by Coralie Moss
He worked himself into my mouth, shifting his grip to my hair once my hands were on the backs of his thighs.
Tanner widened his stance, leaned forward, propping his free hand against the wall. We found a rhythm, fast and hard. I had to hold him with my hand to keep from choking as he picked up his pace.
“Calli, fuck, I’m coming,” he said.
Everywhere I was touching him trembled. I lifted my mouth at the last moment, finished him off with both hands, and collapsed against his thighs. Our ragged, unmatched breathing echoed through the enclosed area.
Tanner bent over, slid a hand under my armpit, and lifted me. “We have to rinse off.”
“I think I’m waterlogged,” I said, giggling as I wrapped my arms around his waist.
“You surprise me, Calliope Jones.”
“I surprise myself. I didn’t know feeling kind of mad also made me feel kind of like…”
“Like sucking my cock?”
“Yeah, that.” My giggling turned into a full laugh. I opened my mouth, filled it with water, and squirted Tanner. “There, we’re even.”
He fumbled for my face again and kissed me, before reaching for the faucets. “You never told me why you want a tattoo.”
I swept the shower curtain to the side and stepped out. “I think I might have a protector spirit. A bear.”
“A bear,” he repeated, joining me on the bathmat. I dried my feet and lower legs and reached for my bathrobe.
“Mm-hm. I first felt the presence of a bear as a hazy memory from my childhood. The bear lifted me onto its shoulders, and I have this strong, visceral recall of feeling its fur.” I spread my fingers, present to the memory of the fur’s texture. “The bear showed up again that day the Apple Witch contacted me when I was alone at the house.”
Tanner listened intently as he dried off, wrapped his towel around his waist, and used my brush to detangle his hair.
“That day, Bear—I call it Bear, original, I know—showed up as a presence behind me, and then it literally pushed me to get into the house as fast as I could.”
“Has Bear shown up since then?”
I nodded. “I have this pin of my mother’s. I have a lot of them. She was in the Witchling Way, and I found her sash and all the buttons she earned for her achievements. I wore the bear button the night I had my first portal ride—”
“I’m going to interrupt you here to remind you, you haven’t shared the full story with me yet.” He wiped the teeth of my brush and replaced it on the shelf. “I’m jealous. I wanted to give you your first portal ride.”
“You’ve given me other firsts,” I said. Our gazes met in the mirror, and I was flat-out blushing. “Including shower shenanigans.”
“I want to give you more.”
Okay, blushing harder.
A honk from the driveway startled our gazes away from the mirror and toward the door.
“Bedroom,” Tanner said. “Quick.”
I tore down the hall, Tanner at my heels, as the front door opened and voices hollered into house, “Mom, we’re home!” and “Calliope, Tanner, got leftovers for you.”
“Be right there,” I yelled. My cheeks were aflame. “Here’s the short version of the portal story. I met a Portal Keeper. His name is Alabastair, he’s on the island to apprentice with Maritza, and one of the portals he’s here to fix, or so he says, sits at my crabapple tree.” I had to stop talking to appreciate the sight of Tanner dressing. “I think your other clothes got washed and dried. Look on the shelf in the laundry closet.”
“Thanks,” he said, drawing his hair into a low ponytail. “You mentioned you stopped in Seattle. Where else did you go?”
“You’re not going to like this.” I was in my closet, sweeping shirts on hangers to the side in my search for something nicer than a T-shirt.
“What did you say?” Tanner asked, lounging against the doorway and appraising my almost-naked body. He was back to wearing the pouch.
“You’re not going to like where we went.” I found a pale pink-and-white-striped short-sleeve shirt and turned to face the druid blocking the way to my bureau and a bra. “The Flechette estate, in Victoria. Alabastair said it was a rescue mission. We found two fairies. And while Bas was taking them to the Pearmains’, Doug and Roger showed up.”
Tanner pivoted, arms crossing his chest.
