by Lauren Dane
Rowan looked up and at him. At him and nothing else.
Just when he thought he’d ceased to drown in the intensity of their bond, when he thought he’d known all her layers and complications, she looked at him and let him see her, right straight to her bones and it nearly sent him to his knees.
“Let’s go home, darling Hunter. But first we’ll stop by the new house so you can look it over.” And it would hopefully keep her mind on something positive for a little bit of time.
Chapter Five
Rowan tried to pretend she wasn’t a little drunk from the way he’d swooped in and taken care of her. Tried to pretend it wasn’t such a big deal that he’d rolled right through her emotions, stealing past all her defenses. Because of the way he felt and because of the bond between them, she couldn’t deny it.
And here they were, rolling up to a gate to a house he bought for her. Was remodeling for her. Even better, he made sure she noticed the number pad. “This will be altered for us once we’re ready to move in,” he said as he keyed a code in and the wrought iron gate slowly rolled open.
A six foot high masonry wall encircled the property. There were no neighbors for at least half a mile in any direction, which suited her purposes well. Her day-to-day life wasn’t really stranger friendly.
Once he pulled through the gate, the property unfurled like a green oasis. With a very modern home at the center.
A lot of glass for a place a Vampire would be living. She said nothing though, because she didn’t want him to feel she was being ungrateful. Her apartment had been very bright and open and he clearly wanted that for her in their new home too.
He kept doing things for her. Putting her needs first. It was disconcerting and comforting all at once. As hard as she tried not to get used to it, she loved it.
“Wow. This is spectacular.”
His pleasure at that statement rolled from him in a warm wave.
“No gold-plated anything. Just so you know,” he murmured as they got out and headed toward the front door.
“It’s a wonder Jacques even bought this place then. Given his predilection for Caligula as a design aesthetic.” The former Scion of North America had been a magpie of a Vampire. All gaudy excess and gold toilet nonsense.
There was a crew inside dealing with the light tight enclosure where he’d sleep each day. Other than that utilitarian necessity, his part of the room had a huge cedar lined closet with drawers, enough space for his eleven billion suits and all his shoes.
A wall had been knocked out to join another bedroom to his. This was her space and one that was already finished by the look of it. Where the furnishings at their home in London had a decidedly old-world feel, this bedroom was far more sleek and modern.
“Do you like it?” he asked as she poked around.
“I do.” Navy, silver and bits of green dominated the color scheme. Her bed was big enough for him to join her and she smirked his way.
“I’ll still visit when I’m not asleep for the day. This way your crumbs and mess will be on your side of the bed and I can still have my own without the remains of all your snacks in the sheets.”
“And then your sheets can be ironed and no one will get crumbs in your bed. Clever Scion.”
As they were alone, he pulled her to his side, his arm around her waist. She remained against his body.
“I’m told they’ll be wrapping this all up by mid week. Alice will work with David to arrange to have your furniture, whatever you want from your apartment, that is, moved here, along with your artwork. The place we’re in now will do well enough, but this will be a fortress.”
“I have no idea if anything from my apartment is salvageable. There’s so much dark energy there. It’s just...” She faded off, trying to hold herself together. But she wasn’t so addled she hadn’t noticed the level of info that had leaked from the Nation that had resulted in Carey’s death. “I don’t want anyone in your employ other than Alice knowing all the security protocols here.”
“You believe it’s someone in my inner circle.”
Rowan wished she didn’t. Knew the betrayal would be hard for him to accept from a trusted associate. But she’d rather that hurt than him getting killed because of such treachery from his inner circle.
She said, “Aside from my natural suspicion of Vampires in general, yes. You have a leak and it’s high enough up that I don’t want to put your physical safety in their hands until we catch whoever it is. You’ve got some seriously sloppy Vampires working for you and at least one traitor. I don’t want to live somewhere they have the keys to. They already sold me and mine out. I don’t trust them. I trust Alice. I trust you.”
“What about Elizabeth and Betchamp?” Clive’s household staff at their home in London were some of her favorite people. Trustworthy and Elizabeth was an amazing cook.
“Naturally. But they’re in London. And while I do love the house there, I’m supposed to be setting up a Motherhouse here in Las Vegas.”
“As we were readying to leave, I asked them if they truly meant the offer of coming to serve us here. They both reiterated they did, and were quite excited about it too. You’ve made two new fans, though I suspect a huge part of it was the way you kept my mother in line. They’re closing our house in London down and then they’ll meet us out here.”
It’d be weird to have household staff. She hadn’t lived that way in years. But not entirely foreign and with those two, and David living with them, she and Clive would be fed and have a tidy home that was well defended.
“Oh. Well. Yes. I suppose it’d be nice for you to have someone lay out all your starchy suit business and to make the tea the way you like it instead of complaining about how I do it even though we both know just how accomplished I am at tea.” Which wasn’t a boast at all. She’d been trained at it since she was three years old.
