold... Damon, I can’t abandon this. Our plan could work. It could cripple the organization and save so many innocent lives. If I run away now, if I choose my own happiness over theirs... how could I live with myself? How could you?”

  “I only care about you.”

  “And I love you for that. I will always love you. But you found a home, your own kind. And you’ve broken the bond so...”

  “So I won’t die when you do?”

  “Damon...”

  “I love you. That’s our bond.”

  Goodbye

  Dammit, why does she have to be so fucking stubborn? I’ve always admired her ambition, her grit and determination to get what she wants. She never cared who she stepped on to get to her goals. But everything she had wanted had been for herself, to keep herself safe. Never before has she threatened to lay down her own life for others. As much as I admire her for this, as much as I could burst from the pride, I can’t lose her again.

  I can’t let her do this.

  But there’s nothing I can do about it. Well, maybe one thing. My dragon form could pick her up and carry her so far from here she’d never make it back. I could force her to stay with me, to keep herself safe. But how long would she still look at me with love in her eyes if I resorted to that?

  It doesn’t matter. Even if she hates me, at least she will be alive. I can earn her love back after she cools down... but even I know how wrong that all sounds. I can’t control her. I can beg, I can kiss her with all the passion and desperation I feel and beg her to stay with me. But I can’t control her.

  “Please.” I’ve said that word so many times, I’ve lost count.

  I hate the way she looks at me. The pity in her eyes makes me sick to my stomach, as if she’s sorry for my loss instead of fearing for her own safety.

  “Stay here tonight, Son,” the old man offers. I hate him. I hate him for encouraging this. “If Whisper wants you to, of course.”

  “Yes. Thank you, yes.” She sounds so relieved, her voice cracking with emotion.

  She grabs my hand in hers, coaxing me to follow her through the wide glass doors. Out in the cool evening, she leads the way through a lush, blooming garden.

  “Whisper, we need to talk more about this.”

  “No, Damon.” Her words are final, the clipped tone leaving no room for arguing. But I plan to argue until my last breath.

  We’re out of sight from the house, weaving through a stand of smooth-barked trees. I plant my feet, our joined hands bringing her to an abrupt halt. She opens her mouth to speak, but I drown the words with a heavy, pleading kiss. She’s breathless when I finally release her, but her expression quickly turns predatory.

  She plants her hands on my chest and shoves me with a strength far greater than her small form should be capable of. She shoves me back into the wide trunk of a tree, and then she’s pushing up the hem of my shirt.

  Hell yes.

  I pull the thin fabric over my head, as her hot mouth burns a slow trail down the center of my chest. Down over my abs. I’m shaking with anticipation by the time she reaches the waist of my pants, my cock painfully hard and straining against its confines. I hiss through my teeth as she stops her descent, trailing kisses off to the side until she nips at first one hip, and then the other. It’s sweet torture.

  I grip the tree trunk behind me to keep from grabbing fistfuls of her thick, cascading hair. I fight the urge to push her head down farther, to feel her mouth around my cock. The heat of her lips, her tongue... the image makes me mad with need.

  At last she hooks her fingers in the waist of my pants, pulling them down until my erection springs free. Her little gasp brings a grin to my face, but then her hand grips me as her tongue runs a burning trail from the base of my cock right up to the sensitive tip. The moan that escapes me sounds more like a growl, and my head falls back against the cool tree.

  The heat of her mouth closes around me, as her tongue flicks and swirls. She sucks me slowly deeper, and I lose my mind. I need her. Now. I need her to feel everything I’m feeling. Every sensation, every rush of pleasure.

  The taste of him is like shot of adrenaline through my veins. His thick cock is hard and heavy in my hand, making my core ache at the thought of having him inside me again. But I’m not going there yet. I want to worship this man. I want to show him what he means to me. I want to kneel in front of him and make him roar with pleasure.

  I’ve been so selfish. I want him to know without doubt how much I adore him. When I close my li
ps around his thick head, the sound of his pleasure nearly puts me over the edge. My panties are soaked as I clench my thighs together, trying to relieve the building pressure between my legs. It’s sweet torture.

  I take him deeper, but he’s so big I couldn’t possibly take him all in.

  His hands grip me under my arms, hauling me roughly up to my feet. I’m not sure what happened, what I did wrong.

  “Damon...”

  “I need you.” His words are a guttural command that I’m more than happy to obey.

  He tears at my clothes. I try to help, but he’s too impatient and the fabric shreds. My skin prickles in the cool night air, and then I’m wrapped in his warm arms. The trunk of the tree is rough against my back, but I’m lost in the feel of his skin against mine.

  Fuck, I love this man.

  He grips my thigh, pulling my leg up over his hip, and in one sure thrust he buries himself fully inside me.

  We cry out in unison, my voice a song of pure pleasure as he fills me so utterly completely. His is a roar of deepening lust. He keeps still inside me, his hand brushing my cheek, fingers tangling in my hair. His eyes search mine, looking deep into my soul.

  Then he takes me.

  Hard and rough. His desperate, relentless pace takes us both crashing over the edge in a matter of minutes.

  We’re tangled together in the grass, and I’m reeling from the intensity of our lovemaking. My sweet, gentle Damon can fuck like a pro.

  The laugh that escapes me sounds more like a snort, and Damon’s body jerks in surprise, making me laugh even harder.

  “Whisper?” His voice is filled with concern. For my sanity, no doubt.

  I get control, sitting up as I sniffle and wipe the stray tears from my face. “I’m sorry.”

  He puts his hand on my back, smoothing my hair as he kisses my shoulder. “Did I hurt you? Was that-”

  I cut off his words with a kiss.

  I push him down onto his back, straddling his waist with my thighs. My tongue delves deep into his mouth and I bite his lip. The softened length of his cock turns hard so fast, I can’t help but break the kiss to look down between us.