I slipped my arms through the bra straps, fastened the front closure, and put on the shirt. “I was scared. And that’s when Bear showed up.”
“I was hoping you’d get to the point. Who’s Bas?”
“The Portal Keeper.”
“And the fairies?”
I shook my head. “This is where the whole story gets even more ‘you can’t make this shit up.’ Peasgood and Hyslop met the fairies during their druid training, and the girls followed them to the island. Only, when the two guys were kidnapped, Josiah and Garnet neglected to notice the fairies riding on top of their car.”
Wiping his hand over his face and tugging at his chin, Tanner opened the bedroom door and waved me through. “Let’s go say hi to everyone. And Calli?”
I spun around, holding my palms to my face and hoping I would look normal by the time I reached the kitchen. “What?”
“Thank you.”
* * *
“Where’s Sallie?” I asked. The group revolving through the front door was decidedly male.
Harper answered. “We left her and Jasper at Lei-li’s. Thatch and I have to work tomorrow, and James and Mal offered to let her stay.”
“They’ve got the safe room all set up and showed us how to get in. And get out,” Thatcher added.
“And you two feel okay about being at the farm?” I asked. “There’s no hiding in those fields.”
“Mom.” Harper leveled his gaze at me.
“Okay, I get it,” I said, palms up, head down. “I want you to hear about my adventure then decide.” I repeated what I’d told Tanner about meeting Alabastair, added more to the part where Doug and Roger showed up armed to their fingernails, and left out the piece where House revealed Meribah’s blood in the root cellar. “I think the Flechettes have more invested in their plan to buy up orchards than we suspected.”
“And now you’re concerned they’re going to come after Harper and Thatcher,” Wes said, sharing concerned glances with Tanner.
“Yes.” I sank onto the hard dining chair. More than almost anything else, I was terrified of Meribah getting her claws into my sons. I would kill to get them back, and that knowledge terrified me.
“Mom, what happened to the promise you made, when was it…yesterday? The promise about letting us have normal lives? This is the new normal,” Harper said. “It’s just that now we know what the dangers are and who’s dangerous.” He lifted the amulet he wore on a cord around his neck. “Thatcher and I are protected.”
Wes cleared his throat. “The wards surrounding this property protect you when you’re here, much more so than when you’re standing on the other side.”
“Wes? Tanner? Can we get Kaz or River over tonight and build these young men a pelote?” Christoph had been hanging back from the rising heat of the exchange between me and Harper.
“What’s a pelote?”
“A single-use charm that will get them to whatever portal it’s built from.”
“Call Bas. He’s the temporary Keeper for one of the crabapple portals. I think he’s at the Pearmains’,” I said. “If you need me for anything, I’ll be in the root cellar.”
Crammed into the backseat of my tiny car was my sample collecting kit, the one I usually hauled between my office in town and the farms and orchards I visited. I hefted the bag to the wretched wooden door leading into the root cellar and set it on the new concrete slab. I needed better light.
Stomping into the house, because one orgasm and a few answers weren’t enough to render me love-struck to the extent I could ignore the danger my sons would be in when they went to work, I asked the guys if they’d bought any clip-on lamps.
They had. Christoph wordlessly handed me two, with bulbs, and said, “I’ll drop an extension cord out the window.”
Having the lights helped. I grabbed a hoodie on my way out again and clomped down the porch stairs.
In my kit was a camping headlamp and spare batteries. Every bit of light would help once I was inside the root cellar. I opened the door, clipped one lamp to the frame and the other farther in, pulled the hoodie over my head, and strapped on the headlamp.
The familiar rhythm of marking out a grid with stakes, attaching string until the entire area was mapped out, soothed the irritation, which was really just a mask for my fears.
“Would you like my help?” Tanner hunched by the door. His voice swept between my clothes and my skin, leaving imprints of his hands from my throat to my inner thighs.
“Aren’t you needed with making the portal thingy?” I asked.
“It’ll be another thirty minutes before River can extricate himself from whatever he’s doing.”