“You’re accomplished at tea for The First. Not British tea.” He sniffed, indignant, and she forgot about her trouble for a few breaths.
“All the windows though,” she said as they wandered outside once more. “I worry about my Vampire roommate and all that possible exposure to the sun. Or rockets.”
“The windows are a new product. They’re bulletproof and screen UV that’s dangerous to Vampires without ending up too heavy to hang in a wall like this. There’s another film laid over it that I’m told can withstand the actual rocket blasts you always worry over,” Clive told her once they were back in the car. “I could sit in the living room at dawn while the house was under attack and I’d be all right.”
That eased some of her concern, along with the way he headed toward the safe house with plenty of sideways direction and a few double backs.
“Stop being so amazed that I’m skilled at subterfuge,” he told her as they pulled into the garage at their temporary digs. “I was being sneaky long before you were even born.”
She patted his chest before opening her door. “You’re super old. I know. Look how you snuck into my underwear and never left.”
He grunted a laugh. “I thought it was the other way around.”
“Tomato tomahto. Same diff. Anyway. We both know how much I enjoy your penis as well as your inherent skill at subterfuge and sneakiness.” Rowan paused a moment to wrench the words she knew he deserved and needed from deep inside. “Thank you. I know you’d rather be in your swanky penthouse than here in a ranch house in the suburbs. Thank you for the round the clock construction at the house you gave me. Just, thanks.”
He stopped her at the entrance from the garage to the house, his pleasure clear on his features. “I would rather be wherever you are. The rush on completing our home simply means that happens sooner and wherever you are is far safer and has my office set up.”
“You already know I’m going to have sex with you. You’re being awfully nice. Don’t expect a three way or back door action or anything
.”
His horrified look faded into laughter. “I cannot imagine life without you in it,” he said before kissing her with a possessiveness that thrilled her to her toes.
Grinning, she nipped his lip just shy of breaking the skin and as he snarled, she scampered into the house, still glowing from their interaction.
David waited for her in the kitchen with a cup of tea.
“You are really handy to have around,” Rowan told him as she noted he’d also set out some carbs and fruit to go along with it.
“Feeding and watering is part of the job description,” David said with a distinctly English smirk.
“When Elizabeth and Betchamp live with us, I’ll be utterly outnumbered by you British people. Goddess help me. All the sniffing and smirking and dry backhanded compliments are going to tip me over the edge,” Rowan said, sitting at the table, cupping her tea and considering a slice of mango.
“I daresay you’ll survive,” Clive said.
Rowan rolled her eyes and then looked to David. “Update.”
“I poked around in Thena and Martin’s digital world. Martin sent an email to his department chair at the university saying he needed a week off to deal with a family emergency.”
A reasonable explanation for their absence. “Anything in response? Did he have other emails that would back that up? Correspondence with anyone else like planning for arrival at an airport or maybe a hint of what he meant by family emergency?”
“Nothing. And nothing in Thena’s either. No social media, but neither of them was very active with that until now.” David hesitated as he second-guessed himself.
“Tell me.” Rowan needed him to be more confident in his assessments of an investigation if he planned to be in the field with her. It would weaken him if she didn’t train him well.
“Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Or to think a lead might be important only to have it fizzle out. That’s part of the process,” she told him softly.
David nodded. “I looked in his personnel file and all the times he’s taken any leave, he’s done it in advance via the departmental process. Each one has been logged and then approved. Nine years’ worth. This circumstance is unusual. The email response from his department chair showed some surprise at the method, but wished him well and encouraged him to follow up if he needed more time off.”
He’d found the thing that stuck out. That first loose thread to tug.
Dead. They were dead. And it was her fault.
Instead of giving in, Rowan rallied and got herself together. “Call when the university opens. I want you talking with anyone who might have something to say. See what we can find out that way. And we’ll have to check with the acolytes Thena worked with to see if they’ve heard from her, though I’m guessing the mother acolyte would have done that.”
“This isn’t your fault,” David told her.
She flattened her mouth into a stubborn line, shaking her head. “This is absolutely my fault. It’s not an issue of whether I wanted this. Obviously I didn’t. But it was their connection to me that made them both targets. I should have thought to warn her. It might have saved her life. There are a lot of things I should have done.”
Clive gave her side-eye, but it didn’t matter because he knew as well as she did, that although Thena knew what Rowan was and had willingly continued their friendship, it was most likely her connection to Rowan that had put her in the line of fire.
And in the end, it had most likely killed her.
“We’ll just see what these sorcerers think they can gain from this,” she murmured. “We need to find Martin and Thena and go from there.”
David shoved a mug into her hands. “Drink. You and Clive should sleep a while. We’re only about forty minutes from sunrise.”
“And you too,” Rowan told him.