“I’ll hand the baggies to you, and you can write on the bag with that Sharpie.” I pointed to the pocket with the markers. “Repeat the number and letter I give you, back to me. Please.”
Settling into work-mode with Tanner as my helper wasn’t hard. Even with creepy memories whispering at the periphery of my awareness, I stuck to the simple ease of scooping up soil, dumping it into a baggie, handing the baggie to Tanner, and giving him the coordinates from the grid. With his help, I’d taken samples from the half closest to the door before Christoph knocked on one of the grimy, cracked windows and motioned for Tanner.
“You okay?” he asked. I nodded and waved him off.
Mold was beginning to irritate the insides of my nostrils. Work boots and rubber gloves kept my hands and feet from reading the soil as I might have liked. But the choice to put a layer between my bare skin and the ground under my house was deliberate. I was afraid the cold, slimy soil would send me hurtling backwards into memories that still choked me up.
Added to those memories was House’s certainty that Meribah’s blood was down here.
Fur ruffled across the back of my neck, even though the hood covered my head. I dropped the tongue depressor I was using into the next to the last square.
Bear. What are you doing here?
My hand shook as I picked up the piece of smooth wood, opened the baggie, added the soil, and marked the location. I fished a fresh depressor out of the hoodie’s pocket and went to lift the last sampling of soil. An invisible paw cradled my elbow and guided my arm to a specific spot close to the stone foundation. I dug there, adding three times as much soil to this final bag as I had to the others.
Is there anything else?
Silence inside the cellar was lightened by footsteps on the floorboards overhead and muffled, masculine laughter. I labelled the last bag, added an asterisk, and set it on top of the others. I was ready to get out of there.
Chapter 18
I left my mucky boots and my kit outside the front door, washed my hands in the kitchen sink, and went to greet Alabastair and River. Clustered nearby were Harper, Thatcher, and the others.
Tanner excused himself from the group. “Calli, can we talk a sec? As soon as I’m not needed for making the pelote, I’ve got to leave,” he said, taking both my hands in his. “I’ll portal to the Pearmains’ and go to France from there. I have to see Clifford and Abigail for myself.”
“Will you meet with your teacher?”
He interlaced his fingers through mine, wrapped our arms behind my back, and brought the fronts of our bodies together. “Oui. Et quand je vais te dévourer encore une fois.”
“I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded incredibly sexy. I’m going with that.”
“My wolf thinks you taste delicious,” he said, “and both of us desire more.” He waited before letting go of my hands and pulling the double cord over his head. Holding the leather in both hands, he asked me for permission before looping the cords over my head and nestling the pouch between my breasts. “Thank you for guarding this, Calliope. You won’t have to for much longer.”
I walked backwards until we were out of sight of my sons and wrapped my arms around Tanner’s neck. “I’m scared.”
“Shhh,” he murmured, pressing the side of his face against mine and drawing me up and in, sealing our chests together. “Harper and Thatcher are remarkable students. They don’t fully understand the risks of what’s happening around them, but they’re right. They deserve to live their lives as close to normal as we can create for them. And you,” he tapped my breastbone, “not only are you a loving, wonderful mother, you have a team of Magicals to guide and support you.”
I withdrew my arms and held Tanner’s face. “That sounds way too close to a goodbye speech.”
He closed his eyes. “It’s not. It can’t be.”
“But?” I said, hoping to prod a few more words out of him before I went to bed.
“Every time I return to my teacher, she reminds me of all the expectations I have yet to meet,” he said. “Including the druidic equivalent of marrying Jessamyne and continuing the du Blanc lineage via our offspring.”
Fuck. I did not need to hear that. “Do you want to marry her?” I asked. “Have you ever wanted to marry her?”
“Calliope, I have never wanted to marry Jessamyne du Blanc. We weren’t a love match then, and we’re definitely not one now. Part of what I have to prepare for when I see Ni’eve is her blindness to how unbalanced her daughter has become.” He held my wrists, kissed my palms and fingertips, and pressed my hands between his. His thumbs worried at the rings Christoph had given me. “What’re these? I’ve been meaning to ask you where you got them.”
“These rings belonged to my father. Christoph gave them to me the night he arrived. Other than fitting themselves to where the bone narrows, I have no idea what purpose they serve or how they work.”
“Because there’s no way they’re simply decorative.” Tanner laughed at his comment. I did too.
“All shall be revealed in time,” I said. “Kiss me?”
Tanner kept hold of my wrists and took my mouth in a kiss filled with longing. I almost volunteered to accompany him to France.
“Be careful,” I said, murmuring against the fullness of his lips.
“You too,” he whispered, his forehead pressed to mine. “And don’t fall in love with anyone. I’ve barely begun to get to know you, Calliope Jones.”
Tanner returned to the living room. I went to bed a wreck. A complete and total fender bender. I managed to brush my teeth, wash my face and hands, and change out of my smelly clothes. Pausing at the side of my bed, I tried to think ahead to tomorrow, Monday, when the three of us—me, Harper, and Thatcher—would head to our respective jobs in the normal version of our lives. I plugged in my phone, checked my email, and straightened the mess Tanner and I had made of my sheets.
Bear. I went to the altar on my bureau and picked up my mother’s bear pin, the one I’d worn when Alabastair took me through the portal, and affixed it in the center of my T-shirt’s loose neck. Bear could help me guard Tanner’s pouch. Bear could watch over me as I slept.
* * *
“Why do I feel like I’ve been gone for weeks?”
I straggled into my office for the second time on an obnoxiously sunny Monday morning. The first time I’d walked in, I’d dropped my kit beside my desk, plugged in my laptop, and turned right back around to procure the strongest cup of coffee on the island. I had a ways to walk, but the guy who’d bought half a shipping container and installed a coffee-to-go place inside was a genius. Situated on the island’s main thoroughfare, the sky blue box served a very fine espresso. I’d ordered two. If Kerry didn’t want hers, I’d drink it.
My office assistant walked in the door, blinked at my question, and answered, “You were here Thursday until like, one or two in the afternoon. No big deal, Calli. You’re nuts to not take more Fridays off in the summer. Especially with someone as hot as
Tanner on your team? Sheesh.”
She kicked the door closed, a to-go cup in each hand.
“Looks like we had the same idea.” I raised the cups I’d bought.
“Manic Monday, boss. Let’s get stuff done.”
“I’m with you on that.” I stirred a teaspoon of honey into the espresso, downed it in two sips, and waited for the caffeine to kick in. “Are you running any errands today?”
“Post office,” she said, pressing a button on her computer’s external hard drive.
“Would you mind dropping soil samples off at the Women’s Health Clinic when you go?” I asked. The moment the words exited my mouth, my regret was immediate.
“You’re sending soil samples to your gynecologist?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds really weird.”
“It is weird. You usually handle the soil samples yourself.”
True. I did. In my portable science station in the narrow closet next to our even narrower bathroom. Our office was the epitome of how to make good use of every square inch of a tiny space.
“These samples might contain human tissue,” I said, making up a story based on a partial truth on the spot. “Very old samples,” I added. The look on Kerry’s face had me backpedaling an explanation. “My grandfather showed up on Friday—which was why I didn’t make it in—and he’s got me curious about my ancestors.”
Kerry stared at me like I’d sprouted horns.
“He thinks some those ancestors were not exactly law-abiding citizens. Honestly, I’m just trying to humor the old man, and Dr. Renard has access to a great lab in Vancouver. She won’t bat an eye at the request, and neither will they.”
“Sounds nutty, but grandparents will be grandparents.” Kerry lifted one shoulder and frowned at her screen. “Gosh, this is taking a long time to load. Would you like me to do a title research on your property? Might be fun to see who all lived there before you and show that to your grandfather too.”