“Yes. I’ll sleep until about ten and then I’ll get back up to make the calls I need to. Genevieve left a message while you were out. She wanted me to inform you she was coming to Las Vegas to help and be your sidekick. I informed her that job was taken but that we’d appreciate her help,” David said.
The laugh at her friend’s words loosened the knot in her chest. “That solves my problem about finding a witch to come to Thena’s and also my apartment to check out the magic traces. And don’t worry, your status as sidekick is not in jeopardy. She can be in our posse though. Go to bed, David. You’ve been up longer than I have and you’re far less cute with dark circles under your eyes. Never know when I’ll have to use you as eye candy bait.”
He rolled his eyes, but blushed as he pushed back from the kitchen island. “Glad to be of service. Good night.” He waved, gave Clive a look and then left.
“What was that? Was he telling you to do something to me?” she asked Clive.
“As if anyone could get you to do something you didn’t want to do.” He drew her close enough to steer them both to the bedroom. “Let’s shower and then I’ll head off to rest.”
* * *
Clive started the water and then he set about getting her naked. That she allowed it without comment made him aware she needed the care even more than he’d thought.
“You can break now. It’s just us,” he murmured, brushing a kiss against her temple.
She shook her head. “I have too much to do.”
He opened the door and she stepped under the spray as he got undressed quickly and joined her, pulling her close.
“If you’re nice to me I’m going to cry. So stop.”
She broke his heart at times like this. So tough and hard on the outside, but a few layers down and his wife—his woman—had fragility. Scars like the ones on her back. Though those were fading now that she’d had so much Vampire blood in the last several years. And far, far more unseen scars. Those were the deepest.
So many had harmed her when she should have been cherished and cosseted.
Her scars were part of who she was. Part of her that he loved, even as it hurt that she’d been so abused.
Those scars made her brilliant and strong. Sexy.
And right then, as he ran soapy hands up and down her back, he would love them as much as he loved the rest of her.
Each day with her was to discover another way in which she rendered him utterly hers. That she was only partially aware of her allure to him was a sweet delight at times, maddening at others.
From the first, though, it was the way she owned her sexuality to the core that’d snagged his attention. Then she’d become a craving.
He’d fought it. And lost every time. Always drawn back to her. She’d become essential.
Rowan filled him up in ways that terrified him. Nothing in his long existence had made him as vulnerable. He had a great deal of self-control and ambition. That had gotten him far.
But she made him weak at the knees each time she came into the room. And when she left. Losing her was unthinkable because she was so integral to his existence and yet, he’d seen her nearly dead more than once so it wasn’t some idle fear. She understood him. Knew him and stayed with him despite that. Because of it too, which made his mouth water.
A predator just like he was.
He dragged his mouth over hers, breathed her in, let her fill him up.
She dug her nails into his sides, hauling him closer as the water pounded over their skin.
“I don’t need nice,” she snarled.
He nipped her bottom lip just shy of breaking the skin. Enough to make it swell just a little.
She groaned, arching into him, demanding more.
He spun her, backing her against the glass enclosure, hemming her in as he went back for her mouth.
Her fingers tunneled through his hair and she yanked, hard. Reminding him she was there, as if he’d forgotten.
He loosed the joy only she brought out. Only she saw. A private gift between them.
That was the deepest tie to her—between them. She chose him. His strong, vicious, alpha-bitch predator riding the power of a Celtic triple goddess was at his side and in his life because she wanted it. Because of all the creatures in the world who desired her, it was Clive she desired as strongly in return.
She didn’t shout her devotion from the rooftops, but in his arms she was fire. Unfettered, exposed to him utterly and it had been a deliberate choice. Because she trusted him she gave him all of herself.
Rowan reached between their bodies and grasped his cock at the root, squeezing before she fisted him up and down a few lazy turns.
He tore his mouth from hers, skating lips and giving her the edge of his teeth down the velvet skin of her neck. Her breath heaved as she moved, rolling her hips, seeking more. Always more.
He tasted the salt of her skin as he flicked his tongue against her left nipple until she snarled again. Smiling, he moved to the right and did the same until she was far more malleable.
Her snarl died, strangled into an entreaty.
He dropped to his knees and that entreaty turned to pleased demand.
The scent of her, warm skin and desire, was always whatever he wanted most. He spread her open and took his fill of her taste with long licks, holding her in place with his hands splayed at her hips.
He murmured into the sweetness of her pussy. French, he knew she loved best, so he kept with that. Telling her how beautiful and savage she was.
When she came, it filled the shower stall with magic that hung as heavy as steam, soaking into his pores as he managed to get to his feet.
She made soft sounds against his neck as he bent his knees to guide the head of his cock to her, nudging into that welcome, soft heat.
But no matter how tender he felt toward her, things never remained slow and gentle. The need to possess her beat at him as he dragged himself nearly all the way out and then shoved back inside.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, arching, levering herself to take him deeper, trusting that he wouldn’t drop her.